Both/And: A Sexual Violence Prevention Podcast

Even if you are unfamiliar with today's guest, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer and AIDS historian Sarah Schulman, there’s a very good chance that you have been influenced by her work. Her ideas and approach to activism have become woven into our collective awareness in a way that makes people of so many different experiences and perspectives sit up and pay attention. In...

 When we talk about consent in community or in school classrooms or as commentary on social media, one of the common refrains is “but it’ll ruin the moment!”. This idea of “the moment” has been in large part created and reinforced by the movies and tv we have grown up with. In recent years, the creation of that moment has been given extra care and consideration by hiring Intimacy Coordinators.  Er...

Have you ever wanted to make a change in your community and not known where to start? Do you have children? Have you ever cared about traffic or where alcohol can be sold or food insecurity or mental health or flu vaccinations or access to books? Your community public schools are the place where you can have an impact on every one of those issues and so much more. In this episode, I spoke with Kat...

What would you do if a house is on fire and the firefighters on the scene not only refuse to put it out, they joyfully add fuel to it while joking about how great it was to start the fire in the first place? After talking with today’s guest, Shiwali Patel, Senior Director of Education Justice at the National Women’s Law Center, about protecting students under Title IX, this is the scenario that ca...

“We don’t have a problem with support for sex ed in this country, we have a problem with prioritizing it, and making it an issue that they want to stick their neck out on. We have an action problem” In this episode, I had the absolute joy of speaking with Jaclyn Friedman, author, organizer, and Executive Director of EducateUS, a movement working to bring about a complete transformation of K-12 pub...

In my time doing prevention, I have spent an unreasonable number of hours thinking about why people can’t just get it! Why can’t they see that our positions on violence and oppression are rational and moral and just…right!? Well, it turns out that when it comes to social change, how we communicate an idea is often just as important as the idea itself. Today's guest, Dr. Julie Sweetland is a s...

Many individuals and organizations across the country have been working for years to enact policies that ensure workers are able to do things like care for themselves or a loved one when they are ill, be home with a newborn during those crucial first few months, spend time with a dying family member, or heal from the trauma of sexual or intimate partner violence - And all without worrying about lo...

In March of 2020, today's guest, Sarah Viren published a piece in the New York Times Magazine that left me seriously questioning some of my long-held beliefs about false accusations of sexual violence. It was an engrossing story that read like some kind of mystery or detective novel—except it was all true and had all happened to Sarah and her wife. And at the heart of it was this deeply nuanc...

Have you ever felt like you didn't belong in movement space because you didn't have all the "right" language? If so, you are very much not alone! In this episode, Janae Sargent and I moved through the idea that some of the language that can be so helpful in grant applications and public health spaces can also limit our ability to reach the communities we know should be centered...

Who told you you weren’t a good artist? That is the question that ended up driving today’s episode with Indi McCasey as  we explored what transformative arts education can look like in the context of prevention.  Indi McCasey (they/them) is a facilitator and community catalyst who believes that creative learning experiences can generate a collective sense of purpose and belonging. They have spent...

In part 2 of a conversation on restorative justice with Anushah Jiwani and Ana Maria Hurtado, we dug into some of the barriers to implementing restorative justice in the movement to end gender-based violence, reframed what success can look like in this context, and deepened my own understanding of the role shame plays in all of our lives (and especially when someone has caused harm).  Anushah Jiwa...

In this 2-part episode, I spoke with Ana Maria Hurtado and Anushah Jiwani about the basics of Restorative Justice, some misconceptions I had going into this conversation, personal experiences as a participant and facilitator of a restorative justice process, and how growing  restorative practices could impact our world in both deeply personal and systemic ways.  Anushah Jiwani (she/they) is a Cert...

In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs chats with Sarah Ferrato about moving conversations around consent from a deficit, risk-reduction model to one of pleasure, prevention, and maybe even liberation! Sarah Ferrato (she/they) is the Manager of Sexual Violence Prevention and Public Health Initiatives at the Ohio Alliance to End S...

In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, interviews Kristin Russo about how we can use media and pop culture to dig into issues that might otherwise be too hard for us to touch.  Kristin is a producer, speaker, and consultant with a focus on LGBTQ+ issues. She is co-creator of Everyone Is Gay & My Kid Is Gay , author of This i...

In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, interviews Darin Dorsey. Darin leads Rooting Movements, a consulting firm dedicated to strengthening social and political movements by helping organizations connect with the history, values, and approaches of their respective movements. He holds expertise in violence prevent...

In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, interviews Tamisha Williams. This conversation began with the goal of talking about the joys and challenges of doing professional development and equity work in schools, but Tamisha is especially talented at taking you places you didn’t know you needed to go, and this conver...

In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, interviews Adrienne Graf and Meg Panichelli about how the collapse of language around sex trafficking harms sex workers and sex trafficking survivors.  Adrienne Graf is a white femme lesbian with multiple chronic illnesses and disabilities living in Portland Oregon. She is a...

In 2013, the voters of Albuquerque New Mexico defeated the nation's first ballot measure that attempted to limit abortions. This unexpected outcome was made possible by the messaging strategies used in the Respect ABQ (Albuquerque) Women campaign.  In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, interviews Adriann Ba...

How we engage in sexual violence prevention is often framed by our own ways of looking at and moving through the world. But can we flip that perspective and use prevention frameworks to help us navigate our lives outside of our work? In this episode, Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs interviews Mo Lewis, Prevention Coordinato...

Storytelling is a powerful tool in Sexual Violence Prevention. Stories can help  build empathy, give greater context to the concepts we are trying to teach, and increase engagement. However, without great intention, stories can also be harmful to the prevention educators telling them and our audiences.  In this episode, Jess Clark interviews Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe, author of Red Paint - The Ance...

Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs interviews Heather Imre, MEd.    Heather has over 20 years of experience in the Sexual Violence Prevention field and brings their brilliance to this conversation about how much they love prevention, Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an origin story, and how we in the anti-sexual violence movement t...