rape

This month, I bring you a guest post that reminds us of a prevalent crime which is often kept secret, causing both physical and mental health issues for survivors. I welcome Jennifer Rothchild, PhD, to Girl w/Pen. She is Associate Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) Program at the University of Minnesota, Morris. One of the founders of the American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Development section and author of the book Gender Trouble Makers: Education and Empowerment in Nepal (Routledge, 2006), she researches gender and development, families, childhoods, and social inequalities.

__________

One in five women will be assaulted in their lifetime. But in my story, it was 3 out of 5 women.

I was one of the lucky ones. There are five of us best friends.  Three were raped. Their stories are their stories, and not mine to tell. But I will and want to tell you, as I tell my students when we talk about intimate violence, it could have very easily been me. My friends’ stories and mine are exactly the same: Our families and home lives were similar, we went to school together and had the same classes. We went to parties together, and we more often than not drank at those parties. We wished for the same boys to notice us, to like us. We all flirted with the really cute ones. Our lives were mirrors of one another. The only difference: One other friend and I just got lucky. She and I do not have our own story of rape.

That was the 1980s and 1990s. Flash forward to today: Those women and I are still best friends. We are professionals, partners, mothers. Are my friends who were assaulted “over it?” No. They are happy and successful, but they never will be “over it.”  The White House Council on Women and Girls (2014) reports that sexual assault victims often suffer from a wide range of physical and mental health problems that can follow them for life – including depression, anxiety, chronic pain, diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.  They are also more likely than non-victims to develop alcohol and substance abuse problems and attempt or consider suicide.

Again, 1 in 5 women – or nearly 22 million – have been raped in their lifetimes. In calculating the prevalence of rape, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counts completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.  Like other researchers, the CDC considers attempted forced penetration to fall within the definition of “rape” because that crime can be just as traumatizing for victims.  As the CDC further explains, the most common form of rape victimization experienced by women was completed forced penetration: 12.3% of women in the United States were victims of completed forced penetration; 8% were victims of alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration, and 5.2% were victims of attempted forced penetration. These are lifetime estimates, and a victim might have experienced multiple forms of these subtypes of rape in her lifetime.

By now, most of us have heard the story of “Jackie” who claims to have been gang-raped at a fraternity house at the University of Virginia and the fallout from her story in Rolling Stone magazine now under dispute. Less well known is the story of Emma Sulkowicz, a visual arts major at Columbia University, who is carrying around her dorm mattress until her rapist is removed from campus. Sulkowicz says she was raped in her dorm room bed when she was a sophomore, and as her senior thesis project, she carries her mattress everywhere as a visual representation of the violence she bears.

What’s happening here?

As a sociologist who focuses on gender and sexuality, I argue that there is a confluence of sex and violence. Specifically, the way we socialize girls and boys about sex has deep and intractable roots in violence. I assert that in order to address and understand this we need to put our sociological imaginations to work.

C. Wright Mills’ “sociological imagination” begins with his concept of “a personal trouble,” what one thinks of as a private matter, exclusively their own and not experienced by anyone else. For my best friends, my students, and the women whose stories have been splashed all over the news and the sexual violence committed against them—each woman could think of her story as a personal trouble of her own. Mills notes:

…people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction… Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part.  (1959:3-4)

But the troubles for these women are not only their own. Mills would contend that they are also “public issues,” reflecting just one of many such “troubles” that comprise a complex organization “of an historical society as a whole… [troubles that] overlap and interpenetrate to form the larger structure of social and historical life.” As such, personal troubles such as “Jackie’s” are connected to public issues, such as gender inequality and the way we define sex in our society.When we situate individual stories like “Jackie’s” in a broader social-historical context, we can visualize the intersections of individual biographies within social structures. We are then, as Mills argued, better equipped to not only understand society, but also to transform it.

In my individual biography, I was lucky, and still feel lucky. I am also angry. I am angry that my friends were hurt. I am angry that people I care about are still being hurt. I teach about intimate violence, and every year, I talk about trigger warnings and offer students an “out” if the material is too painful for them. I  Every single year, I have at least one or two students come forward and explain that they have been victimized—either directly or as a secondary victim—and would like to not participate in my section on intimate violence.

And just last week, a student in another class came to my office to tell that she had been gang raped last year, and also a former student emailed me to share the story of her having been recently sexual assaulted.

Clearly, these stories do not happen in isolation. Sexual assault is a public issue. The sexual assault epidemic is real, even if sometimes reporters get it wrong.

