Anti Rape Movement Research Paper

The Anti-Rape Movement in the United States

The anti-rape movement started in late 1960`s and early 1970`s. According to Gornick and Meyer (1998,p. 375), it emerged from the women`s movement. The anti-rape movement began due to the increasing concern of rape and violence against women in late 1960`s when there was an upsurge in the number of women entering the workforce. The rise of rape cases was first seen as a social problem that pulled the attention of major feminist activist, which transformed into a major social movement to fight against rape. In the 1970`s supporters of the movement engaged in various tactics with the aim to change policies and social norms, which altered the movement from social to political (Gornick and Meyer, 1998). The Anti-Rape movement was particularly large in the United States due to the fact that during 1960`s there was a rise in political activism from the left, where there was a major attention to civil rights, but there were also an increase in activism fighting against poverty, free speech and women`s equality (Gorick and Meyer, 1998,p.373). Hence, these movements and activism demonstrated the effectiveness of protest and the influence on government actions to change policies, this resulted in the …show more content…
In addition, the anti-rape movement used other forms of strategies to spread their message and awareness. A famous tactic was the "speak out against rape", which drew the attention of more members and it influence the press to participate in the movement. These tactics were played into actions to achieve two main long-term goals, the first goal was to influence the reviewing of current rape laws and the second was to change the attitudes and assumptions of rape. Both of these long-term goals were connected to change rape laws (Rose,