Related Readings
Archive
1) Malleus Maleficarum (1486)
“This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. This translation is in the public domain. The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.
Although the Malleus is manifestly a document which displays the cruelty, barbarism, and ignorance of the Inquisition, it has also been interpreted as evidence of a wide-spread subterranean pagan tradition which worshiped a pre-Christian horned deity, particularly by Margaret Murray.
The source version of this text, with notes and additional material, can be found at MalleusMaleficarum.org [External Site].”
Books
1. Anderson, Kim. (2016). Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood. 2nd Edition. Toronto: Women’s Press.
“In this second edition, Anderson revisits her groundbreaking text to include recent literature on Indigenous feminism and two-spirited theory and to document the efforts of Indigenous women to resist heteropatriarchy. Beginning with a look at the positions of women in traditional Indigenous societies and their status after colonization, this text shows how Indigenous women have since resisted imposed roles, reclaimed their traditions, and reconstructed a powerful Native womanhood.”
2. Backhouse, Constance. (2008). Carnal crimes: sexual assault law in Canada, 1900-1975. Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. Toronto: Published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by Irwin Law.
"Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975 is an engaging and powerful book about sexual assault crimes in Canadian history by one of Canada s foremost legal historians. Using a case-study approach, Constance Backhouse explores nine sexual assault trials from across the country throughout the twentieth century. We move from small towns to large cities, from the Maritimes to the Northwest Territories, from the suffrage era to the period of the women s liberation movement. Each of these richly-textured vignettes offers insight into the failure of the criminal justice system to protect women from sexual assault, and each is highly readable and provocative. The most moving chapters document the law s refusal to accommodate a woman who could only give evidence in sign language, and the heartbreak of a child rape trial. Backhouse deals sensitively and deftly with these difficult stories.
This book is the best kind of legal history a vivid exploration of the past which also gives us the tools to assess the efficacy (or in this case lack of efficacy) of the legal system.”
3. Bergoffen, Debra B. (2011). Confronting global gender justice women's lives, human rights. New York: Routledge.
“Chapters include Complicating the discourses of victimhood, Interrogating practices of representation, Mobilizing strategies of engagement, Crossing legal landscapes, and Confronting global gender justice.”
4. Butler, Judith. (2000). Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death. New York: Columbia University Press.
5. Classen, Albrecht. (2011). Sexual violence and rape in the Middle Ages [electronic resource]: a critical discourse in premodern German and European literature. Berlin: De Gruyter.
“Contrary to modern assumptions, sexual violence and rape were treated as severe crimes in the Middle Ages. This book examines the testimony in medieval and early modern German literature and traces the discourse on both aspects from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. Most comments about rape come from male writers, and medieval literature contains numerous examples of rape scenes which are mostly viewed highly critically. Previous studies on this topic have focused on English, French, and Italian literature, whereas here the emphasis rests on German examples.”
6. Cuklanz, Lisa M. (2000). Rape on prime time: television, masculinity, and sexual violence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
“Depictions of rape on television have evolved dramatically, from hard-boiled stories about male detectives and masculinity to more insightful shows focusing on rape victims. Rape on Prime Time is the first book to examine those changing depictions of rape.”
7. Didi-Huberman, Georges. (2003). Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpêtrière. Trans. Alisa Hartz. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
8. Finley, Laura L. (2016). Domestic abuse and sexual assault in popular culture. Santa Barbara, California: Praeger.
"Using historical and current examples from film, television, literature, advertisements, and music, this book reveals the ways that rape and abuse are typically presented--and misrepresented--and evaluates the impact of these depictions on consumers -- Addresses both positive and negative depictions of domestic abuse and sexual assault from recent popular culture, utilizing examples from film, television, literature, music, advertisements, and more -- Presents information that is ideal for undergraduate courses in gender studies, sociology, and psychology as well as communications and popular culture classes -- Utilizes the most current research on dating and domestic and sexual violence to clearly demonstrate the importance of how these issues and crimes are depicted in popular culture -- Provides a comprehensive appendix of additional resources that directs students in investigating the topic further."
9. Foucault, Michel. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977.
10. Frei, Dana, (2012). Challenging heterosexism from the other point of view representations of homosexuality in Queer as folk and The L word. Bern, New York: Peter Lang.