I was lucky, but whether or not individuals are sexually assaulted should not be about luck. Not just sociologists, but all of us need to think critically about how we socially construct both gender and sexuality and how we socialize youth to think about sex and violence. Using our sociological imaginations we can move towards positive social change. Because, in the case of sexual assault, one is too many.

This week we are happy to feature a guest post from Jocelyn Hollander. Jocelyn Hollander is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon whose work focuses on gender and women’s resistance to violence.

The new Miss USA, Nia Sanchez, has been roundly criticized this week for daring to advocate that women learn to defend themselves against violence. As this argument goes, any anti-violence strategy that focuses on what women can do to keep themselves safe is women-blaming. Instead, we should focus all our resources on preventing perpetrators from assaulting women. As one Twitter user wrote, “Hey Miss Nevada- how about instead of woman learning to protect themselves, men learn to not rape women?” (@CaitCremeens, June 09, 2014)

In an ideal world, this would be the right strategy. We would teach perpetrators not to commit violence, they would see the error of their ways, and poof! Violence against women disappears. And if a few perpetrators remain unconvinced, well, we’ll teach bystanders to intervene, and they’ll step in to stop these assaults.

But we do not live in that world. Feminists have been trying to convince perpetrators not to assault women for more than 30 years now, and these problems are still with us. Perpetrators frequently isolate their targets before assaulting them, making bystander intervention dicey, at best. Research on frequently-used prevention strategies finds that most of them either haven’t been systematically evaluated or simply don’t work. While the focus on perpetrators is long overdue, we can’t rely on it as our only strategy for preventing violence.

Moreover, even if perpetrator-focused prevention strategies did work, they would take time to be effective. Many of these strategies rely on major changes in social and interactional norms, and this kind of change is a slow (and usually incomplete) process. If those are our only strategies, what are we asking women to do in the meantime? Suffer through sexual assault while we wait for the knights in shining armor to save them? On my college campus of 25,000, even if we were to implement a prevention program that would be completely effective at the end of one year, 625 women would be sexually assaulted in the meantime. Is that really acceptable?

Women have been told for years that they are weak, that they are vulnerable, and that they need to look to someone else (fathers, boyfriends, husbands, the police, the state) to protect them from violence. When we say that perpetrator-focused strategies are the only legitimate approach, we inadvertently reinforce these stereotypes. What if instead we acknowledge that women are strong and smart enough to protect themselves, rather than waiting for someone else to rescue them?

In the 1970s, women who were tired of waiting for the social system to change took matters into their own hands, developed feminist programs of self-defense, and taught them to thousands of other women. These same programs have recently been shown to be highly effective in preventing sexual assault. Self-defense training is effective, it is immediate, and it is empowering to women.

These programs have been widely misunderstood. Empowering self-defense classes do not simply repeat the tired old advice (don’t walk alone, don’t drink too much, carry your keys in your hand) that reinforces women’s fear and vulnerability and constrains women’s lives. Rather, they help women develop the awareness and verbal skills to stop assaults before they begin – and if that fails, to powerfully resist. They give women more choices, not fewer. Yes, ending sexual assault is not women’s responsibility. But advocating self-defense training is not victim-blaming; it is a realistic strategy for a world in which sexual violence is very much still with us, and will be for the foreseeable future.

I have a young daughter who will soon be growing into adolescence. I am not willing to wait for the day that perpetrators to stop attacking, or that bystanders intervene. I will work tirelessly toward those goals, but in the meantime, I will teach her the skills she needs to protect herself, so that she can act on her own behalf, rather than waiting for some savior-prince who may or may not arrive – and if he does, may or may not be willing or able to save her. I will hope for that ideal world, but in the meantime, I will teach her to save herself, and her sisters. That, to me, is real feminism.

Recent events inspired this guest post authored by sociologist Michael Kimmel, author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, The Guy’s Guide to Feminism, and Manhood in America. Kimmel teaches sociology at SUNY Stony Brook and is one of the most influential researchers and writers on topics of men and masculinities . Reprinted with Kimmel’s permission from today’s Huffington Post, the author calls out not only Todd Akin but also Daniel Tosh for their recent misogynistic actions, as well as offers readers a larger critique of how rape is discussed in our culture.

_______________________

You have to pinch yourself sometimes to remind yourself that it’s 2012 and we still don’t know how to talk about rape in this country. Who would have thought that after half a century of feminist activism — and millennia of trying to understand the horrifying personal trauma of rape — we’d be discussing it as if we hadn’t a clue.

