Prevention Webinar Series Frameworks' 20062007

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Prevention Webinar Series Frameworks.
2006-2007

• framework freym-wurk (Pronunciation Key)  n.
• A structure for supporting or enclosing something
  else, especially a skeletal support used as the
  basis for something being constructed.
• An external work platform a scaffold.
• A fundamental structure, as for a written work.
• A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
  practices that constitutes a way of viewing
  reality.

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Rape CultureNovember 8, 2006
Feminist Theory
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Rape Culture

• Overview Historical Perspective

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Rape culture - definition

• Rape culture is a term used to denote a culture
  in which rape and other sexual violence is common
  and in which prevalent attitudes, norms,
  practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse,
  or encourage sexualized violence. Within the
  paradigm, acts of "harmless" sexism are commonly
  employed to validate and rationalize normative
  misogynistic practices for instance, sexist
  jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women
  or men and an accompanying disregard for their
  well-being, which ultimately make their rape and
  abuse seem acceptable.

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Origination of the terminology

• The term is widely used within women's studies
  and feminism. In a 1992 paper in the Journal of
  Social Issues entitled "A Feminist Redefinition
  of Rape and Sexual Assault Historical
  Foundations and Change," Patricia Donat and John
  D'Emilio suggested that the term originated as
  "rape-supportive culture" in Susan Brownmiller's
  1975 book Against Our Will Men, Women, and Rape

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Against Our Will

• Susan Brownmiller
• 1975

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Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will

• we must look toward those elements in our
  culture that promote and propagandize these
  attitudes, which offer men, and in particular,
  impressionable adolescent males who form the
  potential raping population the ideology and
  psychological encouragement to commit their acts
  of aggression without awareness for the most
  part, that they have committed a punishable
  crime, let alone a moral wrong.

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I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which
There Is No Rape 1983

• Andrea Dworkin

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Andrea Dworkin I want a 24-hour truce

• Every three minutes a woman is being raped.
  Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten.
  There is nothing abstract about it. It is
  happening right now as I am speaking. And it is
  happening for a simple reason. There is nothing
  complex and difficult about the reason. Men are
  doing it, because of the kind of power that men
  have over women. That power is real, concrete,
  exercised from one body to another body,
  exercised by someone who feels he has a right to
  exercise it, exercised in public and exercised in
  private. It is the sum and substance of women's
  oppression.

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Media and gender

• Killing Us Softly 1979Still Killing Us
  Softly 1987Killing Us Softly 3 2000
• Jean Kilbourne

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(No Transcript)
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Transforming a Rape Culture

• 1993
• Buchwald, Fletcher Roth

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Rape Culture

• Theoretical Context

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Theoretical Perspectives

• Feminist-based theories
• Patriarchal culture and the unequal power
  distribution between women and men contributing
  to a culture in which sexism and rape are logical
  outcomes
• Socialization  theories
• Emphasize gender socialization processes that
  promote a rape supportive culture
• Public health theories
• Prevention rather than treatment through
  surveillance and the promotion of healthy
  behaviors.
• Psychopathology theories
• People who rape are psychologically maladjusted

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Criticisms of the paradigm

• The conceptualization of rape culture has been
  criticized by various writers for various reasons
• Two opposing critiques
• Christina Hoff Sommers, has attempted to disprove
  the existence of rape culture, arguing that rape
  is over reported and overemphasized.
• Possible backlash in general to feminism
• Bell hooks, has criticized the rape culture
  paradigm on the grounds that it ignores rape's
  place in an overarching "culture of violence".
  Critics such as bell say that singling out rape
  and its social underpinnings from other forms of
  violence makes efforts to combat rape less
  effective and neglects or trivializes other forms
  of violence.
• Critique of limitation of feminism as not
  inclusive or far reaching

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Christina Hoff Sommers

• (is an American author who researches culture,
  adolescents, and morality in American society.
  Her best known books are Who Stole Feminism How
  Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against
  Boys How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young
  Men. A former university philosophy professor in
  ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American
  Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research,
  and a member of the Board of Advisors of the
  Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

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Who Stole Feminism 1994

• To view rape as a crime of gender bias
  (encouraged by a patriarchy that looks with
  tolerance on the victimization of women) is
  perversely to miss its true nature. Rape is
  perpetrated by criminals, which is to say, it is
  perpetrated by people who are wont to gratify
  themselves in criminal ways and who care very
  little about the suffering they inflict on
  others. That most violence is male isn't news.
  But very little of it appears to be misogynist.
  Gender feminist ideologues bemuse and alarm the
  public with inflated statistics. And they have
  made no case for the claim that violence against
  women is symptomatic of a deeply misogynist
  culture.

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bell hooks

• is an African American intellectual feminist
  and social activist. hooks focuses on the
  interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and
  their ability to produce and perpetuate systems
  of oppression and domination. She has published
  over thirty books and numerous scholarly and
  mainstream articles, appeared in several
  documentary films, and participated in various
  public lectures. Primarily through a black female
  perspective, hooks addresses race, class, and
  gender in education, art, history, sexuality,
  mass media, and feminism.

