Handbook on Sexual Violence (62 page)

1. How researchers and academics silence
   

   Research conducted with victims/survivors of rape is often credited with helping them to voice their experiences and presented as a beneficial and sometimes empowering experience (Campbell 2002; Gordon and Riger 1991; Jordan 2008; Stanko 1997). Such a positive outcome is to some extent dependent on the motivation and style of the researcher as well as on the methodological approach taken. General victimisation studies, such as the British Crime Survey, have been criticised at times for the ways questions
   

   about sexual assault have been handled (Kelly
   et a
   l. 2005; Radford 1987; Walby and Myhill 2001), resulting in increasingly sophisticated approaches being undertaken in an effort to improve response rates (Mayhew and Reilly 2007; Myhill and Allen 2002; Walby and Myhill 2001). What is apparent is that many victims of rape and sexual assault will stay silent about these incidents when participating in such research, with the result being that their experiences and perspectives are then excluded from consideration in the analysis. If and when they do open up to a researcher, or even drop lead lines, the latter may be uncomfortable with the topic and ignore such leads or divert the interview to ‘safer’ areas of investigation. The ability to speak freely and fully about a crime that has for so long been muted is still a difficult endeavour, for both speaker and listener, particularly given the reluctance or inability of many of those experiencing it even to acknowledge or define it as a crime.
   

   Most feminist researchers have shown a distinct preference for qualitative interviewing, particularly favouring approaches that facilitate respondents being able to articulate narratives in their own words (Campbell
   et al
   . 2009; Jordan 2001, 2004, 2008; Kelly 1988; Reinharz 1992; Stanko 1990). Even within such qualitative contexts, however, researchers can still silence participants by their questions and responses. For example, researchers who are uncomfortable with the subject matter may find it difficult to broach sensitive topics and, even unconsciously, ‘censor’ what is able to be discussed. Others may intentionally curtail participants’ ability to talk about what they most want to talk about in favour of discussing what they, the researchers, assume to be of interest or significance. Another way in which silencing may occur is when ethics committees, acting as the gatekeepers protecting research subjects, have insisted researchers agree not to ask participants about the rape itself on the assumption that this may be traumatising. In practice such an insistence can effectively silence participants from speaking about the things they most want and need to be able to voice. In my experience, I had my anxieties firmly confronted when, one after another, participants in a research study began voluntarily disclosing details regarding how they had experienced the actual attack itself. What some said was that this was the only time they had felt free to tell the whole story, and had not been concerned about how such telling might impact on the listener (Jordan 2008). In such circumstances insisting that they ‘shut up’ in order not to contravene perceived, external ethical anxieties seemed inappropriate, and could have been felt as yet another form of silencing echoing their experience with the rapist.
   

   Feminist interviewing practices lend themselves particularly to creating a research environment within which participants may feel able to break their silence regarding a rape incident itself, or aspects associated with it. This is because, as other rape researchers have noted, ‘feminist interviewing attunes to the emotionality of women’s lived experiences’ (Campbell
   et al
   . 2010). The ability to listen and validate, and to refrain from objectifying participants, is an important aspect of feminist methodologies (Campbell
   et al
   . 2009; Fonow and Cook 1991; Hollway and Jefferson 2000). There is a danger that those researching traumatic experiences such as rape and child sexual abuse may cling to notions of researcher objectivity as a means of insulating or immunising themselves from the contagion of emotion (Ellis 1996).
   

   Acknowledging the impacts of researching rape, and using the emotions generated as further material for reflection and analysis, stands in direct contrast to positivist exhortations to eliminate researcher subjectivities. Studies conducted in the US by teams led by Rebecca Campbell demonstrate the importance of recognising the emotional realities accompanying rape research for both interviewees and interviewers. In relation to interviewees, Campbell
   et al
   . (2010) studied narrative data from 92 rape survivors to explore how they were affected by participating in research interviews. They found that the overwhelming majority experienced the interview positively, with the
   burden of surviving rape
   eased by having someone willing to listen and fully hear their story (Campbell
   et al
   . 2010: 76). This finding echoes that of other feminist researchers (e.g. Jordan 2008; Kelly 1988; Stanko 1990), reinforcing the power of being gifted a context within which the speaking of the unspeakable is encouraged. This sentiment was reinforced by Susan Brison, who, while introducing her own survivor narrative, observed how:
   

   the trauma survivor must find empathic listeners in order to carry on. Piecing together a shattered self requires a process of remembering and working through in which speech and affect converge in a trauma narrative . . . how saying something about the memory does something to it.
   