Okay, that’s a not quite true. When I say “we” — as in “we haven’t a clue” — that’s a little vague. So let me clarify. When I say “we,” I mean the half of the population to which I happen to belong. My gender. Men. Just consider the gender of each of these recent examples:

• In recent days, we’ve had a U.S. Congressman candidate draw distinctions that are so mind-numbingly wrongheaded and so politically reprehensible that even his own party is calling for him to drop out of his U.S. Senate race (where he is leading);

• In recent weeks, we’ve had one of the more curious debates about whether rape jokes can be funny;

• And over the past couple of years, the word “rape” has entered our vocabulary as a metaphor.

Each one reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the singular horror of rape.

Todd Akin and “legitimate rape”

In trying to explain his opposition to abortion — even in cases of rape — Rep. Todd Akin observed that victims of “legitimate rape” cannot get pregnant because their bodies will shut down and prevent the sperm from fertilizing her egg. That is, he seems to believe that women’s bodies have a kind of magical, or God-given, ability to distinguish lovers’ sperm from rapists’ sperm, and to “know” which ones should be allowed to fertilize the egg.

Of course, this reveals a spectacular ignorance of women’s bodies — but what else did you expect from a right-wing anti-woman legislator? (The fertility rate for rape victims is exactly the same 5 percent that it is for women who have consensual sex.) But what is so offensive is less what he says about women’s bodies, and more what it implies about rape in the first place. By drawing attention to “legitimate” rape, Akin implies that “other” rapes are not legitimate — i.e., not rapes at all. Legitimate rapes are the equivalent of what others call “real” rape — a stranger, using force, preferably with a weapon, surprises the victim. All “other” rapes — like date rape, marital rape, acquaintance rape, child rape, systematic rape by soldiers, rape as a form of ethnic cleansing (where the actual purpose is to impregnate) — aren’t really rapes at all. This would exclude, what, about 95 percent of all rapes worldwide?

By linking the criteria for labeling some assault as rape to the possibility of pregnancy, Akin in effect blames impregnated women’s bodies for failing to slam that cervix door shut on those illegitimate sperm. Their bodies having failed them, why, then, he asks, should the state sanction a “murder” (abortion) that their own bodies didn’t sanction? This isn’t just lunacy on the scale ofMonty Python’s famous inquiry into the identity of witches, it’s a consistent ideological position against women’s conscious and deliberate ability to make conscious decisions about her body. The body speaks; women’s voices are silenced.

Rape as Humor

Last month, the comedian Daniel Tosh attempted to silence a heckler at the Laugh Factory, saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?” This has been a standard theme at comedy clubs for a while now. Hordes of fellow comedians jumped in to defend Tosh. Comedy, they argued, is designed to push the envelope, to make really tragic and horrible things funny.

Such claims are, of course, disingenuous. Have you heard the German comedian’s “Two Jews walk into a bar” joke? Neither have I. How about the racist comedian joke about lynching? Only on White Supremacist websites (and never in a public club). The question isn’t whether or not rape jokes “push the envelope.” It’s which envelope it’s pushing, and in which direction.

Humor has often been a weapon of the weak, a way for those who are marginalized to get even with those who are in power. This is the standard explanation for the large number of Jewish and black comedians. And their takedowns of the rich, white, Christian are seen as evening the score: “they” get all the power and wealth, and we get to make fun of them.

But when the powerful make fun of the less powerful, the tables are not turned; inequality is magnified. While it’s still not acceptable for white comedians to use racist humor (and when they do, they are instantly sanctioned, as was Michael Richards), but it’s suddenly open season on women and gay people. Ask Tracy Morgan.

In a sense, though, Tosh’s casual misogyny offered a rare glimpse inside the male-supremacist mind. Tosh doesn’t defend rape as just a “date gone wrong” or a “girl who changed her mind afterwards,” equally vile and pernicious framings. No, he is clear: rape is punishment. Punishment for what? For heckling him. That is: for having a voice.

Rape as Metaphor

Recently, my adolescent son told me he’s started hearing the word “rape: as a synonym for defeating your opponent badly in sports, or besting them in a rap competition. As in, “The Yankees raped the Red Sox” or, “Dude, that guy totally raped you” in the high school debate.

Using rape as a metaphor dilutes its power, distracts us from the specificity of the actual act. You got raped? Me too! I totally got raped in that math quiz.

In an interview some years ago, Elie Wiesel cringed at the use of the word “Holocaust” as a metaphor for hatred, or for murder in general. This was not hatred, not just murder, Wiesel argues.

“Hate means a pogrom, it’s an explosion, but during the War it was scientific, it was a kind of industry. They had industries and all they produced was death. Had there been hate, the laboratories would have exploded.”

