Award-Winning Filmmaker
Film Showing – “I Was Raped”
Monday, October 27, 2008
Stern Center, Great Room – 7:00 p.m.
First cut showing of the documentary, followed by a question and answer session and book signing.
The “I Was Raped” Project highlights the prevalence of rape in our culture and the silence and shame that surrounds it. The goal of this project is to add nuance to the cultural conversation around rape as well as give rape survivors a voice. In the film, eight women and one man tell their rape stories.
Co-sponsored by Women’s Studies, Community Studies, Psychology, Anthropology, Office of the Dean of Students, and The Zatae Longsdorff Center for Women.
Topical Background
In the general population of the United States, rape statistics show that one out of every six women will be raped in her lifetime. On a typical college campus, one out of eight women will be raped during her time at school alone. However, the numbers of reported rapes are drastically lower than the numbers of actual rapes committed. Surveys show that an estimated sixty percent of all rape victims leave their assaults unreported. Victims are more likely to suffer from depression, alcohol abuse, post traumatic stress disorder and suicidal contemplation.
The “I was Raped Project” aims to interrupt the silence that pervades our culture regarding rape by featuring a documentary on the subject as well as a T-shirt with the words “I was Raped” printed on the front. The project affirms the power women attain by talking about their personal assaults and challenges everyone to discuss the societal issue at large.
About the Speaker
Writer and activist Jennifer Baumgardner is a leading advocate for women’s and girls’ issues who currently lives in New York City. She has recently authored two books: Abortion and Life in 2008 and Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics in 2007. Baumgardner’s “I had an Abortion” project featured a T-Shirt and a 2005 award winning documentary highlighting the real stories of women who underwent abortion procedure. As a co-author, she and Amy Richard have published the books Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism in 2005 and Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future in 2000.
Baumgardner was the youngest editor at Ms Magazine from 1993-1997. Throughout her career she has written for various
magazines and newspapers including Harper’s, The New York Times, and The Nation to Glamour and Elle. Various media programs, from the “Oprah Winfrey Show” to “All Things Considered”, have featured her work. Among her other accomplishments, Baumgardner co-founded Soapbox Inc., a feminist speaker’s bureau that represents a dozen feminist activists.