New directions in sexual assault prevention

Abstract

The central question that faces all of us who are committed to non-violence is how can we prevent sexual assault. This is a question that has been a concern of feminist politics for over a century and more recently for the last three decades. We have heard this week about the role of the law as a prevention strategy and the important work being done by practitioners in prevention. My focus in this paper today will be on community and public education. I have several areas that I want to explore with you. To begin I want to reflect briefly on how community education about rape prevention has been characterised since the 1970s. My method for doing this will be to review a series of community education posters It is not possible to reproduce the posters due to copyright restrictions. which highlight the ways in which sexual assault has been understood, identify who are the targets for the messages and the implications of these approaches for prevention. These reflections will I hope provide some insight into the discourses or knowledges regarding sexual assault prevention. I will argue that understanding these past approaches will be important for shaping future prevention strategies. In the second part of the paper I will present an alternative model of prevention which focuses on the development of ethical sexual behaviour in women and men