Handbook on Sexual Violence (63 page)

essential for their safety and self-preservation.

Further discussion is also needed concerning what comes next after breaking the silence. What language do we use to give voice to these realities? How to speak of rape poses immense challenges given the diversity and complexity of the range of experiences subsumed beneath this small four- lettered word, as well as the variety of ways in which rape can impact on victims. Some complainants feel so ashamed they cannot bear to continue talking to the police, since:

These are things we don’t talk about, language you don’t use, certainly not with a stranger – talking about my vagina, my body – I could barely find words for what they wanted, needed, me to tell them about.

(quoted in McMillan and Thomas 2009: 272)

Before resolving the difficulties of deciding how to speak of rape, those victimised by rape need some sense of themselves as able and entitled to speak and give voice, but what is ‘voice’? Feminist sociologist Shulamit Reinharz describes ‘voice’ as:

having the ability, the means, and the right to express oneself, one’s mind, and one’s will. If an individual does not have these abilities, means, or rights, he or she is silent.

(Reinharz 1994: 180)

Furthermore, is it responsible to encourage speaking out when there is no guarantee of the capacity of others to listen? What does it mean if we allow ourselves to truly hear the voices of those who have been raped? How do we assure them that they have been heard, believed? This raises issues regarding the importance of empathy and validation in the individual listener as well as prompting questions regarding the responsibilities associated with bearing witness to the atrocity of rape. Declaring ourselves willing to listen and know about rape carries a responsibility to respond in ways not only affirming to the

individual victim/survivor but also that challenge the gendered and structural inequalities that give rise to rape. The silence of rape needs to be broken by all of us, not just its latest victims.

Conclusion

This
chapter speaks of that which may no longer be unspeakable but is still too often unspoken. In considering the ways in which women’s voices around rape may still be silenced, attention was focused on the key ‘muting’ agents involved. There have been positive advances since feminists exposed many of the realities regarding violence against women and began challenging the most oppressive forms of gender inequality. Unsurprisingly, such exposure was not welcomed by those directly wielding, or even benefiting from, such power and control. As the silence around rape began to be broken, attempts were made to silence those doing the speaking, and the past few decades have seen recurring cycles occurring of ‘speak the truth/silence the truth’.

To speak of the silence surrounding rape evokes both promise and despair

– despair that a decade into the twenty-first century such silence is still so evident alongside the reassurance that this is no longer an absolute silence, that in some contexts at least the crime of rape can be named. There is power in the act of naming for ‘to speak and to be heard is to have power over one’s life. To be silenced is to have that power denied’ (Ahrens 2006: 263). Given that, as many feminists have observed (e.g. Brownmiller 1975; MacKinnon 1987), rape functions as a tool of oppression, a means for keeping women subordinate, the inevitable question is: ‘How, then, can we expect women to break the silence about the very experience used to reinforce powerlessness?’ (Ahrens 2006: 263). That women do speak out, fight back and resist attests to the capacity for individual agency and survival, and is ultimately empowering in demonstrating that ‘the body-self can be rewritten, that it is not doomed to perpetuate and replicate existing power structures’ (Cahill 2001: 205).

Anger that women should presume to speak ran high in some quarters, as a mid-1990s US example chillingly reveals. In 1995 an email listing 75 reasons ‘why women (bitches) should not have freedom of speech’ was sent by four Cornell University freshmen to 20 friends, then circulated so widely that it crashed at least three campus email systems. Among the reasons on the list were the following:

11. If my dick’s in her mouth, she can’t talk anyway.

38. If she can’t speak, she can’t cry rape.

47. Nothing should come out of a woman’s mouth, SWALLOW BITCH.

(quoted in Raine 1998: 216)

When the university administrators investigated this incident, they faced strong opposition on two fronts – from women’s groups outraged when no action was taken against the students; and from advocates of free speech outraged that there was even an investigation. The students concerned, as well as responding that it was only a joke, also stated in their defence that every

saying had been obtained from such sources as song lyrics, comedians’ acts, television shows and T-shirt slogans – these were not only their views, but the sentiments and stereotypes of the society they (and we) live in. The message emanating from its patriarchal core is clear: ‘The only good woman is a silent woman.’

