Anatomy of a rape: Sexual violence and secondary victimization scripts in U.S. film and television, 1959–2019

Abstract

The rape law reform movement in the U.S. has made significant progress since the 1970s. All fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia have now made changes to their rape statutes. Nonetheless, the incidence of reported rape has increased substantially since the 1970s, and rape conviction rates have remained frustratingly low. Such statistical evidence suggests that amending legal statutes has not proven sufficient to curb endemic sexual violence in the U.S. Effective prevention requires a deeper understa…