Beyond Politics

Chapter 3 shows how ideologically diverse activists and legislators converged around a narrow, single-issue opposition to child sexual abuse and defined it as a politically neutral issue. The chapter shows how three challenges to this consensus emerged and were resolved: a 1981 Republican attempt to kill CAPTA; 1992‒1996 feminist organizing around child custody cases and False Memory Syndrome Foundation attempts to weaken CAPTA; 2000 forward, expansions of sex offender registration and notification requirements. Narrow neutrality facilitated the passage of legislation and pulled policy toward criminal justice and away from feminist challenges to the patriarchal family and conservatives’ emphasis on preserving the traditional family. Federal engagement shifted over time from a focus on violence within the family to a focus on child pornography and the control of sex offenders; although framed in terms of dangerous strangers, the new focus affected the larger number of familial offenders as well. Legislators and advocates downplayed race and gender while constructing an implicitly white victim, producing predominantly white offenders because of the prevalence of familial abuse. Experiential and expert knowledge and shared emotional rituals produced and maintained narrow neutrality in Congress, activist and professional groups, and media representations.