Sexual Justice
Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due Process, and Resisting the Conservative Backlash
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A pathbreaking work for the next stage of the #MeToo movement, showing how we can address sexual harms with fairness to both victims and the accused, and exposing the sexism that shapes today's contentious debates about due process
Over the past few years, a remarkable number of sexual harassment victims have come forward with their stories, demanding consequences for their assailants and broad societal change. Each prominent allegation, however, has also set off a wave of questions – some posed in good faith, some distinctly not – about the rights of the accused. The national conversation has grown polarized, inflamed by a public narrative that wrongly presents feminism and fair process as warring interests.
Sexual Justice is an intervention, pointing the way to common ground. Drawing on core principles of civil rights law, and the personal experiences of victims and the accused, Alexandra Brodsky details how schools, workplaces, and other institutions can – indeed, must – address sexual harms in ways fair to all. She shows why these allegations cannot be left to police and prosecutors alone, and outlines the key principles of fair proceedings outside the courts. Brodsky explains how contemporary debates continue the long, sexist history of “rape exceptionalism,” in which sexual allegations are treated as uniquely suspect. And she calls on readers to resist the anti-feminist backlash that hijacks the rhetoric of due process to protect male impunity.
Vivid and eye-opening, at once intellectually rigorous and profoundly empathetic, Sexual Justice clears up common misunderstandings about sexual harassment, traces the forgotten histories that underlie our current predicament, and illuminates the way to a more just world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Civil rights lawyer Brodsky (coeditor, The Feminist Utopia Project) offers a clear-eyed assessment of how to improve the adjudication of sexual harassment claims within schools, businesses, and other institutions. She notes many reasons why victims often don't come forward, including opaque reporting and decision-making processes, fears of retaliation, and the historical inability of the criminal justice system to convict perpetrators. She also explains how arbitration clauses in hiring agreements favor institutions, and notes numerous examples of corporations and organizations protecting high-level harassers and silencing victims. Brodsky persuasively argues that timely and structured due process for those accused of sexual harassment is essential to the credibility of any enforcement system, and outlines criteria for a fair hearing, including a clear definition of what constitutes sexual harassment, a mechanism for both sides to submit questions to the other, a ruling made by "unbiased decision-makers," and an appeal process. Her most radical suggestion is that sexual harassment claims should be "de-exceptionalized" and handled through the same disciplinary process as race-based discrimination and other civil rights disputes, because "singling out sexual assault for extra punishment... make it harder for a victim to prove her case." Policy makers and institutional leaders will appreciate this balanced look at how to address a thorny problem.