   (Brison: x–xi)
   

   Interviewers may also experience a need to find ‘empathic listeners’ as they grapple with the complex emotional reactions triggered through participating in research on sexual violence. Campbell’s ‘research on the researchers’ highlighted the ways in which exposure to the realities of rape generated powerful emotional responses, similar to the secondary or vicarious victimisation acknowledged as affecting those close to trauma victims (Campbell 2002). Recognising the value of emotional responses in shaping the research process itself, as well as informing analysis and interpretation, helps in validating the very experiencing of such emotions while also suggesting a potential need for the availability of support for interviewers (Ellis 1996). Denying the existence and value of emotional responses, or dismissing them as compromising and dangerous, serves to silence a significant dimension increasingly acknowledged by researchers of trauma and violence (Campbell 2002; Ellis 1996; Jordan 2008; Kelly 1988; Liebling and Stanko 2001).
   

   A tangential but related issue involves recognising how the silencing of rape researchers can operate as a parallel process to the silencing of rape victims. This can be experienced in the difficulties associated with having studies on sexual violence funded and prioritised, as well as in the struggles to find publishers for rape research. The confusing of rape and sex extends into rape, like sex, being viewed as a taboo area for public discussion, a source of discomfort inviting suppression. Many a dinner party conversation has ground to a poignant silence when, asked what I research, I’ve replied ‘rape’, while my hosts have no doubt wished I had been able to reply, ‘rose cultivation’ or ‘endangered trout conservation’. Attempts to silence researchers on rape may occur when they are subjected to attack for being feminist and therefore not objective – a refrain harking back to the male gods of positivism and their
   

   ‘owning’ of the truth. Interviewers may be expected to silence their own emotional responses to what they are hearing, and respond as neutrally as possible. Further assaults on their ‘objectivity’ are made should a researcher disclose her own victimisation experiences, meaning that instead many will self-silence rather than risk the refutation of their research on these grounds. The ability to have rape research findings presented in the media is another area fraught with difficulty, and is the last silencing agent we will now
   

   consider.
   

2. The media
   

All of the silencing agents discussed are exposed to and affected by media representations of sexual violence, with the various forms of media being widely recognised as ‘a key arena in which rape is defined’ (Kitzinger 2009: 74). What is evident is how selectively reported the crime of rape is, and the potential this holds for distorting awareness and understanding of rape (Boyle 2005; Lees 1995). The media’s search for newsworthiness dictates that certain kinds of rape stories are more likely to receive journalists’ attention than others, which will remain silenced and invisible. This results in a privileging of rape stories involving extreme forms of violence, stranger attacks and serial rape. The most typical and prevalent rapes – those committed against women by their partners, husbands and boyfriends – are the least likely to receive media attention (Howe 1998; Meyers 1997). Newspapers justify this on the basis that they are fed crime stories by the police, and while there is some truth in this, in practice a self-fulfilling spiral is the end product. The police assess reported rapes against the ‘real rape’ stereotype and see only those conforming as newsworthy, meaning newspapers publish accounts of these and reinforce views that these are the only ‘real rapes’, and so it goes on. Such a process conveys a powerful message to victims of other kinds of rape, impacting on the extent to which they feel able to divulge it as well as on how those they disclose to respond.

