Self-defense, sexual assault, and victim blaming

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.

The discussion we should be having about Josh Duggar

I'm going to be upfront about something.  I had no clue who the hell Josh Duggar was or why everyone was talking about him until there was so many different articles about what went down that I could no longer ignore it.  The Learning Channel was something I stopped watching long before I gave up on cable television altogether so there is a lot that I've missed out on.

Or not, I suppose.

Combing through the various articles detailing the actions of Josh Duggar and the subsequent societal skewering of him, the family, the show, and TLC there's a major discussion that I feel is not being had.

Yes, Duggar's actions are not "mistakes."

Yes, Duggar's actions are criminal.

Yes, the fact that many rushed to his defense is a clear indicator of rape culture.

All of those discussions are good.  However, there is a major problem in how his choices are being talked about and the category of offender that he's being lumped in to.  For the record, I don't have a problem with him being labeled an 'offender' given that he's admitted to his behavior and the choices he made.

He also apologized and recognized how harmful they were...granted only in the context of how those actions could ruin his life, but I'll take anything I can get given the state of things.

The discussion that's not happening is that Josh Duggar is being placed into an 'offender' category, in addition to his religious background, that is starting to 'other' him in the sense that people are not feeling surprised at his actions.  Any time we talk about someone who chooses to abuse children terms are brought in that villainize them, which is a product of the human desire to inflict harm on those that we think deserve it.  The Duggar Family's bigotry makes the catharsis all the more sweet and makes it easier to think of Josh Duggar as a monster who deserves all the negativity we can muster.

However, by turning Josh Duggar into a Pariah we also turn his choices as well as the attitudes & beliefs that motivated them into a Pariah as well, removing them from our life experience.  Once we've done that it's easier to think of Josh Duggar as sick and twisted and his actions are equally perverse and horrific, which allows us to distance them from ourselves and our own actions.  I get the impulse, I share it, but this process is something we're going to have to get away from if we're ever going to start reducing the amount of sexualized violence in the world.

By distancing the attitudes & beliefs, including the behaviors they ultimately motivate, from ourselves we hinder our ability to figure out where they coming from and what is perpetuating them.  Josh Duggar is not a monster from another realm, he is a human that grew up in Western society much like millions of other people.  There is a case to be made for certain mental conditions that some people may have that mean they're attracted to children, but not all of these people choose to act on their desires.  The molestation term is being used in conjunction with Josh Duggar's actions, but regardless of whether or not he has a psychological condition his choice to commit abuse against multiple people is not a product of being unable to control his desires.  Josh Duggar felt that sexually abusing was a choice he was entitled to make; that the boundaries of another person were not worth respecting.  This entitlement is not 'monstrous' it's, sadly, an everyday thing.

From Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" to the rampant sexual objectification in movies and video games to Sebastian Vettel being a little disappointed there were no Grid Girls, society tells men that women's bodies are for their enjoyment.  Given Josh Duggar grew up in this world and grew up in a family who has traditionally divided gender roles that give more social standing to male identified people, his choice to sexually abuse five girls shouldn't seem that shocking.

Josh Duggar is an easy target: his family's bigoted views, his choice to sexually abuse young girls, and the fact he's part of a rather unorthodox family mean he's already 'othered' for a lot of people.  Make no mistake, Duggar should be held legally accountable for his crimes, but society is not gaining anything by vilifying the actions of a person who admits that what they did was wrong.  We don't get points for punishing the obvious.  We need to look at the less obvious, the parts of society and ourselves that are the source of sexualized violence.

Until the public outcry is as unified regarding Josh Duggar as it is about Formula 1 Grid Girls (or other normalized sexual objectification), until people are not willing to let professional athletes get away with sexual assault, until the majority of society stops dismissing Feminism, until we start believing people who have experience sexualized violence and not imply that they somehow brought it on themselves, until we recognize that violence against women should not have become a normalized experience, until society really starts looking inward and in places that are personal we're not going to get anywhere.

Silent communities perpetuate sexualized violence.

