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
Showing posts with label Trigger Warning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trigger Warning. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
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
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
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