Sexual Justice: Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due Process, and Resisting the Conservative Backlash

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About Sexual Justice: Supporting Victims, Ensuring Due

Product 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 processOver 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. Review “Clarifying and instructive... Deserves to be read by everyone responsible for building the systems that regulate how people behave toward one another.”―The New York Times Book Review“Groundbreaking... Sexual Justice is here to answer every bad-faith question, to radically change the way we think about sexual violence and survivor justice.”―Rewire“Too often, the mantra ‘What about due process?’ is used to misdirect from a high-profile allegation of sexual harm, not express genuine concern for fairness. But attorney and anti-sexual-violence activist Alexandra Brodsky’s Sexual Justice dares to ask the question in good faith.... Brodsky is the gifted and thoughtful heir to Catharine MacKinnon.”―New York“In many ways, Sexual Justice is a breath of fresh air. Skipping many of the moral debates surrounding sexual violence, Brodsky, a civil rights lawyer, looks for solutions. With a survey of the past and present of sexual abuse adjudication procedures, she looks at what’s working (very little), why sexual violence is treated so much differently than other kinds of harm, and what a viable reporting path for survivors might look like.”―Bookforum “An accessible but deeply packed mix of the theoretical and the practical. Brodsky’s dense volume is rife with pertinent examples of justice denied and justice achieved. At its core are concrete suggestions for institutions, including schools and workplaces.”―The Progressive “Brodsky offers a clear-eyed assessment of how to improve the adjudication of sexual harassment claims within schools, businesses, and other institutions... A balanced look at how to address a thorny problem.”―Publishers Weekly“Sexual harassment and assault are far too common, leaving behind shattered lives and tattered institutions. Still, there is hope. In terms both compassionate and practical, Sexual Justice outlines actionable approaches for mitigating and responding to sexual harm. This unique book rests on a deep foundation of empathy while mapping impressive strategies for fairness. It is a must-read, as important for higher education as for corporate America, as relevant to the nonprofit sector as to Hollywood movie sets.”―Melissa Harris-Perry, media host and author of S