Rebecca Kotz began speaking and educating on issues of men's violence over ten years ago and has trained thousands of professionals, students, and community members.
Kotz was the 2017 recipient of CBE International's Micah Award "for courage, creativity, and tenacity in opposing abuse and advancing justice for women and children."
She currently works as an assistant director at a university women's center and focuses on gender-based violence prevention, egalitarian relationships and comprehensive sexuality education, feminist advocacy, and support for student victim/survivors, leaders, and activists.
In the past, she has worked for various social justice and anti-violence organizations providing direct services and advocacy for survivors of trafficking, sexual, and domestic violence. As an undergraduate student, Rebecca was a student activist who founded Students Against Trafficking & Sexploitation (SATS), the first student organization in Minnesota to solely address these topics. She also co-founded an outreach for women in the sex industry and founded an interdenominational faith-based coalition that takes action against patriarchal theology and violence.
Kotz was the 2017 recipient of CBE International's Micah Award "for courage, creativity, and tenacity in opposing abuse and advancing justice for women and children."
She currently works as an assistant director at a university women's center and focuses on gender-based violence prevention, egalitarian relationships and comprehensive sexuality education, feminist advocacy, and support for student victim/survivors, leaders, and activists.
In the past, she has worked for various social justice and anti-violence organizations providing direct services and advocacy for survivors of trafficking, sexual, and domestic violence. As an undergraduate student, Rebecca was a student activist who founded Students Against Trafficking & Sexploitation (SATS), the first student organization in Minnesota to solely address these topics. She also co-founded an outreach for women in the sex industry and founded an interdenominational faith-based coalition that takes action against patriarchal theology and violence.
Kotz has over a decade of experience in sexual violence and relationship abuse counseling, facilitating programming with men who harm, community organizing, victim/survivor and feminist consciousness-raising group facilitation, consulting, program creation, curriculum development, technical assistance, professional training, policy and protocol development, research, advocacy and analytical writing, lobbying, criminal/legal systems change, classroom presentations, direct action, and liberation education.
Rebecca has been a lead organizer for dozens of local marches, demonstrations, and activist events in the community. In addition to anti-violence organizing, Kotz has organized around issues of economic justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, union and labor organizing, disability justice, reproductive justice, voter suppression, houselessness, immigrant rights, environmental protection issues, and GOTV (get out the vote).
Kotz created the first Safe Harbor program in central MN for youth and adult survivors of the sex trade and trafficking. She also created and facilitated the court-ordered, feminist-rooted accountability program for men convicted of soliciting prostituted/trafficked individuals: Men Accountable for Sexual Exploitation (MASE).
Kotz's academic focus explores the intersections of women's liberation, anti-neoliberalism, lesbian feminism, critical theory, queer theory, abolition, transformative justice, radical politics, and community organizing/social movement praxis. Her work examines interpersonal, systemic, and state-sanctioned violence with a particular focus on ending the most normalized systems of patriarchal violence: systems of prostitution/sexual exploitation, the prison industrial complex, capitalism, and militarism.
Kotz is currently completing coursework through the Institute for Sexuality Education & Enlightenment to become a certified holistic sexuality educator. Kotz has her Master's degree in Social Justice & Community Organizing from Prescott College. Her thesis, entitled Towards a Consistent Ethic of Social Justice: Confronting Prostitution Exceptionalism in Abolitionist Discourse is a (rather long) love letter to the prison abolition movement: a critique and an invitation to join forces with the prostitution abolition movement to work together to end all forms of patriarchal violence, including sexualized violence, without exception.
Rebecca has been a lead organizer for dozens of local marches, demonstrations, and activist events in the community. In addition to anti-violence organizing, Kotz has organized around issues of economic justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, union and labor organizing, disability justice, reproductive justice, voter suppression, houselessness, immigrant rights, environmental protection issues, and GOTV (get out the vote).
Kotz created the first Safe Harbor program in central MN for youth and adult survivors of the sex trade and trafficking. She also created and facilitated the court-ordered, feminist-rooted accountability program for men convicted of soliciting prostituted/trafficked individuals: Men Accountable for Sexual Exploitation (MASE).
Kotz's academic focus explores the intersections of women's liberation, anti-neoliberalism, lesbian feminism, critical theory, queer theory, abolition, transformative justice, radical politics, and community organizing/social movement praxis. Her work examines interpersonal, systemic, and state-sanctioned violence with a particular focus on ending the most normalized systems of patriarchal violence: systems of prostitution/sexual exploitation, the prison industrial complex, capitalism, and militarism.
Kotz is currently completing coursework through the Institute for Sexuality Education & Enlightenment to become a certified holistic sexuality educator. Kotz has her Master's degree in Social Justice & Community Organizing from Prescott College. Her thesis, entitled Towards a Consistent Ethic of Social Justice: Confronting Prostitution Exceptionalism in Abolitionist Discourse is a (rather long) love letter to the prison abolition movement: a critique and an invitation to join forces with the prostitution abolition movement to work together to end all forms of patriarchal violence, including sexualized violence, without exception.
Posing with our Women's Center "Glitoris" sculpture to celebrate Pride Month!
Rebecca's Bachelor's degree is in Political Science and minor in Human Relations & Multicultural Education. She earned multiple scholarships for her undergraduate work and was awarded the School of Public Affairs Honor's Research Graduate Distinction for her academic achievement and defending a study on legal practices, policies, and programs to end demand for sexual exploitation.
Kotz authored two chapters on sexual violence and healthy intimate relationships in the book Created to Thrive: Cultivating Abuse-Free Faith Communities (released in 2021). Kotz has authored several viral articles through online blogs that have tens of thousands of views and shares.
Kotz has been a member of multiple national, state, and local county anti-violence and sex trafficking task forces/coalitions/organizations, and has acted as an advisor and consultant for many violence prevention, victim service best practices, and offender accountability initiatives statewide and nationally.
Kotz lives in central Minnesota.
*Click HERE to see past speaking engagements.
Kotz authored two chapters on sexual violence and healthy intimate relationships in the book Created to Thrive: Cultivating Abuse-Free Faith Communities (released in 2021). Kotz has authored several viral articles through online blogs that have tens of thousands of views and shares.
Kotz has been a member of multiple national, state, and local county anti-violence and sex trafficking task forces/coalitions/organizations, and has acted as an advisor and consultant for many violence prevention, victim service best practices, and offender accountability initiatives statewide and nationally.
Kotz lives in central Minnesota.
*Click HERE to see past speaking engagements.