Wiesel made clear that it’s not a metaphor: it is in its specificity that its power resides.

Rape is not a verbal put-down; it’s a corporeal invasion. It’s not an athletic defeat; it’s the violation of a body’s integrity, the death of a self. All equivalences are false equivalences.

It’s not a metaphor, it’s not a joke, and it’s not to be parsed as legitimate. It’s an individual act of violence. To believe that you can change the meaning of a word by turning it into a metaphor or a joke is the essence of male entitlement. It is an act of silencing, both the individual and all women. The arrogance of turning it into a metaphor, making it a joke — this is how that silencing happens.

And the good news — if any is to be taken here — is, of course, that it hasn’t worked. Women have responded, noisily and angrily, to these efforts at silencing.

Maybe “we” ought to shut up and just listen?

erich hagan is a writing performer from a dead-end street in a part of Boston its many fine institutions advise visitors to avoid. He’s honed his direct style of communication and obscenely sincere subject matter in bars, coffee shops, theaters, residences, warehouses and classrooms across the nation. The Boston Globe calls erich “tender, yet violent.” He was a member of the 2007 Providence Poetry Slam Team and represented Boston’s Cantab Lounge at the 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam.

Presently, erich is consumed by a project called The Analog/Digital Debate; a production team and stage show that blurs the intersection of independent music, performance poetry and noise art. In his spare time, he is a freelance audio workhorse and a volunteer sexual assault outreach advocate with no dietary restrictions, no pets, no advanced degree in any of the liberal arts and no idea what his living situation will be by the time you read this.

As long as rape and sexual violence continue, we have to keep talking about it out loud. We need to keep talking so we can figure out how to take action. And, anyway, talking with each other is action.

Click here for what erich has to say—in his own voice—about men and sexual assault.

And you can read it here:

i am here to facilitate a discussion of sexual assault

this is not what i do for a living
i hold no degree in any of the social sciences
yes, i am a man
no, i’m not sure what that means, either

and like many of you
i worry about giving the wrong impression
this is a difficult topic
but i believe that rape is not inevitable

the crazy stranger in the bushes
accounts for a minority of incidences
survivors are mostly acquainted with attackers

the predatory relative
the nice guy who has a hard time hearing no
the abusive partners of every gender, race and orientation

it is not an act of sex
nor a matter of miscommunication
it is a planned exertion of power

exploiting trust, confusion
and silence, relying on society’s
inclination to discredit victims of explicit crimes

what were they wearing?
what were they doing that late at night?
how could they have put themselves in that situation?

truthfully, it’s an understandable reaction
if the mistake was theirs, then the world is fair
we want to believe that it could not happen to us

but it does: one in four, one in seven,
one in thirty-three, nine out of ten times
rapists identify as straight males

statistics are not my expertise
i just recognize a threat when i see it
i can not let this remain a touchy subject

there are boys
taught consent is women’s fault
there are places where forcible intercourse is a military maneuver

i am here
because i believe there is a difference
between risk reduction and prevention

everyone takes precautions
clutches cellphones on the subway
avoids specific colors of clothing on certain streets

it solves nothing
personal awareness is important
but it does not address the source of violence

drunk driving used to be
something we were warned to watch out for
stay off the roads at night, after holidays

later, the issue was reframed
friends didnt let friends, and it was effective
less people were endangered, no one stopped drinking

it just wasn’t an excuse
it became an individual obligation
to stop violators from operating

each of us can intervene
in any way we are comfortable
but someone you know will almost definitely be affected
and it is not funny
that is unacceptable

all a perpetrator needs
is a target no one believes
should’ve known, had it coming, naive

there are dozens of ways to shift blame
none of them excuse the one person responsible
nobody asks for this, lost control is not an explanation

it is the effect, whether or not
she goes silent or fights, whether or not
he can call it assault or explain to his friends

this is not a women’s issue: men, this is one war
you will not be glorified for waging
we can end it

Catch erich performing live:

•Friday 10/16 @ Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC (236 East 3rd Street Between Ave B & C)

•Monday 11/2 @ LouderArts, Bar 13 (E 13th St & University Pl, New York, NY)

•Monday 11/16 @ Emerson College, Boston, MA

•Friday 11/17 @ The Bridge Cafe (1117 Elm St, Manchester, NH)

•Thursday 11/19 @ The Inkwell (665, 2nd Ave. Long Branch NJ)

For more contact: info@theanalogdigitaldebate.com

Photo Credit: @ The Mercury Cafe — Denver, CO