Last summer, when Republican candidate Todd Akin was quoted saying, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” he was, thankfully enough, met with incredulous public outrage. (Update: he regrets his foolish words!) However – as abhorrent as Akin’s comments are – they do reveal society’s general misunderstanding of how the human body, the ... Read More

Dean Saxton, a junior at University of Arizona, sparked controversy on Tuesday when he spoke against women while holding a sign stating, “You Deserve Rape.”  According to Saxton, women are responsible for their rapes because of how they dress and act.  Planned the same night as University of Arizona’s “Take Back the Night," an event protesting sexual violence, Saxton stated that his protest was meant to ... Read More

Last Tuesday, in association with V-Day, Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright of The Vagina Monologues, hosted a panel discussion regarding sexual violence, in the light of the Steubenville rape case. The event sold out in eight minutes. Though it was exciting to know that every seat would filled with engaged listeners, there was something so annoyingly typical about the scene that greeted me: the audience was composed almost entirely ... Read More

India’s parliament has passed a new law that protects women from sexual violence.  Following the horrible bus gang rape earlier in December, the rape and murder of three young sisters, and the most recent gang rape of a Swiss tourist, this piece of legislation is a much needed and an incredibly welcome change for women in India. The law, which will not be official until the president signs it into action, criminalizes stalking, ... Read More

We could only hope that after the New Delhi bus incident and the rape and murder of three young sisters that media coverage would somehow ameliorate these problems, at least a little bit. Instead we receive more devastating news: a Swiss tourist was gang raped in front of her husband while camping in central India. The couple was on a bike tour and decided to set up camp in Madhya Pradesh when between five and seven men attacked them, ... Read More