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Background In the United States, approximately 25% of women experience attempted/ completed rape, and substantially more experience sexual assault, with minoritized women disproportionately. Survivors of sexual violence (SV) face higher odds of poor physical or mental health, leading to frequent interactions with healthcare systems. At the same time, survivors of SV may avoid care due to fear of re-traumatization, structural barriers, economic barriers, or fear and stigma. Despite high rates of medical mistrust (MM) among minoritized groups and previously identified associations between MM and health care avoidance, MM among SV survivors in this context has not been widely explored. Methods The THRIVE Study was a prospective case-control study of cisgender female past-month survivors of forced/threatened vaginal sex (rape) compared to consensually sexually active controls. Women completed three visits over three months, inclusive of surveys and biological sample collection. At baseline, participants were asked about past experiences of SV, including “sexual assault,” past “forced/threatened sex” (not inclusive of past-month experiences), and recent “forced/threatened sex” (past month, assessed as eligibility criteria). Binary indicator variables were created for each experience. Using the Group-Based Medical Mistrust scale and sub-scales (discrimination, suspicion, lack of support), differences in MM were examined by SV history and self-identified race and ethnicity. Results Survivors of past or recent rape had significantly higher MM than others, with survivors of recent rape having the highest mean MM score ( µ  = 31.00, SD: 9.06 vs. µ = 25.89 , SD: 9.41, p  = 0.027; µ  = 32.28, SD: 8.97 vs. µ =  25.86, SD: 9.15, p  = 0.006). Survivors of past rape had significantly higher discrimination domain scores ( p  = 0.027), while recent survivors had significantly higher suspicion ( p  = 0.002) and lack of support scores ( p  = 0.039). Variation by SV experience and MM domain was identified among Latina, White, and Multiracial women. Black women had significantly higher MM than non-Black women ( µ  = 33.94, SD: 9.39 vs. µ  = 26.35, SD: 9.00, p  = 0.005), but no associations with SV history were identified. Conclusions Findings underscore the need for (a) patient-centered and trauma-informed care, with implementation of trainings or interventions to increase and knowledge to provide trauma-informed care, and (b) consistent, acceptable screening for experiences of violence across care settings, to inform provider interactions and responses.

With expertise and sensitivity, the author of this accessibly written volume addresses a real but long-neglected problem: the pain and humiliation of sexual assault suffered by many women at the hands of their partners. Extensive gathering of personal testimony from survivors, together with interviews with service providers, bears witness to a lack of validation and insufficient assistance currently available for such women. This volume gives hope to survivors and provides critical information for service providers to gain a better understanding of the seriousness of the problem.

Why are we so reluctant to believe that women can mean to kill? Based on case-studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit. Morrissey argues that by denying the possibility of female agency in crimes of torture, rape and murder, feminist theorists are, with the best of intentions, actually denying women the full freedom to be human. Case studies cover among others the battered wife, Pamela Sainsbury, who garrotted her husband as he slept, the serial killer, Aileen Wournos, who killed seven middle-aged men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, Tracey Wiggington, the so-called \"lesbian vampire killer\", and Karla Homolka who helped her husband kill two teenage girls in St. Catherines Ontario in 1993. 1. Traumatised Discourses: Narrations of Violent Female Subjectivities 2. Versions of the Self: Narrating the Subjectivities of Women Who Kill 3. Inconceivable Survivors: Battered Women Who Kill 4. Cultural Anxiety and Vampiric Voracity: Tracey Wigginton's 'Hunger' 5. Beyond Villainy: The 'Limit' Cases of Karla Homolka and Valmae Beck Conclusion: An Odyssey around Violent Female Subjects Bibliography

Cry Rape dramatically exposes the criminal justice system’s capacity for error as it recounts one woman’s courageous battle in the face of adversity. In September 1997, a visually impaired woman named Patty was raped by an intruder in her home in Madison, Wisconsin. The rookie detective assigned to her case came to doubt Patty’s account and focused the investigation on her. Under pressure, he got her to recant, then had her charged with falsely reporting a crime. The charges were eventually dropped, but Patty continued to demand justice, filing complaints and a federal lawsuit against the police. All were rebuffed. But later, as the result of her perseverance, a startling discovery was made. Even then, Patty’s ordeal was far from over. Other books have dealt with how police and prosecutors bend and break the law in their zeal to prevail. This one focuses instead on how the gravest injustice can be committed with the best of intentions, and how one woman’s bravery and persistence finally triumphed. Courage Award Winner, Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault

