Disrupting Rape Culture: Public Space, Sexuality and Revolt

Despite the rise in research and public awareness about rape culture and gendered violence, it remains a serious problem. Using case studies from the US and UK this book explains how it happens, what it means and how it can be contested.

Pussy grabbing, hot mommas, topless protest, nasty women. Whether hypersexualised, desexualised, venerated or maligned, women’s bodies in public space continue to be framed as a problem. A problem that is discursively ‘solved’ by the continued proliferation of rape culture in everyday life. Indeed, despite the rise in research and public awareness about rape culture and sexism in contemporary debates, gendered violence continues to be normalised. Using case studies from the US and UK - the de/sexualised pregnancy, the troublesome naked protest, the errant BDSM player - Fanghanel interrogates how the female body is figured through, and revolts against, gendered violence. Rape culture currently thrives. This book demonstrates how it happens, the politics that are mobilised to sustain it, and how we might act to contest it.