Cultural Capital Doesn't Pay the Rent with Jessica Lawless on Both/And

Deep dive conversations on sexual violence prevention! Jess Clark, Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs interviews experts in the field, authors, musicians, educators, podcasters, and organizers on what sexual violence prevention can look like in our daily lives. Jess can be reached at [email protected]

So often, we are met with the reality that systems are very much not set up to acknowledge our identities, or see us in our full contexts, which leads to a serious lack of ability to meet even our basic needs.

Today’s guest, Jessica Lawless is no stranger to the failure of systems. When her friend, Mia Zapata, was sexually assaulted and murdered, Jessica and the community who loved Mia were left with a clear understanding that they couldn’t wait for institutions to save them. From that, came Home Alive, a DIY, punk rock-infused, community self defense organization that took hold in the 90s and helped lay the foundation of the anti-violence movement as we know it today.

In my conversation with Jessica, we dig into her book, Cultural Capital Doesn’t Pay the Rent, and walk through what it means to be personally impacted by the work we do as professionals, the lessons we can learn from DIY movements, and letting go of pre-prescribed notions of what it looks like to “make it” in our current world.