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I also believe that upending ingrained ideas about what assault is a gun to the head, a stranger, a parking lot and what consent looks like a woman who gives a no really means yes is very messy. And part of the messiness is some students - and yes, usually these are liberal students - over-determining the definition of assault.

Vanessa Grigoriadis

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Vanessa Grigoriadis
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: September 21
Journalist
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More quotes by Vanessa Grigoriadis

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I think the better question is: How do we want sexual mores to shift, and what will that do for the American experience of both consensual and nonconsensual sex?
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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A refusal of shame about sexual assault and the prioritization of speaking your mind while using your real name - instead of a pseudonym given to you by a journalist. Those ideas were soon taken up by Lena Dunham, Lady Gaga, and Kesha. And now, with Harvey Weinstein's unmasking, they've spread to the top of Hollywood.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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We need new cultural scripts. Women don't say what we want, and we don't say what we don't want. Unless we're reacting to a stranger, we generally aren't great at turning down someone's advance.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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I make a strong case for poor sexual communication as the root cause of some assaults. I say some assaults because we know, as well, that there are dyed-in-wool, compulsive predators like Harvey Weinstein on campuses too. But there are guys we can reach here. Once again, I'd like to be optimistic in the way that we look at this problem.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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Believe women first. I think this is very important. We must believe women first, and if the evidence truly stacks against them - in a significant way, not just a minor way - then revise our position.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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I'm a staunch believer in the effect of pop culture - including advertising and the internet - on the young. Pop culture in its narrowest sense - mass-produced film, TV, and music - either truly reflects what's up in youth culture, or it reflects what youth-filled focus groups have told marketing companies that they want to consume.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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It's true that a dangerous combination of certainty and ignorance often shows up around sex and consent on campus. People on all sides of the issue have such strong feelings about it that they're blinded to the facts.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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Let's reach the students who will abide by a yes means yes standard in sexual behavior and reeducate them to use it. And as more and more of them use it, others will adopt it too. We're on our way to a new social norm and that's a beautiful thing.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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Once Donald Trump announced that Betsy DeVos was going to be his Education Secretary - a few months before I finished the manuscript - I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. He was going to overturn as much of what Barack Obama did, and the attendant social progress, as he could.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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After studying dozens of sexual assault cases, it is clear to me that the he said/she said aspect is a big part of what makes them fraught. Many experts agree with this. But that same fraught nature is reflected in both legal standards of consent and philosophical theories of consent.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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In terms of activism, the Trump-era transformation of news into entertainment has had a deep effect on the way that collegiate politics are perceived. Campuses are a main flashpoint of the post-2016 culture wars about free speech, racism, and elite privilege. That's undeniable.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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As Americans, we do love punishment.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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As a journalist, I try to be as fact-based and objective as possible, though I'm also aware that objectivity is an illusion. This way of moving through the world is what separates journalists from activists.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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Harvey Weinstein is a monster. And what campus victims are talking about has a lot more gray in it - many more complexities.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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I don't think we get the degree to which technological mediums like Snapchat and Instagram are also changing our relationships. I think we will learn down the line that they have created profound changes in our social and sexual lives.
Vanessa Grigoriadis
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Colleges are a unique space in our culture. They're a temporary constellation of humans, like a workplace. And the rules about sexual assault and harassment in a workplace are narrow rules. They're stricter than what's considered criminal on a city street. By this logic, the same rules should exist at universities too.
Vanessa Grigoriadis