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Talking Backthinking feminist - thinking black
1989

• Feminist thinkers engaged in radically
  provisioning central tenets of feminist thought
  must continually emphasize the importance of sex,
  race and class as factors which together
  determine the social construction of femaleness,
  as it has been so deeply ingrained in the
  consciousness of many women active in feminist
  movement that gender is the sole factor
  determining destiny.

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Sexual Violence Continuum

• A visual depiction of rape culture

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Definitions

• continuum (k n-t n y - m)  Pronunciation Key
  n. pl.
• A continuous extent, succession, or whole, no
  part of which can be distinguished from
  neighboring parts except by arbitrary division
• sexual (s k sh - l)  Pronunciation Key  
  adj.
• Of, relating to, involving, or characteristic of
  sex, sexuality, the sexes, or the sex organs and
  their functions.
• violence (v -l ns)  Pronunciation Key   n.
  
• Physical force exerted for the purpose of
  violating, damaging, or abusing crimes of
  violence.
• The act or an instance of violent action or
  behavior.
• Abusive or unjust exercise of power.

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Traditional depictions of SV Continuum

• Usually depicted as straight line or spiral
• Used by rape crisis centers as an educational
  tool
• Can be linked directly to rape Culture analysis

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Sexual violence includes but is not limited too
Rape
Statutory Rape
Rape/Murder
Child Rape
Incest
Sexual Harassment
Misogynistic Practices
Victim blaming
Sexist Jokes
Limited opportunities for women and girls
Rigid Gender Roles
Note This is not an attempt to create a
hierarchical list of sexually violating behavior
but rather to show the connection between a wide
range of behaviors which may not normally be
recognized within our society as sexual violence
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Sexual Violence includesbut is not limited to
Brushing Against Body
Rape
Grabbing/Touching
Torture
Males should be in control
Murder
Cat Calls
Obscene Phone Calls
Looks/Leers
Jokes
Victims are to blame
Women should be polite
Harassment
Women/children are less valuable
Violence is normal
Lydia Guy 2003
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Sexual Violence Continuum
SAAW 1994
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Sexual Violence Continuum
Cultural Norms
Sexualized Media Depictions
Rigid Gender Roles
Sexist Jokes
Gender Violence normalized
Voyeurism
Misogynistic Practices
Racism
Sexual Harassment
Sexism
Ableism
Oppression
Rape/ Murder
Sexual Exploitation
Heterosexism/ Homophobia
Anti-Semitism
Partner Rape
Flashing
Classism
Marital Rape
Rape
Date Rape
Incest
Child Rape
Statutory Rape
Societal Norms
Lydia Guy 2006
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Sexual violence continuum

• Attempts to show connection between all forms of
  oppression and sexual violence as opposed to
  sexism
• Attempts to be more explicit about the non-linear
  and compounding nature of sexual violence
• Attempts to depict connection between cultural
  and societal norms more explicitly.
• Is more representative of bell hooks critique
  than classic feminist model

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Practical Application
Rape Culture
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Implications of incorporating feminist theory
into your framework

• Frame work is inherently both a social and
  political analysis
• Anti-rape movement vs. Sexual Assault Service
  Delivery System
• Backlash/resistance to feminist theory
• Heavy on analysis/light on specific programmatic
  direction

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Rape Culture as the framework for prevention
efforts

• Will focus on societal as opposed to individual
  interventions
• Culture
• attitudes, norms, practices, and media which
  condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage
  sexualized violence
• Address a continuum of sexually violating
  behaviors on the basis that they are contributory
  to a rape culture.
• Sexism/Gender Inequity
• Misogyny
• Will view sexual violence as part of a continuum
  of behaviors

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Prevention is a permanent truce.
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• "And on that day, the day of truce, that day when
  not one woman is raped, we will begin the real
  practice of equality, because we can't begin it
  before that day. Before that day it means
  nothing, because it is nothing It is not real
  It is not true.
• Andrea Dworkin 1983 I want a 24hour truce

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Questions, Thought Comments

• Lydia Guy
• lydia_at_wcsap.org
• [phone]

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Evaluations

• You will receive an email with the link to
  complete the evaluation

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References

• Against our will
• Men, Women and Rape
• Susan Brownmiller
• Encyclopedia of Feminism
• Lisa Tuttle
• Feminism is for Everybody
• bell hooks
• Feminist Theory
• From Margin to Center
• bell hooks

• I want a 24-hour truce
• Andrea Dworkin
• Talking Back
• thinking feminist - thinking black
• bell hooks
• Who Stole Feminism
• How Women Have Betrayed Women
• Christina Hoff Sommers
• Transforming a Rape Culture
• Buchwald, Fletcher Roth