By October 2011, the media could no longer ignore the thousands of protesters camped out in Zuccotti Park calling themselves Occupy Wall Street with their rallying cry “We are the 99 %” (Gitlin 50). The social movement began to raise awareness of economic inequality where 99% of the wealth was controlled by 1% of the population. The name Occupy Wall Street began because protesters were occupying the space off Wall Street by setting up tents and refusing to leave the location (Gitlin 26). As more and more protesters poured into the fields, the movement broadened its goals to include a wide variety of issues including agriculture, housing and student loans. Described by the media as lacking clear goals for the movement, news pundits argued over the movement's credibility and whether these protesters would create the next social revolution in the United States (DeLuca, Lawson, and Sun 491). Coverage of the movement varied from newspaper to newspaper, but the framing of the coverage continued to show a disorganized, but large, movement that showed no signs of stopping. As Occupy Wall Street gained momentum, the public became aware of sexual assaults occurring within the Occupy Wall Street camps. As a result of this information, the media began covering these assaults as part of their coverage of Occupy Wall Street. This project will use a feminist media analysis of mainstream newspapers to explore the discourse around the ideology of sexual violence and women protesting in public space. I argue that the coverage of sexual assault during Occupy Wall Street used the “blaming the victim” narrative to link the participation of women protesting in public space to gender violence. Feminist research… at the heart of the paper… since the goal of feminists is to end gender violence, we must look at how the dominant media shapes messages of sexual violence. Not only does Occupy Wall Street coverage of assaults impact survivors of sexual assault, but it may also create challenges as it relates to women occupying public spaces for public protests. Mass media displaying victim-blaming narratives sends a strong message to women that protest can only happen using a restricted framework to access public space. Victim-blaming messages can hinder women's participation in broader social movements due to fears that sexual violence will occur. By exploring the connections between women's occupation of public space and the coverage of sexual assault, this project will demonstrate how pervasive and intertwined society's understanding of sexual violence and the public/private divide is...