Beyond Blurred Lines
Rape Culture in Popular Media
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- 23,99 €
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- 23,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
From its origins in academic discourse in the 1970s to our collective imagination today, the concept of “rape culture” has resonated in a variety of spheres, including television, gaming, comic book culture, and college campuses. Beyond Blurred Lines traces ways that sexual violence is collectively processed, mediated, negotiated, and contested by exploring public reactions to high-profile incidents and rape narratives in popular culture.
The concept of rape culture was initially embraced in popular media – mass media, social media, and popular culture – and contributed to a social understanding of sexual violence that mirrored feminist concerns about the persistence of rape myths and victim-blaming. However, it was later challenged by skeptics who framed the concept as a moral panic. Nickie D. Phillips documents how the conversation shifted from substantiating claims of a rape culture toward growing scrutiny of the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. This, in turn, renewed attention toward false allegations, and away from how college enforcement policies fail victims to how they endanger accused young men.
Ultimately, she successfully lends insight into how the debates around rape culture, including microaggressions, gendered harassment and so-called political correctness, inform our collective imaginations and shape our attitudes toward criminal justice and policy responses to sexual violence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Phillips, an associate sociology and criminal justice professor at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, devotes this thoughtful study to the concept of rape culture, showing how it has reshaped public debate. Phillips explains the term's transition from being used principally within feminist academe where it originated in the 1970s to becoming a topic of discussion throughout mainstream media. Exploring recent subjects of controversy, including the social media fueled national interest in the Steubenville, Ohio, sexual assault case; the depiction of sexual violence on television; misogyny within gaming culture; and the incidence of assaults on college campuses, she maintains that today's increased discussions around the topic have created a "media-cultural environment that ultimately impacts politics and policy making." The book also shows that, although much work remains to be done in clarifying and improving college disciplinary policies, enforcement of existing rules against sexual assault is making headway across campuses. And, as Phillips acknowledges, the media coverage of sexual assault cases and increased discussion of rape culture has raised cultural awareness and a move toward "finding solutions that lie outside the scope of criminal justice." This new book will contribute to an important conversation.
