In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defence If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from ...the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it on herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.
It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of the pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.
Judith Herman - Trauma and Recovery
-------------
"The theory of aggressive male domination over women as a natural right is so deeply embedded in our cultural value system that all recent attempts to expose it - in movies, television commercials or even in children's textbooks - have barely managed to scratch the surface. As I see it, the problem is not that polarized role playing (man as doer; woman as bystander) and exaggerated portrayals of the female body as a passive sex object are simply 'demeaning' to women's dignity and self-conception, or that such portrayals fail to provide positive role models for young girls, but that cultural sexism is a conscious form of female degradation designed to boost the male ego by offering 'proof' of his native superiority (and female inferiority) everywhere he looks.
critics of the women's movement, when they are not faulting us for being slovenly, straggly-haired, construction-booted, whiny sore losers who refuse to accept our female responsibilities, often profess to see a certain inexplicable Victorian primness and anti-sexual prudery in our attitudes and responses. 'come on, gals,' they say in essence, 'don't you know that your battle for female liberation is part of our larger battle for sexual liberation? free yourselves from all your old hang-ups! stop pretending that you are actually offended by those four-letter words and animal noises we grunt in your direction on the street in appreciation of your womanly charms. when we plaster your faceless naked body on the cover of our slick magazines, which sell millions of copies, we do it in sensual obeisance to your timeless beauty - which, by our estimation, ceases to be timeless at age twenty or there abouts.
If we feel the need for a little fun and go out and rent the body of a prostitute for a half hour or so, we are merely engaging in a mutual act between two consenting adults, and what's it got to do with you? when we turn our movie theatres into showcases for pornographic films and convert our bookstores to outlets for mass-produced obscene smut, not only should you marvel at the wonders of our free- enterprise system, but you should applaud us for pushing back the barriers of repressive middle-class morality, and for our strenuous defense of all the civil liberties you hold so dear, because we have made obscenity the new frontier in defense of freedom of speech, that noble liberal tradition. and surely you're not against civil liberties and freedom of speech, now, are you?'
"ALL WOMEN WANT TO BE RAPED
NO WOMAN CAN BE RAPED AGAINST HER WILL
SHE WAS ASKING FOR IT
IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE RAPED, YOU MIGHT AS WELL RELAX AND ENJOY IT"
these are the deadly male myths of rape, the distorted proverbs that govern female sexuality. these myths are at the heart of our discussion, for they are the beliefs that most men hold, and the nature of male power is such that they have managed to convince many women. for to make a woman a willing participant in there own defeat is half the battle. cloaked in intricate phraseology, the male myths of rape appear as cornerstones in most pseudo scientific inquiries into female sexuality; they are quoted by many so-called 'experts' on the sex offender. they crop up in literature; they charge the cannons of the dirty jokesters. they deliberately obscure the true nature of rape.
There is good reason for men to hold tenaciously to the notion that 'all women want to be raped.' because rape is an act that men do in the name of their masculinity, it is in their interest to believe that women also want rape done, in the name of femininity. in the dichotomy that they have established, one does and one 'is done to'. this belief is more that arrogant insensitivity; it is a belief in the supreme rightness of male power.
'She was asking for it' is the classic way a rapist shifts the burden of blame from himself to his victim. The popularity of the belief that a woman seduces of 'cock-teases' a man into rape, or precipitates a rape by incautious behaviour, is part of the smoke screen that men throw up to obscure their actions.
The insecurity of women runs so deep that many, possibly most, rape victims agonize afterwards in an effort to uncover what it was in their behaviour, their manner, their dress that triggered this awful act against them.
Do women want to be raped? Do we crave humiliation, degradation and violation of our bodily integrity? Do we psychologically need to be seized, taken, ravished and ravaged? Must a feminist deal with this preposterous question? The sad answer is yes, it must be dealt with, because the popular culture that we inhabit, absorb, and even contribute to, has so decreed. actually, as we examine it, the cultural messages often conflict. Sometimes the idea is floated that all women want to be raped and sometimes we hear that there is no such thing as rape at all, that the cry of rape is merely the cry of female vengeance in post-coital spite. either way, the woman is at fault.
'but the irony, of course, is that while men successfully convinced each other and us that women cry rape with ease and glee, the reality is that victimized women have always been reluctant to report the crime and seek legal justice - because of the shame of public exposure, because of that complex double standard that makes a female feel culpable, even responsible, for any act of sexual aggression committed against her, because of possible retribution from the assailant, and because women have been presented with sufficient evidence to come to the realistic conclusion that their accounts are received with harsh cynicism that forms the first line of male defence.'
Susan Brownmiller
--------
No comments:
Post a Comment