Chapters: “Queer representation and popular media; Television series and homosexuality; Theoretical background; Queer studies: current state of research; Developing theses; Deconstructing heteronormativity; Challenging institutionalized attitudes and expectations; Reinforcing stereotypes subjects of investigation; Queer as folk and The L word;Format conventions and characteristics; Methodology; Preparing audiovisual material for analysis; Cultural negotiations and television serials; Analysing content in products of popular media; Qualitative content analysis; Methodological steps; Categories and coding; Results Points of focus; Creating a homonormative world; Representation of the others; Social and legal injustice; Family: questioning genetic bonds; Bigotry, homophobia and violence; Hypocrisy & failing morals; Heterophobia, New order and value system; Pride, self-acceptance and linguistic Resignification; New forms of partnership; Families of choice: loyalty and friendship; Assimilation versus diversity; Questioning gender and sexual dichotomies; Unmasking the performativity of gender; Limits of sexual fluidity; Stereotypes and the mandate of representation; Hedonism and promiscuity; Celebrating a lifestyle: party, sex and drugs; Dangers and the threat of HIV; The requirement of youth and beauty; Politics of visibility; Visibility and the construction of a community; Representing queer diversity; Results, conclusion and outlook.”
11. Henry, Nicola and Anastasia Powell, Eds. (2014). Preventing sexual violence: interdisciplinary approaches to overcoming a rape culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
"Globally, rates of sexual violence remain unacceptably high, with disproportionate effects on women and girls. While most scholars and practitioners uniformly concur about the scope of the problem, there is currently little agreement about how to prevent sexual violence before it occurs. Drawing on diverse disciplines such as criminology, education, health promotion, law, psychology, social work, socio-legal studies, sociology and women's studies, this book provides the first interdisciplinary collection on the primary prevention of sexual violence. The volume addresses the key causes or determinants of sexual violence, including cultural attitudes, values, beliefs and norms, as well as systemic gender-based inequalities that create the conditions underlying much violence against women. Including contributions from internationally renowned experts in the field, the volume critically investigates the theoretical underpinnings of prevention work, describing and analysing the limits and possibilities of primary prevention strategies 'on the ground'.”
12. Lindo, Jason M., Peter M. Siminski, and Isaac D. Swensen. (2016). “College Party Culture and Sexual Assault.” National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Working Paper No. 21828
“This paper considers the degree to which events that intensify partying increase sexual assault. Estimates are based on panel data from campus and local law-enforcement agencies and an identification strategy that exploits plausibly random variation in the timing of Division 1 football games. The estimates indicate that these events increase daily reports of rape with 17-24 year old victims by 28 percent. The effects are driven largely by 17-24 year old offenders and by offenders unknown to the victim, but we also find significant effects on incidents involving offenders of other ages and on incidents involving offenders known to the victim.”
13. McClintock, Anne (1995). Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. New York: Routledge.
“Imperial Leather chronicles the dangerous liaisons between gender, race and class that shaped British imperialism and its bloody dismantling. Spanning the century between Victorian Britain and the current struggle for power in South Africa, the book takes up the complex relationships between race and sexuality, fetishism and money, gender and violence, domesticity and the imperial market, and the gendering of nationalism within the zones of imperial and anti-imperial power.”
14. Mendes, Kaitlynn. (2015). Slutwalk: feminism, activism and media. University of Leicester, UK: Palgrave.
"SlutWalk is a study of the global anti-rape movement of the same name, in eight nations which organized marches: Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the UK and US. It demonstrates the mainstream news' unprecedented support for SlutWalk, suggesting that we may be finally moving away from an era in which feminism is seen as dead, redundant or passe;. Yet despite this overwhelming support, mainstream coverage was often shallow, particularly when compared to the feminist blogosphere, which provided sophisticated and nuanced analyses of sexual assault and rape culture. The feminist blogosphere was also a key site for critiquing patriarchal rape myths, and providing 'counter-memories' of the movement. This book examines representations of the movement in mainstream news and feminist blogs, and documents the experiences, routines and strategies of 22 organizers who were involved in the movement between 2011 and 2014. In doing so, it presents a robust and original analysis of modern feminist activism from various angles, and is a must-read for anyone interested in modern feminist protest and campaigns. "
15. Projansky, Sarah. (2001). Watching rape: film and television in postfeminist culture. New York; London: New York University Press.
“A feminist history of rape in U.S. film, 1903-1979 -- The postfeminist context: popular redefinitions of feminism, 1980-present -- Film and television narratives at the intersection of rape and postfeminism -- Feminism and the popular : readings of rape and postfeminism in Thelma and Louise -- Persistently displaced : Black women in rape narratives -- Talking back to postfeminism? Rape prevention and education films and videos.”
