Since 2017 the #MeToo movement has expanded cultural awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual assault and tacit support for rape culture in the United States and beyond. Despite its ubiquity, sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the world in part because of the mistreatment and misunderstanding survivors often face from their communities and the legal system. Art, Activism, and Sexual Violence brings together creative work, in multiple genres, with analyses of the historical and cultural contexts of sexual violence from intersectional feminist perspectives. Together, contributors illuminate the power of artists—as victims, survivors, and allies—to combat sexual violence through creative expression in partnership with historians, anthropologists, sociologists, journalists, and gender scholars. Showcasing dance, textile arts, painting, new media images, drama, and other creative forms, this volume embraces artistic expression's transformative potential and inspires readers to action, mutual recognition, resistance, and resilience.

Sally L. Kitch explores the crisis in contemporary Afghan women's lives by focusing on two remarkable Afghan professional women working on behalf of their Afghan sisters. Kitch's compelling narrative follows the stories of Judge Marzia Basel and Jamila Afghani from 2005 through 2013, providing an oft-ignored perspective on the personal and professional lives of Afghanistan's women. Contending with the complex dynamics of a society both undergoing and resisting change, Basel and Afghani speak candidly--and critically--of matters like international intervention and patriarchal Afghan culture, capturing the ways in which immense possibility alternates and vies with utter hopelessness. Strongly rooted in feminist theory and interdisciplinary historical and geopolitical analysis, Contested Terrain sheds new light on the struggle against the powerful forces that affect Afghan women's education, health, political participation, livelihoods, and quality of life. The book also suggests how a new dialogue might be started--in which women from across geopolitical boundaries might find common cause for change and rewrite their collective stories.

Sally L. Kitch explores the crisis in contemporary Afghan women's lives by focusing on two remarkable Afghan professional women working on behalf of their Afghan sisters. Kitch's compelling narrative follows the stories of Judge Marzia Basel and Jamila Afghani from 2005 through 2013, providing an oft-ignored perspective on the personal and professional lives of Afghanistan's women. Contending with the complex dynamics of a society both undergoing and resisting change, Basel and Afghani speak candidly--and critically--of matters like international intervention and patriarchal Afghan culture, capturing the ways in which immense possibility alternates and vies with utter hopelessness. Strongly rooted in feminist theory and interdisciplinary historical and geopolitical analysis, Contested Terrain sheds new light on the struggle against the powerful forces that affect Afghan women's education, health, political participation, livelihoods, and quality of life. The book also suggests how a new dialogue might be started--in which women from across geopolitical boundaries might find common cause for change and rewrite their collective stories.