I've only been working in the sexual violence sector for a short time and even I'm a bit frustrated with how easy it is for traditional sexual assault prevention techniques to gain traction and acceptance in our society, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for feminists who have been having this discussion for decades might feel.
I don't know how many times I've said this but I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing things that give a person a sense of safety and give them enough peace of mind to move through the world comfortably. This is not about criticizing those techniques that do give someone a sense of safety nor is this about dismissing the people, themselves, who engage in these techniques.
Having said that, working in the sexual violence sector as an educator has allowed me to learn and understand the pitfalls of traditional sexual assault prevention techniques, as feminists working in this sector have been thinking about them and talking about them in great detail for decades. There is the greater philosophical, societal issue of the unfairness of putting the onus on female-identified people to prevent experiencing assault because society has deemed male-identified people as not responsible for their actions under the "boys will be boys" clause. There is the in-practice issue of victim blaming that comes up when someone does experience an assault and begins to think it was their own fault because they didn't do one thing on the impractically long list of things female-identified people have been told they need to do to keep themselves safe. And there is the issue of practicality in that most "prevention" techniques only apply to very specific situations that mostly involve strangers in dark alleys, whereas the more common sexual assault happens where the person choosing to assault knows the person they're assaulting to some degree (friend, coworker, partner, etc).
For the record, when I say "victim blaming" I am referring to the more subtle ways in which society makes a person who experienced abuse feel like they were partly, or totally, responsible for the assault they experienced. This is done not in overt "this was your fault" finger wagging kinds of ways, but by unthinkingly questioning the behavior of the person who experienced the assault: "are you sure it was assault?" "what were you wearing?" "did you lead him on?" "you're a guy though, don't all guys want sex?" Questions imply judgement and sexual assault is one of the only crimes where society feels justified in questioning the person who experienced the crime and determining to which degree they participated in the crime they experienced. This is something we don't do for people who are victims of drunk driving, murder, theft, physical assault, identity fraud, or whatever other crime you can think of.
We engage in victim blaming subconsciously because it is a way of distancing ourselves from the assault in that if we can point to what the person who experienced the assault did wrong, then we can make sure we don't experience assault by not making the same mistake they did. It's understandable because the alternative means accepting that sexual assault is something that we might experience, and that's certainly a scary thought, but this practice ultimately makes it a more hostile and difficult environment for people who have already experienced sexual assault. Moreover, it creates an environment where the people who actually have control over whether or not an assault takes place, the people who chose to commit it, are not held accountable for their actions.
These are not new insights. Feminists identified these a long while ago and have been campaigning for years to try to get this points across to society at large in order to push sexual assault into the same category as drunk driving; a category where there is a social consensus that regardless of how sympathetic we might be with the person who committed the crime, we still hold them fully accountable for the decision they made and the harm they caused.
So when you see criticism being directed at the recent study that came out of the University of Windsor and made it's rounds of various mainstream media sites, know that all that I've discussed above is motivating that criticism. Know that the criticism is coming from a place of this study being nothing new and know that it is an indication of a growing community of people, who want to take this discussion of reducing sexual assault into a more effective realm of holding those who choose to do it accountable.
What is further motivating the criticism of this study and it's quick, broad acceptance, is that there are way too many unanswered questions; there are any number of reasons one could cite to account for the alleged reduction in sexual assaults. For my part I can't help but think that the more likely reason there is such difference between those who took the training and those who didn't, is that those who took the training and still experienced an assault would be far less likely to report their assault because there is a much higher likelihood that their behavior will be questioned because they took the training:
"Why didn't you use your training?"
"What was it about the training that wasn't effective?"
"Didn't you know what to look out for?"
Moreover, those who took the training and still experienced an assault are likely asking themselves those questions already having grown up in a society that has normalized "prevention" techniques for female-identified people.
