We were having tea at a café in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, and she was listing all the ways she felt her university had failed her by what she perceived as a combination of incompetence and malevolence. I met Emma Sulkowicz on a hot day in August 2014, a month before Columbia University was back in session. In most cases, I have identified people by their real names. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.Ĭomposite and imaginary characters do not appear in this book. Blurred Lines is a riveting, indispensable illumination of the most crucial social change on campus in a generation.įor information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016. Many “woke” male students are more open to feminism than ever, while others perpetuate the cruelest misogyny. Coexisting uneasily, these students are nevertheless rewriting long-standing rules of sex and power from scratch.Įschewing any political agenda, Grigoriadis travels to schools large and small, embedding in their social whirl and talking candidly with dozens of students, as well as to administrators, parents, and researchers. College women use fresh, smart methods to fight entrenched sexism and sexual assault even as they celebrate their own sexuality as never before.

Grigoriadis captures the nature of this cultural reckoning without shying away from its complexity. Indeed, college campuses were in many ways the harbingers of #MeToo. Few places in America have felt the influence of #MeToo more intensely. A new sexual revolution is sweeping the country, and college students are on the front lines.

Blurred Lines by Vanessa Grigoriadis