People often seem to turn a blind eye to sexual assault, especially when it doesn’t directly affect them. Colleges turn a blind eye to reports, rapists like Brock Turner serve a measley three months in prison – if they’re even found guilty at all – and many women find themselves wondering if it’s even worth it to come forward when it happens to them. Here are five documentaries to watch this Sexual Assault Awareness Month if you’d like to learn more about what victims of sexual assault go through, and what they often risk to come forward.
- Athlete A
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Athlete A follows the IndyStar reporters as they broke USA Gymnastics’ cover-up of team coaches’, as well as women’s team doctor Larry Nassar’s, sexual abuse, which spanned over two decades, and shines light on the attorney fighting the institutions that failed the young team members, as well as the whistle-blowers that brought light to the abuse.
Stream on Netflix.
- Roll Red Roll
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Roll Red Roll dives into the “boys will be boys” mentality, documenting the assault of a teenage girl by several members of a beloved high school foot ball team and the role adult bystanders took in looking the other way.
Stream on Netflix.
- Untouchable
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Untouchable shows the rise and fall of Harvey Weinstein, speaking to former colleagues and accusers to detail the decades of his rise to and fall from power in an effort to to find justice and drive change.
Stream on Hulu.
- The Rape of Recy Taylor
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The Rape of Recy Taylor documents the story of a young Black woman in 1944 who spoke out against the seven white men that gang-raped her, risking her and her family’s lives in Jim Crow era Alabama.
Stream on Hulu.
- Audrie & Daisy
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Audrie & Daisy tells the story of two teen girls who were sexually assaulted, and cyberbullied and harassed after discovering their assaults were recorded on camera as their small town split in half, many finding it more important to protect their rapists than to find justice for the victims.
Stream on Netflix.
Follow Audrey on Instagram.