P&P Live!: Consent, Power, and the Patriarchy – With Michelle Bowdler, Alisson Wood, & T Kira Madden

Three incredible writers come together for a cultural investigation about what consent, or lack of it, means in a patriarchal society and how survivors of sexual assault struggle to make their voices heard.

Panelists include:

Award-winning writer and public health executive Michelle Bowdler‘s memoir, Is Rape a Crime, indicts how sexual violence has been addressed for decades in our society, asking whether rape is a crime given that it is the least reported major felony, least successfully prosecuted, and fewer than 3% of reported rapes result in conviction. Cases are closed before they are investigated and DNA evidence sits for years untested and disregarded.

Alisson Wood‘s Being Lolita recounts seventeen-year-old Alisson’s metamorphosis from student to survivor. A lonely and vulnerable high school senior, Alisson finds solace only in her writing—and in a young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. North. The book is a stunning coming-of-age memoir that shines a bright light on our shifting perceptions of consent, vulnerability, and power. This is the story of what happens when a young woman realizes her entire narrative must be rewritten—and then takes back the pen to rewrite it.

Moderating the conversation is T Kira Madden, acclaimed literary essayist author of the memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai’i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, this book is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It’s a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful.

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