Women, Power, and Rape Culture: The Politics and Policy of Underrepresentation

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Focusing on how rape, sexual assault, and harassment relate to underrepresentation of women in public authority, this book provides an insightful exploration of the policy context that impedes women's advancement to positions of power. The election of Donald Trump precipitated one of the largest outpourings of political protest on a single day in U.S. history with the 2017 March for Women. The emboldened #MeToo and #TimesUp movements reacted not only to the historical injustice of sexual offenses perpetrated upon women, but women's associated underrepresentation in positions of power and public authority. Women, Power, and Rape Culture examines the principal events, actors, and paradigms in the politics of rape, sexual assault, and harassment since Trump's election. Unlike other studies, it connects these traumatic events to women's underrepresentation in the public sphere. Chapters consider the power of presidential speech, judges, and Congress to create structural barriers to women's representation as well as the stultifying effects of weak college and university responses to sexual violence. Disparities in women's representation in positions of public authority are considered in light of the disproportionate burden imposed on women by a culture that discounts the prevalence of rape and harassment and by the policies that inadequately address them, allowing them to perpetuate.

Reviews

We cannot achieve gender equality without first understanding the drivers of politics and policy influencing women's representation. Stabile and Grant offer critical insights into the ways in which sexual assault and harassment are permitted to permeate political structures-and to repress women's leadership. Women, Power, and Rape Culture is recommended reading for everyone working to advance women's participation in positions of power. * Katherine Spillar, Executive Director, Feminist Majority Foundation; Executive Editor, Ms. Magazine *
Stabile and Grant provide a long-overdue and impeccably researched account of how the 2016 election and its aftermath catalyzed a movement to challenge rape culture and gender inequality in the United States. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the entrenched barriers that remain to dismantling these systemic injustices. * Ally Coll, President and Co-Founder, the Purple Campaign *
The authors invite you into the dark well of gender-based discrimination, bring light to the intersectional nuances of so-called rules of social order embedded in rape culture, and recognize the need to disrupt it. From college campuses and Congress to the Executive Branch and highest courts, they chronicle accounts of women and survivors-especially those whose identities arise from and are interwoven among historically excluded, silenced, and marginalized communities- to raise sensibility to this deeply rooted issue. * Kenyora Parham, Executive Director, End Rape On Campus *
Clarence Thomas. Donald Trump. Brett Kavanaugh. Why do men accused of sexual assault repeatedly rise to political power, and what do they do once they get there In this timely and critically important new book, Bonnie Stabile and Aubrey Grant reveal rape culture's deep connections to women's political underrepresentation and the erosion of women's legal rights in the United States today. A brilliant must-read book for anyone who cares about the safety and well-being of American women and girls. * Carrie N. Baker, Bauman Professor of American Studies, Program for the Study of Women and Gender, Smith College *

Author Bio

Bonnie Stabile, PhD, is associate professor and associate dean of student and academic affairs in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Aubrey Leigh Grant, MPP, is a doctoral candidate at George Mason University.