Anderson's ethical vulnerability: animating feminist responses to sexual violence

Pamela Sue Anderson argues for an ethical vulnerability which “activates an openness to becoming changed” that “can make possible a relational accountability to one another on ethical matters”. In this essay I pursue Anderson’s solicitation that there is a positive politics to be developed from acknowledging and affirming vulnerability. I propose that this politics is one which has a specific relevance for animating the terms of feminist responses to sexual violence, something which has proved difficult for feminist theorists and activists alike. I will demonstrate the contribution of Anderson’s work to such questions by examining the way in which “ethical vulnerability” as a framework can illuminate the intersectional feminist character of Tarana Burke’s grassroots Me Too movement when compared with the mainstream, viral version of the movement. I conclude by arguing that Anderson’s “ethical vulnerability” contains ontological insights which can allay both activist and academic concerns regarding how to respond to sexual violence

Narrating the moral geography of rape in Swedish newspapers

In the master narrative of rape some women’s testimonies of sexual violence become particularly tainted with doubt and disbelief. Conversely, only some men’s sexually violent acts are unconditionally marked by guilt and blame. The chapter stresses the spatial dimension of this master narrative of rape. With an analysis of two hyper-medialised Swedish gang rape cases, it is highlighted how a moral geography is evoked in news narratives of rape. More specifically, it is argued that location, and narratives of women and men crossing boundaries, walking in line, being in place or invading space are used as proxy for the socio-spatial dimensions of power and morality