This story is already almost a week old and it didn't have the staying power that other issues of sexual violence being perpetrated by athletes usually has; I'm thinking of Steubenville, Ray Rice, and so on.  I am not at all surprised by this, however, as Canada is still trying to navigate systemic normalized violence and doing this when the perpetrator is of a certain kind of fame.  Moreover, when the offenders happen to be involved in hockey that falls within the stream that sends players to the NHL, people are even less likely to stick with the situations or take a stance that doesn't involve victim blaming.

I found this particular article to be interesting and indicative of how much of society still isn't ready to have greater conversations about sexualized violence and really grasp the fact that the source for this violence is much more complex than they might think.  This article is a perfect example of how the social minds in Canada are trying to reconcile the idea that sexualized violence is bad with the idea that offenders don't fit a "typical" mold.

When I employ the term "typical" here in reference to perceptions of who an offender might be I am referring to the notion of offenders who commit instances of sexualized violence being: older, mentally ill, unkempt or otherwise visually unappealing, preferring to jump from the shadows or bushes, attacking random women, and so on.  The list here is not comprehensive and it is not all of these specific things all at once, more a combination of a few of these traits that comprises what people expect an offender to hold.  Part of the desire to do this falls into a "keeping myself safe" mentality wherein if I can convince myself that offenders are easily identifiable then I can be on the lookout for them and, as a result, avoid experiencing sexualized violence.

The reality, unfortunately, is much less pleasant.

While there are certainly instances of sexualized violence occurring in situations where the offender is not known to the victim/survivor, the numbers coming from reported instances tell us that offenders are much more likely to be people we know and the sexualized violence is more likely to occur in spaces where we might feel safe (homes, schools, dorms, etc).  Considering how unpleasant it is to sit with this fact I can hardly fault people for turning to methods or mindsets that help them feel safer without actually making them safer.

The young men that committed the acts of sexualized violence covered in this article are everything put the "monster" society has taught us to expect in situations like this.  Hockey is a celebrated sport and past-time within Canadian culture to the point where many families build lives around the sport; playing professionally, raising their children in the sport, and so on.  Fandom around professional teams also plays a significant role in Canadian culture as it plays out from things like defining friendships to being the justification for riots after a major loss.

The players themselves, often coming from places of social or financial privilege, gain a special social status within our culture for their abilities and this is not to say that the players don't sacrifice when it comes to pursuing the dream of a professional career.  However, one cannot ignore the red flags of creating a special social status within Canadian Culture for people that are already accustomed to higher levels of privilege.  Male privilege sets up men to develop a strong, harmful sense of entitlement when it comes to how they view other people.  It is also important to point out that while they hold many different privileges, people who are not part of the "hockey community" fall outside of their scope in terms of who is valuable.  Once again, this makes a lot of sense as they devote a major portion of their lives to the sport which does reduce one's scope anyway.

When you consider a few of these facts: (1) That people are not willing to accept that offenders who commit sexualized violence can be people we know and trust, (2) Society creates special privileges for Hockey players, (3) Male hockey players get a double helping of privilege and entitlement, and that (4) women are seen as sex objects that bestow sex on men, you can begin to see some red flags popping up.

For this article, we can see a few things playing out.

First, there's the hesitancy to want to get to the real issue for these players and so the subject matter experts turn to a familiar theme: young boys growing up away from their family.  While this certainly plays a part in why these young men decided to commit sexualized violence it would be naive to think this was the be-all reason for their behavior.  Many offenders grow up in stable families, which, again, goes against the myth that sexualized violence offenders can be easily identified in that offenders had some kind of troubled family life.  In fact, rigid adherence to the gender binary and the subsequent gender roles that come from the binary are more likely to be a factor when it comes to people gaining a sense of entitlement around sex.  Even in cases where one or more of the parents are not present or involved I would look to this being even more relevant; again, if I don't have a parent around me as I grow up I'm going to learn about that absent parent from other sources or I'm going to learn about my gender roles from society.

