This document discusses gender-based violence in the U.S., focusing on domestic abuse and sexual assault. It explores the historical relationship between patriarchy and violence against women. While such attitudes remain normalized in society today, women of all backgrounds experience these forms of violence. The document then outlines two approaches to addressing this issue: responding through improving police response and supporting survivors, and preventing further assaults through education and awareness programs. It stresses the importance of continued research to evaluate effective policies and methods for holding perpetrators accountable and changing social views.

1. GENDER-BASED
Violence in the U.S.
STACEY PEREIRA

2. WHY?

3. HCP
 Focused on domestic abuse and sexual assault as the two main forms of gender-based violence
 Set the context of the problem in three ways:
1. Explore the historical relationship between the patriarchy and it’s ideological justifications of violence
against women and how it became a part of American society.
2. Analyze how such attitudes remain entrenched in modern day society and how acts of violence
against women are trivialized and normalized.
3. Women experience sexual assault and domestic violence at different frequencies
 Cuts across the lines of race, sexuality, income-level, community (rural, suburban and urban)
 CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 44% of lesbians and 61% of bisexual women
experience rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, compared to 35% of heterosexual
women (“Sexual Assault and the LGBTQ community”, hrc.org).
 For LGBTQ survivors of sexual violence it is even more difficult for them to seek help from police, hospitals,
shelter or rape crisis centers because of the discrimination they face surrounding their identities.

4. AP
 Focusing on the problem of sexual assault
 Two main approaches
I. Responding
II. Preventing

5. I. Responding
 ”2 out of 3 [sexual assaults] go unreported” to the police (rainn.org)
Figure 1. This was taken
from rainn.org and lists
various reasons sexual
assaults are not reported

6. I. Repsonding (cont.)
 Improving police response to sexual assault (see Tracy Ulman skit in comments)
 Initial responses from police are important and if poorly conducted can sabotage an
entire investigation
 A survey found that 10% of police officers believed 10-50% of victims were lying about
being raped and another 10% believed 51-100% of women give false reports (Human
Rights Watch 22)
 Studies show that only 2-10% percent of reports are false (Human Rights Watch 22)

7. I. Responding (cont.)
 It improves confidence in police and the
criminal justice system
 Rate of reported rapes increases
 Ex: Kansas City, Philadelphia, Austin, Missouri
and Grand Rapids
Figure . This was taken from the Human Rights Watch report,
“Improving Sexual Assault.” It lists the practices the police
departments of Kansas City, Austin and Philadelphia have
implemented to ensure all sexual assault cases are properly
investigated

8. II. PREVENTING
 Education and raising awareness
 Defining consent
 Providing support and resources for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence (ex:
UCI CARE)

9. Figure 4. Obtained from “About CARE” webpage.
http://www.care.uci.edu/about/about.html

10. Final comments
 Improving research to get a better picture about sexual assault
 Investing in research that measures which methods work
 Are legislations and policies successfully holding suspects accountable
 Is education and awareness about sexual assault changing views/beliefs or
teaching people that mistreating “out of fashion”

11. Works Cited
 Human Rights Watch. “Improving Police Response to Sexual Assault.” 2013.
Web. Accessed 9
August 2017.
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/improvingSAInvest_0.pdf.
 “The Criminal Justice System: Statistics.” RAINN,
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system. Accessed 10 Aug.
2017