Professor, author, and nationally acclaimed lecturer Gail Dines will give her presentation "Sex(ism), Identity, and Intimacy in a Pornographic Culture" at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, in the Haymarket Theater at Squires Student Center.

The program is a powerful multi-media presentation using examples from pornography, magazines, television shows, and movies to explore how masculinity and femininity are shaped by a consumer-driven, image-based culture, and examines the ways public images spill over into our private worlds.

Dines, professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, is co-editor of the best-selling media textbook, "Gender, Race and Class in Media" (2nd edition, Sage, 2002), used in more than 200 colleges across the country, and is co-author of "Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality," (Routledge, 1998). Her numerous articles on pornography, the media, and violence have appeared in academic journals and books, as well as in magazines and newspapers such as Newsweek and The New York Times.

Dines asserts that we are bombarded with sexualized images through mass media each and every day and that most of the time, we don’t stop to think about how these visuals affect our own body image and intimate relationships. She says the result is a mass-produced vision of sex that is profoundly sexist––a vision that limits our ability to create authentic, equal relationships that are free of violence and degradation.

This event is sponsored by the Violence Against Women Act Grant––a Department of Justice Grant shared by the Women's Center and the Office of Judicial Affairs. The grant aims to raise awareness about the issues of sexual assault, relationship violence, harassment, and stalking by making sure that students, faculty, and staff know how to respond to these types of incidents. For more information on this event, contact Anna Williams at (540) 231-3790. Learn more about the Grants to Reduce Violent Crimes Against Women on Campus Program.

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