Again, I get the appeal. Those numbers are certainly attractive. It would be easy to just accept the result of this study, implement the training, and continue on with our lives. Unfortunately, this would be a lateral move in the efforts to reduce the number of sexual assaults in our society as this kind of thing gets us no closer to holding the people who choose to assault accountable, which is where we need to go in order to really see some change.
Showing posts with label Campus Rape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Campus Rape. Show all posts
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Entitlement and Sexualized Violence
As activism moves forward trying to raise awareness about sexualized violence you may have heard people talking about sexualized violence not being about sex or desire, but being about power & control as well as a sense of entitlement held by an offender. There have been a few metaphors or analogies that people have turned to in an attempt to make the concept more accessible to those who have not challenged themselves to think differently about sexualized violence. A popular one is making it's rounds on twitter and tumblr where the author suggests that if you hit someone with a spade you wouldn't say that the person was gardening. A similar analogy would be to make the point that if one person hits another with a baseball bat, you wouldn't say that they were playing baseball. In both analogies, you would say that the person who did the hitting committed an act of assault.
Sexualized violence can, and should, be viewed through the same lens in that what occurs when someone chooses to commit and act of sexualized violence they are committing violent assault, not having sex. The distinction is important because it reflects what is actually going on and it puts the focus on to the violence of the act. When acts of sexualized violence are framed in terms of sex and/or desire it minimizes the impact on those who experience it, sets up a situation where the survivor/victim can start to blame themselves, and creates a situation where the offender is less likely to be held accountable for their actions.
When someone chooses to commit an act of sexualized violence they are exerting their will (power & control) over another human being because they feel that it is their right or that the act is something that's owed to them by the person they've targeted (entitlement). This is not a decision that gets made randomly nor is it something that is as accidental as, say, stubbing your own toe. Part of the reason feminists and allies call out sexist media, which the uninformed public usually fails to see the importance of, is that they're trying to call attention to the fact that sexist media is one of the factors that influences the development of our attitudes and beliefs. When a rape joke goes unchallenged on a regular basis, or many different pieces of media make rape jokes, it becomes normalized and soon becomes something the majority of people mistakenly accept as something that is "just part of life."
Moreover, negative attitudes and beliefs about women have been long established in society, which means that by the time someone is exposed to a rape joke they may have already developed some negative views about women in the first place; usually these pre-established beliefs are instilled in the home by parents and other family members. So because people are growing up in a society that has accepted violence against women as normal and that when they engage with the world they see media that seems to reinforce this concept any negative attitudes and beliefs are further solidified.
Once something like this has been accepted as "fact" then it becomes part of their worldview and or own worldview is a major tool we use to move through our lives and helps us interact with the world. If a person has negative views about women, for instance (this process shows up in other areas as well: racism, homophobia, etc), and they've incorporated this into their world view then it gets much easier to engage in more overt negative behavior towards women. And, unfortunately, the easier it gets the easier it will be for the person in question to engage in the behavior more often and, the more often they engage in said behavior the easier it becomes. This is the point where entitlement starts to creep in.
Now, how this entitlement comes into play is a very complex and there is a great deal to unpack, but for the purposes of this article I want to focus on three specific factors:
1. No one has challenged the person's behavior
2. The person has had their attitudes & beliefs validated on a regular basis
3. For cis-males, their male privilege has further contributed to the entitlement as they've been raised under the "boys will be boys" framework of excusing violent behavior and not holding them responsible for it.
For those that don't know the framework of "boys will be boys" manifests as girls being told that "he pulled your hair or teased you because he likes you" or if boys fight it is written off as a right of passage and not addressed. While it doesn't directly manifest in sexual violence down the road, it does send the message to cis-males that their behavior towards women can be violent and that violent behavior, in general, is acceptable for them.
With negative attitudes and beliefs about women established and strong sense of entitlement in place, a person can more easily justify acts of sexualized violence, which may first start out as sexual harassment or it could include incidents of sexual assault, like groping. Once someone is at the point where they are engaging in acts of sexualized violence they have stopped seeing what they're doing as wrong, so when people challenge them on it or, in the case of Paul Nungesser, they choose to report his actions to an authority they are likely to see that only as an act of violence against them. In their eyes, or in the eyes of Paul, their actions were justified not only by their own attitudes and beliefs, but also by the greater society they`ve grown up in. Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his choice to commit acts of sexualized violence and Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his inability to reconcile how the community responded to him and his behavior.
