Politics doctoral candidate wins Newcombe Fellowship for research on women’s testimony against sexual violence

The Institute for Citizens & Scholars lately chosen UC Santa Cruz politics doctoral candidate Natali Levin-Schwartz as certainly one of 22 winners of this 12 months’s Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. The nationwide award supplies a 12 months of funding for dissertation writing to students who work on moral or non secular points. 

Levin-Schwartz’s dissertation research is targeted on how ladies resist and arrange against sexual violence and the function that testimony performs in that course of. Within the authorized system, ladies who testify in circumstances of sexual assault are sometimes subjected to victim-blaming stereotypes and are structurally restricted in how they will specific themselves, Levin-Schwartz defined. Many ladies in the end select to talk up exterior of the authorized system, as they search justice and the political energy to enact change.  

“Women who were violated by sexual violence often experience a second assault by the criminal justice system when they give testimony,” Levin-Schwartz stated. “But testimony can also be a political tool to challenge both sexual violence and the undermining of women in the legal system, and my focus is on civil society as a place where the more disruptive work is happening toward that end.”

Women’s testimony within the civil area has taken many varieties over time, and Levin-Schwartz’s research explores a couple of distinguished examples. In the Nineteen Seventies, the anti-rape motion introduced a wave of social and political activism within the United States that was fueled partly by ladies sharing their experiences of sexual assault in consciousness-raising teams, speakout rallies, conferences, marches, and different boards. These efforts introduced adjustments to tradition and legal guidelines, which Levin-Schwartz says demonstrates the political energy of civic  testimony.

“In many cases, change doesn’t come from within the law,” she stated. “We need to put pressure on these systems in order to institute changes, and civic testimony is a way of doing that.”

More lately, the web has provided new boards for testimony. Levin-Schwartz’s research explores a number of types of digital testimony, together with the #MeToo motion, by means of which on-line testimony unfold globally on social media, drawing consideration to the widespread nature of sexual assault and harrassment and publicly calling out highly effective perpetrators. 

“With testimony in the internet era, we see global connectivity, where movements that start in one place can spread around the world, with each country adopting its own iterations based on unique cultural background, legal battles, and broader societal and political context,” Levin-Schwartz stated. 

However, civic testimony additionally comes with challenges and limitations, particularly round whose voices are heard. Levin-Schwartz says a standard critique of the anti-rape motion of the Nineteen Seventies and the #MeToo motion is that each centered white ladies, whereas marginalizing the queer neighborhood and girls of shade, who face elevated threat of assault and harrassment and extra systemic limitations in in search of justice. Tackling these points can be essential to the numerous quantity of labor that also lies forward in combatting sexual assault throughout the U.S. and globally. 

“Conviction rates for sexual assault show that, despite the changes and progress we’ve seen, we still have a long way to go for women to stand as equal citizens before the law,” Levin-Schwartz stated. “Civic testimony can work toward that, while also promoting solidarity among survivors, empowering women, and driving social change. ”