Unwanted Advances

Unwanted Advances:Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus

  • Paperback

The sexual realities and ambivalences hidden behind the notion of "rape culture."

Feminism is broken: the current attempts to protect women from sexual abuse on campus, and on line. Regulation is replacing education, and women's hard-won right to be treated as consenting adults is being repealed by well-meaning bureaucrats.

In Unwanted Advances, passionate feminist Kipnis, find the object of a protest march by student activists at her university for writing an essay about sexual paranoia on campus. In response she starts to question women's role in national debates over free speech and "safe spaces". She explores the astonishing netherworld of accused professors and students, campus witch hunts, rigged investigations, and demonstrates the chilling effect of this new sexual McCarthyism on higher education. Without minimizing the seriousness of campus assault, Kipnis argues for more honesty: a timely critique of feminist paternalism and the covert sexual conservatism of hook-up culture.

Reviews

  • Above all else, though, “Unwanted Advances” is necessary. Argue with the author, by all means. But few people have taken on the excesses of university culture with the brio that Kipnis has. Her anger gives her argument the energy of a live cable.

    Jennifer SeniorNew York Times
  • A bracing book, its message delivered with fierce intelligence and mordant humor

    Cathy YoungWall Street Journal
  • a persuasive and valuable contribution to the continuing debate over how to deal with sexual assault on college campuses

    Jill FilipovicNew York Times