It is no surprise that feminist critiques and analyses met with strong resistance. The backlash against feminism speaks not only in the ugly voice of overt violence but also in more insidious ways, such as by undermining the credibility of all those seeking greater recognition of, and support for, those victimised by rape and sexual assault. While the victims risk depiction as outright liars or sufferers of its more benevolent form, ‘false memory syndrome’ (Herman and Harvey 1993; Porter
et al
. 1999), those advocating on their behalf can also face attempts to silence them. In the case of agencies supporting victims of rape and child sexual abuse, for instance, this can be manifest in low levels, or even withdrawal of, funding. Thus while the rhetoric of victims’ rights receives government attention, manifest in charters and policies receiving positive media acclaim, financial support for agencies supporting victims continues to be a major area of struggle and neglect (Humphreys 2010). Fostering state dependency and competition between agencies for scarce resources can work both to exert control and silence critique and protest.

Resistance to change has also been a feature within criminal justice system agencies. While the rhetoric of reform may be voiced, in practice it is hard to release the tenacious grip of traditionally conservative and masculinist attitudes.

Law is naturally conservative; it relies on precedent and background assumptions, and seeks interpretations consistent with those assump- tions. Legal change is, accordingly, generally incremental. It is just enough reform to look good to large segments of the public, to preserve the system from collapse, and to make everyone feel proud, but not enough reform as to wreak radical change ... Patriarchal rape tales will not give up the ghost easily.

(Taslitz 1999: 42)

Internationally inquiries and commissions come and go, their findings repeatedly documenting how dire the situation is and advocating the urgent need for reform, before lapsing back into the silence of apathy and collusion. Government funding for such inquiries to be conducted may be hard won, but is typically granted and broadcast amidst a fanfare of pledges and promises signalling a commitment to change. Less well publicised is the eventual lack of follow-through to funding and implementing the recommendations deemed necessary for real change to occur. In this way the rhetoric of change is upheld while underlying structures and realities remain largely intact, demonstrating what Liz Kelly has identified as ‘the paradoxical way in which feminist knowledge both informs reform processes and is simultaneously disavowed’ (Kelly 2008: 271–2).

While feminist campaigns have seen some advances made, their impacts

have not been universally experienced. Greater attention needs to be given to those groups at greater risk of being silenced; those whose particular vulnerabilities are interpreted as further undermining their credibility and legitimacy as victims. These include indigenous and ethnic minorities, sex workers, lesbians, women with disabilities, and those with histories of repeat victimisation.

Centuries of silencing of women’s voices is not easily broken, and just as the speaking out needs to continue, we can also expect to see attempts to silence continuing also. A particularly insidious silencing device is the refrain that asserts women and men now live equally in a post-feminist world characterised by gender symmetry surrounding violence. Listen hard, for from the silence surrounding rape sneers a voice: ‘Ha! Patriarchy is not yet dead!’

Further reading

For an early and insightful analysis of the historical silencing of rape victims, there is no better starting point than Susan Brownmiller’s book,
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape
(1975). Inspiring accounts of how individual women find the courage to speak and to survive include: Susan Brison,
Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self
(2002); Jan Jordan,
Serial Survivors: Women’s Narratives of Surviving Rape
(2008); Nancy Venable Raine,
After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back
(1998): and Alice Sebold’s memoir,
Lucky
(1999). To understand more fully the reasons why women may self- silence, read Liz Kelly’s book
Surviving Sexual Violence
(1988) and also Nicola Gavey’s analysis in
Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape
(2005). Good coverage of how stereotypical attitudes towards sexual violence continue to affect victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system can be found in
Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap: A Question of Attitude (
Jennifer Temkin and Barbara Krahe´ (2008)), while a range of useful, contemporary analyses can be found in Miranda Horvath and Jennifer Brown (eds)
Rape: Challenging Contemporary Thinking
(2009).

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