Abstract
Feminist discourse has investigated sexual assault and its philosophical characteristics over the past several decades. In this chapter, we review the way rape, sexual assault, and sexual violence have been addressed in six different schools of feminist thought. The more recent theory knitting feminist ideologies for a holistic view of sexual assault identified the need for the phenomenon of sexual assault to be viewed from an intersectional feminist perspective in order to bring the many facets of sexual assault into consideration. The identities of the perpetrator, victims, bystanders, and people within the intuitions that address sexual assault all matter in this discourse. Power dynamics around components such as gender, race, sexual orientation, and citizenship must all be taken into account when considering the phenomenon of sexual assault in the world. While there are common threads of sexual violence through all assaults, approaching sexual assault with a myopic view may result in the oppression of individuals based on the intersection of their identities. This chapter ends with recommended actions an individual can take to address the problem of sexual assault.
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Canan, S.N., Levand, M.A. (2019). A Feminist Perspective on Sexual Assault. In: O’Donohue, W.T., Schewe, P.A. (eds) Handbook of Sexual Assault and Sexual Assault Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23645-8_1
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