Citation

Haaken J. Fam. Relat. 2017; 66(1): 17-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, National Council on Family Relations (USA), Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/fare.12227

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1994, the feminist journalist Katie Roiphe published a book titled The Morning After in which she argues that the women's movement had become obsessed with victimization. With many of her case examples centered on campus sexual politics, Roiphe laments college women's demands for the very forms of patriarchal protections that second-wave feminists fought to overturn. In the two decades since the publication of this book, campus activists have gained considerable ground in bringing sexual assault into public awareness, insisting (contra Roiphe) that victims have been all too silent. This article presents an appraisal of this historical legacy and draws out key lessons to be learned from the history of feminist organizing around sexual assault on campuses. The author explains how radical, liberal, and socialist feminist politics offer different lenses for framing sexual assault and discusses the value of a psychoanalytic feminist optics for thinking through dilemmas at the level of political practice.

Language: en

Keywords

Campus sexual assault; date rape; psychoanalytic feminism; sexual politics; socialist feminist politics