Another aspect emerging from this article is the cognitive dissonance between a league that "has policies in place" and the fact that this kind of thing keeps coming up.  A major flaw in how we view sexualized violence revolves around a lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the connection to, what we see as, every day behaviors and the legal definition of sexual assault.  Most people, when asked directly, would say that sexual harassment and sexual assault is wrong; however, the same people probably couldn't identify incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault beyond very obvious, often sensationalized, incidents; I'm thinking specifically of the stranger assaults mass media usually runs with or the way in which sexualized violence is portrayed in popular media (Crime Dramas, Movies, etc).  So, on one hand, people understand and agree that sexualized violence is wrong but, on the other, there is a lack of understanding when it comes to recognizing it in their daily lives.  Moreover, many behaviors that would fall under the umbrella of sexualized violence have become so normalized we no longer really identify them; behavior that gets people to bring the "boys will be boys" sentiment into discussion is the kind of behavior I'm talking about.

And, finally, the way in which the Hockey Community "keeps things in the family," so-to-speak, is also very apparent in this article; the subject matter expert clearly states that when she did attempt a study, she was blocked from getting relevant data by the teams.  It's hard to trust that a league is actually doing something to combat the issue of entitlement and sexualized violence when they don't allow for proper studies/investigations to be conducted that could identify ways to change the culture.  There is a problem, but until the community itself is willing to recognize that they're not going to be able to solve it themselves we're not going to see a change.  More importantly, until they realize that they are partially to blame for this kind of behavior we're not going to be able to implement policies and programs to make a difference.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people within the Hockey Community are of ill intent, maliciously resisting a culture change; however, by not being willing to ask the tough questions they are allowing sexualized violence to continue within their own community.  One need only look at how many people we're involved in covering up Sandusky's child sexual abuse or the sexual assault that was committed by the two football players in Steubenville.  In both cases, sexualized violence was allowed to continue, covered up, and a culture of victim blaming was encouraged; all to protect people that the community thought "couldn't do such a horrible thing because they were good people" and didn't fit the stereotype of a sexualized violence offender.

Power & Control

When this crime made it's way around the world a few years ago I had trouble processing the level of violence.  Now, one of the offenders is being interviewed about that event and I am once again struck speechless as a different level of violence is being directed at the victim of the crime.

Make no mistake, victim blaming is an additional act of violence.

Advocates working to end violence against women often talk about sexual violence as not being about sex or desire, rather the crime comes out of the realm of a need for power and control as well as a sense of entitlement brought about by unearned social privilege.  To commit the initial crime the men, in this case, would need to already have significantly harmful views of women, have justifications already formed in their minds, and only needed one additional factor to finally choose to commit such a violent crime.  As it states in the interview these men believed their actions were justified because, in their view, she was violating a social norm being out past a time they, and society, had set for women to be home by.

The recently released interview further elaborates on how these men view their own actions, the views they have of women, and that they do not feel any degree of remorse for the violent crime that they committed.  

"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy" - An attitude and/or belief about women.

"Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good." - Another example of their attitudes and beliefs regarding women.

"had a right to teach them a lesson" - A justification.

"She was beggar girl. Her life was of no value." - A justification.

Attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which are then used to inform the actions or behaviors.

It is important to point out that these kinds of attitudes and beliefs do not just manifest randomly and it is even more important to point out that the attitudes and beliefs that became justifications for actions are common in every community.  He very clearly draws a line between notions of "traditional" gender roles and the justifications he and the other men made for their actions.  Not every person out there who is invested in "traditional" gender roles is on the path to commit acts of sexual violence; however, it is important to point out that had these men been raised differently they might have not done what they did.

There is a similar parallel in all sexual violence cases: attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which guide action.  Harmful views about women and gender roles established early on, reinforced in various ways as men and women grow up, and, if left unchallenged, can become justifications for actions later in life.  This why we need to challenge unassuming aspects of rape culture; narratives like "boys will be boys," pieces of media that normalize violence against women, aspects of culture that enforce traditional gender roles, and so on.

I'm sorry to end on a note that isn't exactly positive, but I don't think it would be appropriate.  In this case to sanitize the message avoids the issue.  We have a problem in our society, we cannot dismiss it as a "one-off" random event.  We need to face it head on.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31698154

http://jezebel.com/delhi-bus-gang-rapist-mukesh-singh-blames-victim-for-fi-1688870998