A 2014 report issued by the White House Council on Women and Girls included the alarming statistic that one in five female college students in the United States experience some form of campus sexual assault. Despite more than fifty years of anti-rape activism and over two decades of federal legislation regarding campus sexual violence, sexual assault on American college and university campuses remains prevalent, underreported, and poorly understood. A principal reason for this lack of understanding is that the voices of women who have experienced campus sexual assault have been largely absent from academic discourse about the issue.
In Campus Sexual Assault, Lauren J. Germain focuses attention on the post-sexual assault experiences of twenty-six college women. She reframes conversations about sexual violence and student agency on American college campuses by drawing insight directly from the stories of how survivors responded individually to attacks, as well as how and why peers, family members, and school, medical, and civil authorities were (or were not) engaged in addressing the crimes.
Germain weaves together women's narratives to show the women not as victims per se but as individuals with the power to overcome these traumatic experiences.
"Campus Sexual Assault provides in-depth insight into the post-assault experiences of college women. It frames women as agentic beings who conceptualize their experiences and cope with their assault in a multitude of ways. By highlighting the individual pathways for recovery, readers are offered a deeper understanding of how women adapt and move forward following sexual assault."--PsycCRITIQUES
"Lauren Germain has written a powerful, important, and timely book that helps the reader understand the devastation caused by campus sexual assault. A must read for educators!"--Choice
"Stigma, sexism, and additional forms of oppression frequently result in survivors' voices being absent from the dialogue about how to respond to sexual violence on campus. Lauren J. Germain sought to address this void by centering the lived experiences of student women survivors. Her book . . . provides insight into the ways that college women respond in the aftermath of sexual assault, highlighting an understanding of empowerment and agency among survivors of sexual assault."--NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education
"A concise and coherent book on identity and identity management, following [college women's] reported sexual assaults at their places of study. Intelligently written and planned."--Metapsychology