This study assumes that rape victim advocates who provide community outreach services to victimized women must adjust to a heightened awareness of sexual violence to do their jobs. Using qualitative methodology, this multiple case study explored rape victim advocates' strategies for incorporating repeated exposure to sexual assault into their daily lives as well as ways that organizations can support such endeavors. Findings suggest that advocates' self‐care routines draw upon various personal resources (i.e., cognitive, physical, social, spiritual, verbal), and serve 2 roles for coping with rape‐related pain: (a) cathartic releasing of traumatic material, and (b) improving capacity to integrate the traumatic material into one's life. Additionally, over 20 organizational characteristics that workers perceive to be supportive (e.g., weekly meetings, flexible hours) were identified. Nonparametric and categorical statistical analyses were used to analyze the relationship between organizational support and self‐care routines, finding that advocates working in organizations with higher levels of support utilize more strategies that are integrative in nature. Implications of these findings are discussed.

In November 2014, Rolling Stone published an article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that turned out to be fictitious.1 This highly publicized expos of bias confirmation masquerading as journalism should have prompted a re-think on the part of activists who had typically proffered the story as evidence of their claims of a campus rape culture. But whatever the fallout from the article, it has not included a slowdown in implementing new university protocols adopted in line with the assumption that a raging epidemic of sexual assaults is coursing through American college campuses. Nor have the radicals and activists who sustain the myth of widespread campus sexual assault slowed their efforts or moderated their rhetoric. On the contrary, increasing numbers of students are stating that the alarming statistics on the frequency of assault today must be true, for they keep seeing them in the media and hearing them from campus authorities. And while skeptics have argued against the myth and protested the changes it has engendered, others have adopted the thought that while the problem of sexual assault might not be as bad as advocates claimed, it must surely be a whole lot worse than they themselves once believed, so sweeping changes are justified, even desirable.

A qualitative multiple case study design was used to examine communities across the United States that have developed coordinated community‐based programs to assist rape victims. Previous studies have suggested that coordinated community programs help victims obtain needed resources and services. This study provided a follow‐up examination of how and why these programs are helpful to rape victims. In‐depth interviews were conducted with rape victim advocates, rape crisis center directors, police officers, prosecutors, doctors, nurses, and rape survivors from 22 communities with coordinated programs. A comparison sample of 22 communities with fewer coordinated programs was also obtained. Results indicated that the high coordination communities had three types of programs to address sexual assault: coordinated service programs, interagency training programs, and community‐level reform groups. Although not all of these programs directly address service delivery for rape victims, they help create a community culture that is more responsive to victims' needs. The research team and participants developed an explanatory model of why these program are effective in addressing rape victims' needs. This model hypothesizes that coordinated programs reflect an understanding of the multiple contexts of service delivery and embody that knowledge in services that are consistent with victims' needs. Narrative data from the interviews with service providers and rape survivors are used to develop and support this model.

Interventions for child sexual abusers should take into account their perspectives on the context of their offenses, but no descriptions of everyday life from the offender's point of view have been published. This study therefore explored female offenders' views of their strengths and challenges. Documented risk assessments of 20 female offenders were analyzed using inductive content analysis (Cavanagh, 1997; Priest, Roberts, & Woods, 2002; Woods, Priest, & Roberts, 2002). The Good Lives Model provided the initial coding framework and ATLAS.ti software (Muhr, 1997) was used for simultaneous data collection and analysis. The content analysis yielded 999 coding decisions organized in three themes. The global theme was relationship experiences. Offenders described the quality of their relationship experiences, including their personal perspectives, intimate relationships, and social lives. These descriptions have implications for treatment planning and future research with women who have molested children.

Men are disproportionately overrepresented among both perpetrators and victims of violent crime. Scholars from the men's studies movement have documented a clear link between socialization into stereotypical norms of hegemonic masculinity and an increased risk for experiencing violence. Despite this evidence, most campus prevention programs fail to recognize the link between men and violence and use only traditional approaches to violence prevention. The most that on-campus prevention programs provide are self-defense seminars for potential female victims of rape and general campus safety measures. In this article, the author describes a comprehensive, transformed approach to violence prevention. Data from a year-long case study of Men Against Violence, a peer education organization at a large university in the South, demonstrate the feasibility of meaningfully expanding male students' conceptions of manhood and appropriate gender roles and, thus, reducing the likelihood of men's engaging in sexually or physically violent behavior.