Concern regarding media treatment of rape has also been voiced in recent years over the disproportionate attention given to accounts of ‘false complaints’ (Gavey and Gow 2001; Kitzinger 2009). This tendency reflects centuries-old attitudes portraying women and children as vexatious liars (Jordan 2004; Lees 1997; Taslitz 1999). Such an emphasis has dangerous consequences. In suggesting that false complaints are numerous, the emphasis is placed on women’s lack of veracity in ways that continue to obscure and silence the realities of rape. This reinforces historical stereotypes of lying women, influencing everyone (including potential jurors) and also serving as a warning to victims of rape that speaking out carries the risk of being disbelieved. As a consequence, both individual victims as well as the wider truths around rape are silenced.

Before concluding this
section it is important to note also the positives associated with changing media depictions of rape, for the news is not all bad. Growing media awareness of rape has helped to bring into public discourse behaviours and experiences that were previously seen as ‘unspeakable’. While

early recognition of rape in the 1970s was often reflected in sensationalist and overtly sexist depictions, these have largely been replaced by increased recognition of rape as a serious issue (Soothill and Walby 1991; Kitzinger 2009). There have been occasions where media coverage has been instrumental in helping to achieve legal and criminal justice reforms. For example, outrage following the televised screening of the 1983 documentary in the United Kingdom showing police interrogating a rape victim stimulated national debate and inquiries, with similar responses and government actions evident in New Zealand in the wake of media exposure regarding police officers who rape. (See Kitzinger 2009 for further examples.) It is also important to recognise the ways in which exposing previously hidden realities in the media helps to create a climate within which victims may feel encouraged to speak out, as well as equipping them at times with the tools and language needed to facilitate disclosure (Kitzinger 2009).

A complex and multifaceted relationship therefore exists between the media and rape. While positive changes have occurred in their reporting and representation, nevertheless the potential remains for them to still play a significant silencing role in relation to rape. This is achieved in part through what they focus on (for example, false allegations, stranger attacks) as well as through an incident-specific focus that fails to engage in wider critiques of the societal attitudes that support and perpetuate rape (Howe 1998; Kitzinger 2009; Meyers 1997; Young 1998). This ultimately means they may be unwitting colluders in the continuing denial of the realities not only of rape, but of all the many forms of violence and oppression of women that silently scream to be seen and heard.

The silencing continues

So far the primary aim of
this chapter has been to explore and examine ways in which, despite the silence of rape being broken, the silencing of rape still continues. In each of the areas canvassed it is evident that progress has been made and advances in knowledge and understanding achieved, yet so much more remains to be done.

It is evident, for example, that women still struggle to name their experiences as rape, and to define themselves as victims. More than 20 years after Liz Kelly developed the continuum of sexual violence, it is apparent that unwanted sexual behaviour continues to be a prevalent feature in heterosexual relationships with notions of male sexual entitlement impacting on women (Gavey 2005; Patton and Mannison 1998). Despite reforms, and some improvements in police responsiveness, there is still often a reluctance to report rape and involve the police, with many continuing to fear being blamed or disbelieved, and barriers to reporting rape identified as prevalent 30 years ago still influential in contemporary settings (Sable
et al
. 2006). Legal reforms seem even less impactful in improving victims/survivors’ experiences, with trial processes continuing to feel like a ‘second rape’. Such negative experiences, combined with dismal prospects of cases resulting in offenders being convicted, not only silence these particular victims but operate in ways

that mute others from coming forward. While intimate partner violence is attracting greater recognition, incidents of marital and partner rape are less openly acknowledged, with sexual violence continuing to be the silent and less visible component within ‘family’ and ‘domestic’ violence (Kelly and Regan 2001). None of the above should be surprising given how entrenched and embedded rape myths and victim-blaming attitudes have proven to be, and how resistant they are to substantial change (Amnesty International 2005; Brown and Horvath 2009; Lovett and Horvath 2009; Temkin and Krahe´ 2008). An implicit assumption underlying much of this
chapter has been that breaking the silence is a positive eventuality, something to encourage and promote. This is a reasonable assumption given what we already know regarding the dangers of repression and the terrors associated with ‘unspeakability’. A word of caution is needed, however, in order to allow space for recognising the agency and autonomy of victims/survivors and respecting their decision-making regarding when and how to speak. There are times when opting for silence may be a sensible, understandable choice,