Category Archives: For Fun

Denim Day 2025

Join our team this Denim Day in renewing (or trying on for the first time!) your belief that a different world is possible — one without sexual violence. To read more on Denim Day and change, check out my 2024 post, “When Wearing Jeans is Practice for Building a Better World Together.” And for more onContinue reading “Denim Day 2025”

Opposite Action in Difficult Times

For the service providers and survivors with whom our research team works, for our team, for colleagues and students, for friends and loved ones…it has been a very long week. A long 10 days, really, during which rapidly unfolding events have sowed chaos, confusion, and fear. A palpable overwhelm has left many feeling small andContinue reading “Opposite Action in Difficult Times”

A Season of Change: October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Change is hard. That’s the story we tell ourselves. Though it’s not the whole story. Change can also be energizing, validating, exciting. Irresistible, even. Of course, when it comes to domestic violence, change definitely seems just plain old hard. After all, intimate partner abuse remains stubbornly common, with evidence pointing to increases in recent years.Continue reading “A Season of Change: October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month”

When Wearing Jeans is Practice for Building a Better World Together

I love Denim Day. And I’ve finally figured out why. Denim Day comes around once a year during April’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month – typically the last Wednesday of the month. Maybe you were among the people last week around the globe (including my home state of Colorado) who arrived in schools and workplaces, parks and stores, livingContinue reading “When Wearing Jeans is Practice for Building a Better World Together”

Imperfect Stories, Right on Time

My mother loved stories – long or short, hers or yours, finished or half-baked. For as long as I can recall, her stories were an adventure of sorts. You never quite knew where they were going to slide off some unseen edge. She might arrive mid-story and forget the end, something about the middle, orContinue reading “Imperfect Stories, Right on Time”

On the Shortest Day of the Year

The shortest day of the year brings a mix of reflection and anticipation, including on our research team. With gratitude to our partners and collaborators, we look forward to a new year, energized by working together to build a better world — one without intimate violence. #every90seconds *** For more on working together to endContinue reading “On the Shortest Day of the Year”

Postcards from the Road with Every 90 Seconds

The TSA Agent grabbed my carry-on off of the conveyor belt. “We have to search your bag. You have a library of books in there,” he explained over the din of the security checkpoint. Is there some sort of book limit, I absently wondered to myself? The agent, unpacking my bag, proceeded to pull outContinue reading “Postcards from the Road with Every 90 Seconds”

Denim Day 2023

The Traumatic Stress Studies Group is proud to join the Colorado Coalition against Sexual Assault as well as survivors, allies, and providers from near and far for Denim Day 2023! Our team wears denim to show our commitment to using research to raise awareness and take action. Will you join us? After all, a worldContinue reading “Denim Day 2023”

The History of Hysteria in Women’s Lives

We’ve probably all heard it before: A woman expresses rage or grief and gets called hysterical. Another discloses sexual harassment or assault, and she gets labeled hysterical. The tendency to write off women’s emotions and experiences as hysterical isn’t an accident of history, as I explored in Every 90 Seconds: Our Common Cause Ending Violence against Women. Since it’s Women’s HistoryContinue reading “The History of Hysteria in Women’s Lives”