Showing titles in Sexual Abuse & Harassment

Chrissie and Anthony Foster were like any other young family, raising their three daughters in suburban Melbourne with what they hoped were the right values. Chrissie could not have known that the stranger-danger she feared actually lurked in the presbytery attached to the girls' Catholic primary school. Father Kevin O'Donnell, a long-term paedophile, lived and worked there. Two of their young daughters became victims of O'Donnell. And once the truth was revealed, the Fosters began a battle to find out how this could have happened.

For decades, osteopathic physician Larry Nassar built a sterling reputation as the go-to doctor for America's Olympians while treating countless others at his office on Michigan State University's campus. It was largely within the high-pressure world of competitive gymnastics that Nassar exploited young girls, sexually assaulting hundreds of them under the guise of medical treatment. In Start by Believing, John Barr and Dan Murphy confront Nassar's acts, which represent the largest sex abuse scandal to impact the sporting world.

Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body - how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body - a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.” But Ensler is shocked out of her distance.

From the founder and activist behind one of the largest movements of the 21st century, the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke debuts a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation.

Are you still carrying the weight of an emotionally abusive relationship long after it’s ended? Struggling to break free from the heavy chains of a trauma bond that keeps pulling you back? Jennifer Alushan, an experienced educator with several degrees in education and specialized training in trauma processing, guides you on this journey of recovery and self-empowerment.

Sexual abuse is the secret shame that lies deep within. Men hold on to this secret shame for an average of 25 years before they disclose the hurt and pain they have endured and carried from sexual abuse perpetrated by another male. As men disclose their abuse, it is important to examine how the abuse changed their thinking and behavior. A good majority of men were abused before puberty. The research shows that men, on average, are abused around the age of eight or nine, while in the latency stage of development.

When Brooke Axtell was seven years old, her nanny subjected her to sex trafficking. Today, she is a champion and advocate for women around the world who have experienced sexual violence and trauma. Beautiful Justice shares Brooke's own gripping story, both the trauma of sex trafficking and also her pathway through healing, moving on, and reclaiming power. Along the way, she imparts warm wisdom for others who have experienced similar violence, providing lessons from her own life and from the thousands of women, advocates, and lawmakers she's spoken with.

When Reah Bravo began working at the Charlie Rose show, the open secret of Rose’s conduct towards women didn’t deter her from pursuing a position she thought could launch her career in broadcast journalism. She considered herself more than capable of handling any unprofessional behavior that might come her way. But she soon learned a devastating truth: we don’t always react to abusive situations as we imagine we will.

Shawna Potter, singer for the band War on Women, has tackled sexism and harassment in lyrics and on stage for years. Taking the battle to music venues themselves, she has trained night clubs and community spaces in how to create safer environments for marginalized people. Now she’s turned decades of experience into a clear and concise guide for public spaces of all sorts, from art galleries to bagel shops to concert halls, that want to shut down harassers wherever they show up.

The only audiobook you need to start a conversation with your kids about sexual harassment, consent, #metoo, and more. Many American teens are steeped in a culture that sends unsettling messages about sex, through everything from politics to music to the normalization of porn. In today's environment, it's crucial that teens be able to ask hard questions about how to take care of themselves, make decisions that reflect their values, and stay safe.

Grounded in investigative research and real survivor stories, Surviving Modern Yoga uncovers the physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by Ashtanga yoga leader Pattabhi Jois—and reckons with the culture, structures, and mythos that enabled it.

Sexual violence is an epidemic happening across all intersections of society, impacting every one of us. In the aftermath of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, a cultural conversation has been ignited about the prevalence, immediate impact and long-term effects that sexual violence has on people. It has begun conversations on sexism, misogyny, consent and trauma. From the entertainment industry to governments; from India to the USA, people are beginning to listen to the pain survivors have been living with forever.

The world is full of mixed messages for girls: Stand up for yourself but do it softly. Be independent but not single. Love your body, just make sure it’s waxed, bleached, and thin. And then there are the more overt hostilities: being talked over, paid less, touched without permission, and having politicians debate their right to bodily autonomy. Many parents find it simpler to affirm girls’ strength than to address these distressing experiences directly. But with girls’ skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide, parenting them in this culture presents an urgent challenge.

While patriarchy and misogyny are problems everywhere, they take on a particularly pernicious form in Christian churches, where those with power have been insisting, since many decades before #MeToo, that this sexually dysfunctional environment is, in fact, exactly how God wants it to be. #ChurchToo turns over the rocks of the church's sexual dysfunction, revealing just what makes sexualized violence in religious contexts both ubiquitous and uniquely traumatizing.

When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church, she never imagined it would expose the ethical chasm at the core of the Southern Baptist Convention: male religious leaders so focused on institutional protection that they sacrifice the safety of children. A book about speaking out and speaking up, Baptistland weaves together Christa’s revealing story of hope amid Southern patriarchy and religious fundamentalism.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a longstanding problem that has increasingly come to the forefront of international and national policy debates and news. Yet, while we frequently read or learn about particular experiences or incidents of VAWG, we are often unaware of the full picture. Author Jacqui True provides an expansive frame for understanding VAWG in this book.

Know that you are no longer alone. For a long time, I didn't know what triggered my anger. Past and present were mixed together, and it was impossible for me to tell them apart. I felt rejected and abandoned. To get to see it more clearly, I undertook several therapeutic approaches, in groups, alone. The secret was buried deeply in my memory and poisoned my existence. All I wanted was to feel better. I simply did not know how and what was causing my suffering.

Based on groundbreaking original reporting, an extensive new look at Donald Trump's relationships with women, revealing new accusations of sexual misconduct, exploring the roots of his alleged predatory behavior, and illustrating how Trump's presidency has helped catalyse the #MeToo movement and revitalise women's activism.

What cultural messages do they receive about work and home, about sex and their bodies? Why do so many reject the feminist label? This is an original, often hilarious look at role models and available options in the age of social media and sexual frankness. With piercing insight, Goldsworthy lays bare the dilemmas of being a woman today and asks how women can truly become free agents.

Si la duda razonable protege al acusado, ¿cómo se protege a la víctima? Tessa Ensler es una abogada de éxito especializada en la defensa de agresores sexuales. Su tenacidad está al servicio del sistema judicial, en el que cree totalmente: es la existencia de la duda razonable lo que hay que probar, incluso más allá de lo que a primera vista, prima facie, aparece ante un juez. Hasta que a Tessa le sucede lo que a tantas mujeres y se encuentra en el lado opuesto, descubriendo que las reglas que siempre ha defendido no están escritas para ellas.