Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

Upcoming Event at APSA Annual Meeting:

Well known as well as upcoming political researchers, legal activists, and public intellectuals will ask the hard questions, face the brutal realities, and present the bold new ideas needed to free human rights of all forms of gender-based violence. The fit between concepts of international and domestic law and the physical, social, and political realities wherever women (or men) are harmed because of their sex will be interrogated. This one-day public, “Legal Challenges to Gender-Based Violence," will be held in Washington DC on September 1. The twenty two presenters include psychologists-, prostitution-, and pornography researchers/activists Melissa Farley and Neil Malamuth, political science scholars/activists Leslie Goldstein, Amy Mazur, and Amy Elman, and legal academic activist and media commentator Wendy Murphy. This landmark event, organized by PhD Candidate Max Waltman from Stockholm University (Sweden), is held under the auspices of the American Political Science Association's (APSA) annual meeting, sponsored by the Law & Courts, Human Rights, and Women’s Politics Research’s sections. For the brief content, see theAPSA online program including information on registration. For the full content, see this document (pdf). The sessions are open to the public after registration, with opportunities to interact.

 

From APSA's webpage:

 

This short course explores and addresses the foundations for legal challenges to sexual violence and gender inequality in theory and practice. As a whole, it centers on what legal approaches contribute in creating more substantial gender equality by challenging gender-based violence, analyzing political obstacles to progress in this area. Consistent with many recent developments in international law that has yet to be implemented at the national level, this short course considers cumulative evidence finding that consumption and production of pornography, prostitution, child sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and domestic violence are harmful and reinforces gender inequality, and as such are expressions of gender-based violence and discrimination. Three seminars and one concluding keynote speech/roundtable will be conducted. The seminars contain presentations of ongoing projects commented on by peers in respective subfields, divided into sessions based on topic. The fourth concluding session includes a keynote address followed by a roundtable of interlocutors/commentators on the topic of legal challenges though the lens of 30 years of empirical research findings. All sessions are open to the public, with additional opportunities for audience interaction.

 

The aim of the sessions are threefold; 1) exploring the philosophical, theoretical, and empirical foundations for legal challenges to gender based violence, 2) analyzing what specific legal approaches would implement a recognition of gender-based violence as sex discrimination on the ground with more effective remedies, asking particularly which policies empower those victimized, and 3) analyzing what the particular political obstacles are in modern democracies to impose such more efficient remedies. Hence, the general purpose is to explore, analyze, and suggest what political and legal steps need to be taken in order to contribute to substantial gender equality with the law. The sessions will, among other things, include systematic comparisons or detailed case studies of politics in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Kenya, Latin America, Netherlands, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States in the context of international law. The workshop is cross-disciplinary. Participants include distinguished scholars from related disciplines such as law, psychology, philosophy, and practitioners, drawing on material from a wide range of legal and political systems in different countries, including international law, as well as using empirical evidence, social and theoretical analysis from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, political theory, law, psychology, sociology, and medicine.

 

Table of Contents:

 

Session 1 (8:00-10:00am): Pornography & Prostitution

 

Chairs & Chief Interlocutors
Melissa Farley, Ph D, Executive Director, Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco 
Rebecca Whisnant, Professor, University of Dayton, Ohio 

Presenters 
Ann Bartow, Professor, University of South Carolina Law School – “Privacy & the Marginalization of Prostituted Persons & Pornography Performers” 
Rebecca Whisnant, Professor, University of Dayton, Ohio – “From Jekyll to Hyde: The Grooming of Male Pornography Consumers” 
Melissa Farley, Ph D, Executive Director, Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco – “Men Who Buy Sex: Recent Research” 
Max Waltman, Stockholm University, Sweden: “Rethinking Democracy: Legal Challenges to Pornography and Sex Inequality in Canada, Sweden, and the U.S.” 
Karie A. Gubbins, Rutgers University, Newark – “Dangerous Politics for Women in Prostitution: Comparing Failure of Contemporary Policies”

 

Session 2 (10:20-12:15pm): Gender-Based Violence in a Global Context

 

Chairs & Chief Interlocutors 
Amy Mazur, Professor, Washington State University 
Amy Elman, Professor, Kalamazoo College 

Melissa Farley, Ph D, Executive Director, Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco 

Presenters 
Tiffiany O. Howard, Professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas – “Weak States, Terrorism & Sexual Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa” 
Nicole Freiner, Professor, Bryant University – “Domestic Violence in Japan: A Case Study” 
Betty Sharon, Programme Coordinator, Coast Women in Development, Kenya – “Child Prostitution in the Context of Development” 
Shannon Drysdale Walsh, University of Notre Dame – “Police Responsiveness to Violence against Women in Latin America” 
Peter B. Hovde, University of Washington, Seattle – “Comparative Responses to Workplace Sexual Harassment”

Lunch Break (12:15-1:45pm) 

Session 3 (1:45-3:45pm) Intimate Violence, Rape, Sexual Harassment & Assault 

Chairs & Chief Interlocutors 
Leslie Goldstein, Professor, University of Delaware 
Alyson M. Cole, Professor, Queens College & The Graduate Center, CUNY 
Mary G. Leary, Professor, Columbus School of Law 

Presenters 
Wendy Murphy, Professor, New England Law, Boston – “Using Autonomy Theory and Civil Rights Litigation to Redress Systematic Inequities in State Courts’ Handling of Gender Based Violence” 
Amy Elman, Professor, Kalamazoo College – “Beyond the EU Industrial Complex – Fighting for Women’s Lives” 
JoAnne Myers, PhD, Marist College – “Domestic Violence, Jurisprudence & Political Theory: Challenging Orthodoxies” 
Chrysanthi S. Leon, Professor, University of Delaware – “Bridging So-Called ‘Victim’ & ‘Offender’ Sides in Academy & Advocacy” 
Ruth A. Watry, Professor, Northern Michigan University, and Cathy Church, Lawyer, Access Justice Now – “Using the Southern Poverty Law Center Model as an Approach to Challenging Intimate Violence” 

Session 4 (4:00-5:30pm): Reflections on 30 Years of Empirical Research & Legal Action: The case of Pornography 

Keynote Address (45 min) 
Neil Malamuth, Professor, UCLA – “Research Findings on Pornography and the Prediction of Sexual Aggression” 

Keynote Interlocutors (45 min) 
Melissa Farley, Ph D, Executive Director, Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco 
Leslie Goldstein, Professor, University of Delaware 
Amy Mazur, Professor, Washington State University 

For full content, see http://www.statsvet.su.se/homepages/archive/max_waltman/Waltman_APSAShortCourseCleanCopy.pdf