16. Mardorossian, Carine M. (2014). Framing the rape victim: gender and agency reconsidered. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
"In recent years, members of legal, law enforcement, media and academic circles have portrayed rape as a special kind of crime distinct from other forms of violence. In Framing the Rape Victim, Carine M. Mardorossian argues that this differential treatment of rape has exacerbated the ghettoizing of sexual violence along gendered lines and has repeatedly led to women's being accused of triggering, if not causing, rape through immodest behavior, comportment, passivity, or weakness. Contesting the notion that rape is the result of deviant behaviors of victims or perpetrators, Mardorossian argues that rape saturates our culture and defines masculinity's relation to femininity, both of which are structural positions rather than biologically derived ones. Using diverse examples throughout, Mardorossian draws from Hollywood film and popular culture to contemporary women's fiction and hospitalized birth emphasizing that the position of dominant masculinity can be occupied by men, women, or institutions, while structural femininity is a position that may define and subordinate men, minorities, and other marginalized groups just as effectively as it does women. Highlighting the legacies of the politically correct debates of the 1990s and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the book illustrates how the framing of the term "victim" has played a fundamental role in constructing notions of agency that valorize autonomy and support exclusionary, especially masculine, models of American selfhood. The gendering of rape, including by well-meaning, sometimes feminist, voices that claim to have victims' best interests at heart, ultimately obscures its true role in our culture. Both a critical analysis and a call to action, Framing the Rape Victim shows that rape is not a special interest issue that pertains just to women but a pervasive one that affects our society as a whole."
17. Showalter, Elaine. (1997). Hystories: Hysterical epidemics and modern media. New York: Columbia University.
18. Tanenbaum, Leora. (2015). I am not a slut: slut-shaming in the age of the Internet. First edition. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.
“The author of the groundbreaking work Slut! explores the phenomenon of slut-shaming in the age of sexting, tweeting, and “liking.” She shows that the sexual double standard is more dangerous than ever before and offers wisdom and strategies for alleviating its destructive effects on young women’s lives.”
19. Tomsen, Stephen. (2009). Violence, prejudice and sexuality. New York: Routledge.
“Understanding sexual diversity 'Homophobia' and the social context of sexual prejudice Violence and 'hate crime' Researching anti-homosexual killings Killings as 'hate crimes'? Male honour and the 'homosexual advance' Violence, identity and panic Demons and victims Conclusion: Essentialism, activism and citizenship.”
Statistics
Egale Canadian Human Rights Trust
- Half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.
- 67% of Canadians say they have personally known at least one woman who has experienced physical or sexual abuse.
- Approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. Out of the 83 police-reported intimate partner homicides in 2014, 67 of the victims – over 80% – were women.
- On any given night in Canada, 3,491 women and their 2,724 children sleep in shelters because it isn’t safe in their homes.
- On any given night, about 300 women and children are turned away because the shelter is full.
- There were 1,181 cases of missing or murdered Aboriginal women in Canada between 1980 and 2012, according to the RCMP. However, according to grassroots organizations and the Minister of the Status of Women the number is much higher, closer to 4,000.
- Aboriginal women are killed at six times the rate of non-Aboriginal women.
- Women are at greater risk of experiencing elder abuse from a family member, accounting for 60% of senior survivors of family violence
- Cyber violence, which includes online threats, harassment, and stalking, has emerged as an extension of violence against women. Young women (18-24) are most likely to experience online harassment in its most severe forms.
- 70% of domestic violence is not reported to the police.
- There were 186 police-reported hate crime incidents in 2013 that were motivated by sexual orientation more than the previous year.
- Over the four-year period from 2010 to 2013, about two-thirds of these hate crimes involved violent offences (ranging from 65% to 67%). The most common offence within hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation was assault, with 25% of incidents being common assault and another 11% reported as more serious assaults.
- Of the victims of violent hate crimes motivated by hatred of a sexual orientation from 2010 to 2013, 83% were male, and 48% were under age 25. Males under 25 accounted for 39% of victims.
- An estimated 75 per cent of cases still go unreported.
- 68% of trans students, 55% of female sexual minority students and 42% of male sexual minority students reported being verbally harassed about their perceived gender or sexual orientation.
- 90% of trans youth hear transphobic comments daily or weekly from other students and almost a quarter (23%) of trans students reported hearing teachers use transphobic language daily or weekly. Almost three-quarters (74%) of trans students reported being verbally harassed about their gender expression.
The statistics are staggering.