2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

Dramatic episodes of violence, such as the school shootings at Sandy Hook elementary, and the shootings of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin and 17 year-old Jordan Davis in 2012 instigate an immediate burst of interest in restorative justice and violence prevention that disappears as quickly as it appeared. A stable community network dedicated to ending interpersonal violence is needed across the USA. This symposium consists of three presentations describing different forms of community building to engender grass roots support for restorative justice. Each effort integrates violence education so that potential community members understand the reality of violence and the need to become an advocate for change in support of victims. The first presentation covers building grassroots support for victims of violence through a four day, campus and community conference. Building a network amongst the interdisciplinary attendees was an overt goal of the conference. The second presentation covers community building through transformational curricula that integrate violence education and advocacy into the classroom experience. The final presentation covers how the “We Can Prevent Violence” Facebook group was used to build an on-line, violence prevention community. Each of these presentations will include the goals of the initiative, the types of communities that were developed, the successes and failures that were experienced, and any gender effects that were noted. Key to restorative justice is building many different types of communities nationwide that have no tolerance for acts of violence and who strongly believe in the power of nonviolence to transform communities into safe places (Veith, 2014). Community wellness could be substantially improved if restorative justice was available to support victim’s healing and if interpersonal violence was eradicated to prevent further victimization (Brown et. al 2009; Felitti, 2002; WHO 2006).

As evidenced by recent attention from the press, questions around institutional policy, and public outcry, politics regarding sexual violence have become particularly pertinent within Western culture. These articulations play out across an array of discourses, including media landscapes. Drawing from popular culture and contemporary literature, television, and film, the papers in this symposium will utilize feminist frameworks to delineate how our society understands and reacts to sexual violence. This symposium serves to ask: Where and how do we learn about sexual violence? Why do media outlets so often romanticize and glorify abusive relationships? What are the implications of consuming these problematic media images? Both presenters will extrapolate from their continued research on rape culture to analyze the real-world impact of these media depictions. The specific and insidious abusive links within several popular television series and novels, among them Scandal, Game of Thrones, Twilight, and 50 Shades of Grey, are analyzed. The presenters assert that the marketing and development of these media series suggest that abuse is acceptable and favorable, and that rape serves to function primarily as a plot device. Norms of masculinity, femininity, and heterosexuality all play a role in constructing images of victims and abusers, “good girls” and “bad girls”, and notions of true love. Furthermore, these portrayals contribute to the existence and proliferation of rape culture. The presenters find that these media examples actively harm individual consumers and inspire the creation of similarly problematic media-- an effect which is exacerbated when that content is disseminated across the globe. Additionally, the presenters bring an activist dimension to their work by including victims’ words and experiences, and by confronting the culture of silence that surrounds sexualized harm. This symposium strives to cultivate new directions for feminist social justice efforts, particularly in approaches to rape, resistance, prevention, violence, and victimhood.