One thing the past year’s public conversations about sexual assault have started to make clear is just how much energy women put into simply avoiding sexual violence. The work that goes into feeling safe tend to be largely unnoticed, even by the women doing it, let alone the wider world—yet women and girls are the first to be blamed when these measures fail to keep them safe.
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F. Vera-Gray argues here that we need to change how we talk about rape prevention and give out well-intended safety advice. Our current approach, she says, makes it harder for women and girls to speak out, and hides just how much work they are already doing to try to determine “the right amount of panic.” Drawing on both real-life accounts of women’s experiences and the author’s original research on the impact of public sexual harassment, this book challenges victim-blaming and highlights the need to show women as capable, powerful, and skillful in their everyday resistance.