Cease and Desist/Cease or Resist? Civil Suits and Sexual Violence

Within the last several years, there is evidence to suggest that there is a growing trend of men accused of sexual violence initiating civil legal action against their accusers along with anyone who attempts to hold them to account for their actions. This dissertation critically examines these lawsuits within a critical feminist socio-legal framework. I place these lawsuits within a larger social and historical context to explore the inherently gendered underpinnings of defamation law along with anti-feminist backlash to attempts to hold men accountable for sexual violence. The dissertation is based on interviews with seventeen people that I refer to as "silence breakers" who have been sued or threatened with legal action by men accused of sexual violence or organizations that have failed to respond to reports or disclosures of sexual violence. I use their narratives to examine the individual consequences of being sued or threatened with a lawsuit for speech relating to sexual violence. I also rely on media reports of lawsuits initiated by men accused of sexual violence and case law to demonstrate the scope of the issue to demonstrate that there are both individual and societal consequences of these lawsuits.

I argue that these lawsuits ought to be recognized as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). I argue that these lawsuits are SLAPPs because even the threat of a lawsuit is enough to silence sexual violence discourse and discourage people from reporting sexual violence. I establish that sexual violence discourse is a matter of public interest and therefore all speech about sexual violence including reports and disclosures should be protected from silencing lawsuits. I argue that if these lawsuits continue, we risk witnessing the re-privatization of sexual violence which will disproportionately impact women because they are statistically more likely to experience sexual violence.