Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The oppression of sexual violence in Canada is deeply interconnected with the violence of racism, sexism, and socioeconomic inequalities, which are reinforced and sustained through social institutions and structures. This paper discusses how social categories not only make women of colour more susceptible to sexual violence on campus, but it seeks to demonstrate how violence is perpetuated against them in the aftermath of their experiences. The choice to speak or to remain silent about their experiences tells us much about the institutional and structural forms of violence that universities, the criminal justice system, as well as liberal discourses of Canadian multiculturalism, perpetuate against women of colour. Through in-depth interviews with women of colour who have experienced sexual violence on campus, this paper highlights the complexities of sexual violence by focusing on social categories and institutional and structural violence in an attempt to challenge static and one-dimensional approaches to sexual violence against women.