A Conversation with Judith Levine
February 5, 2021 @ 11:10am EST via Zoom
Event sponsored by the Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice at St. Francis College
Join Judith Levine and Emily Horowitz for a conversation about Judith’s new book THE FEMINIST AND THE SEX OFFENDER (Verso, 2020). The Feminist and the Sex Offender, co-authored by Judith Levine & Erica Meiners, makes a powerful feminist case for accountability without punishment and sexual safety and pleasure without injustice.
At the heart of the conspiracy theory that stirred many in the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6 was the lie that a cabal of Democratic and “deep state” pedophiles are trafficking and killing thousands of children. A demented “Save the Children” campaign led to a near coup d’etat and the death of five people. This is what people fighting for fairness for “sex offenders” are up against. How can feminism help us understand the hatred of the “sex offender”? How can social justice movements work together to end personal, political, and state violence?
With analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offender contends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state’s unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible?
Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.