For Paul Nungesser, he is the only victim in this entire situation. He was entitled to do what he did and he was entitled to not be held responsible for it.
Source
Sexualized violence can, and should, be viewed through the same lens in that what occurs when someone chooses to commit and act of sexualized violence they are committing violent assault, not having sex. The distinction is important because it reflects what is actually going on and it puts the focus on to the violence of the act. When acts of sexualized violence are framed in terms of sex and/or desire it minimizes the impact on those who experience it, sets up a situation where the survivor/victim can start to blame themselves, and creates a situation where the offender is less likely to be held accountable for their actions.
When someone chooses to commit an act of sexualized violence they are exerting their will (power & control) over another human being because they feel that it is their right or that the act is something that's owed to them by the person they've targeted (entitlement). This is not a decision that gets made randomly nor is it something that is as accidental as, say, stubbing your own toe. Part of the reason feminists and allies call out sexist media, which the uninformed public usually fails to see the importance of, is that they're trying to call attention to the fact that sexist media is one of the factors that influences the development of our attitudes and beliefs. When a rape joke goes unchallenged on a regular basis, or many different pieces of media make rape jokes, it becomes normalized and soon becomes something the majority of people mistakenly accept as something that is "just part of life."
Moreover, negative attitudes and beliefs about women have been long established in society, which means that by the time someone is exposed to a rape joke they may have already developed some negative views about women in the first place; usually these pre-established beliefs are instilled in the home by parents and other family members. So because people are growing up in a society that has accepted violence against women as normal and that when they engage with the world they see media that seems to reinforce this concept any negative attitudes and beliefs are further solidified.
Once something like this has been accepted as "fact" then it becomes part of their worldview and or own worldview is a major tool we use to move through our lives and helps us interact with the world. If a person has negative views about women, for instance (this process shows up in other areas as well: racism, homophobia, etc), and they've incorporated this into their world view then it gets much easier to engage in more overt negative behavior towards women. And, unfortunately, the easier it gets the easier it will be for the person in question to engage in the behavior more often and, the more often they engage in said behavior the easier it becomes. This is the point where entitlement starts to creep in.
Now, how this entitlement comes into play is a very complex and there is a great deal to unpack, but for the purposes of this article I want to focus on three specific factors:
1. No one has challenged the person's behavior
2. The person has had their attitudes & beliefs validated on a regular basis
3. For cis-males, their male privilege has further contributed to the entitlement as they've been raised under the "boys will be boys" framework of excusing violent behavior and not holding them responsible for it.
For those that don't know the framework of "boys will be boys" manifests as girls being told that "he pulled your hair or teased you because he likes you" or if boys fight it is written off as a right of passage and not addressed. While it doesn't directly manifest in sexual violence down the road, it does send the message to cis-males that their behavior towards women can be violent and that violent behavior, in general, is acceptable for them.
With negative attitudes and beliefs about women established and strong sense of entitlement in place, a person can more easily justify acts of sexualized violence, which may first start out as sexual harassment or it could include incidents of sexual assault, like groping. Once someone is at the point where they are engaging in acts of sexualized violence they have stopped seeing what they're doing as wrong, so when people challenge them on it or, in the case of Paul Nungesser, they choose to report his actions to an authority they are likely to see that only as an act of violence against them. In their eyes, or in the eyes of Paul, their actions were justified not only by their own attitudes and beliefs, but also by the greater society they`ve grown up in. Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his choice to commit acts of sexualized violence and Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his inability to reconcile how the community responded to him and his behavior.
For Paul Nungesser, he is the only victim in this entire situation. He was entitled to do what he did and he was entitled to not be held responsible for it.
Source
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