Sexual Harassment and Assault

Discussions of sexual harassment and violence are presently located in a peculiar moment of public consciousness across the globe as the #MeToo movement continues to reverberate in all sectors of public life. Public dialogue suggests a heightened awareness about sexual harassment and violence—defined as verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature, typically carried out in furtherance of unequal social power dynamics, and thus often (but not exclusively) experienced by women and girls. However, this awareness has been simultaneously positioned alongside a broadening authoritarian rise across the world, from the 2010 election of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, to the 2019 election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, that many claim is motivated in part by a backlash to the gains made for women’s rights ...