Effective, Perhaps, but Regressive
In many of the classes I teach, we inevitably get around to the question of violence against women, of sexual assault, and public harassment.
In recent years, we have seen these questions taken on in a variety of settings. TV shows take them as storylines. In October 1977, All in the Family dealt with Edith being raped in “Edith’s 50th Birthday.” In November 1998, a two-part episode of Filicity takes a nuanced look at assault and consent in “Drawing the Line.” And, of course, Law & Order SVU addresses all of these. Hollywood and indie films do, too. For example, the 1998 film The Accused represents a real-life story, a horrendous gang rape, and the horrendous after effects. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) takes a complicated look at love and assault. The website Filmabout It offers a database of films that take on rape and assault. Documentaries such as “Hey…Shorty!” (2009) look at, specifically, women of color and their experiences on the street. Very recently, The Bystander Moment examines rape and sexual assault, and offers a call to action. The 1988 doc called War Zone also addressed street harassment.
It’s a common enough strategy to ask men why they’re doing what they’re doing to the women. They ask them if they have a mother, an aunt, a sister, a daughter, or a friend. And then, the coup de grâce, they ask how they would feel if the person being harassed were their relative or friend. How would they feel if their mother were being harassed in public? How would they react if their daughter were being attacked?
It generally stops them in their tracks. Of course, they would not want their mother to be subjected to such behavior, to such language. Of course, they would defend their daughter — perhaps even violently — if she were being accosted. It is a fact of patriarchal society that men must defend their women from other men.
The strategy quite often gets them to see the situation from a new perspective. It, at the very least, gets them to acknowledge their discomfort in the scenario. Whether or not it has long-term effects, we don’t know. To my knowledge, no follow-up documentary has been made — Sexual Assaulters: Where Are They Now?
Nevertheless, even though the strategy may be effective, I still struggle with it as a strategy. Why? What could be the problem? I know that academics get accused — sometimes justly — for getting lost in the ideal and not seeing the practical. If it stops men from engaging in these behaviors, who could object?
Well, this particular practice continues to objectify the women. It continues to define women in relation to men, to the men in their lives. It casts men as defending what is theirs. It perpetuates the idea that women are not subjects in and of themselves, but they are only subjects when in relation to a man.
The distinction between subject and object has been, and remains, at the root of these kinds of assaults. The man doing the harassing sees the woman or girl as an object, as an object of his desire. At the very least as the object of his comments or assault.
And evidence shows quite clearly that objectification is crucial in all kinds of crime, from enslavement, to rape, to murder. The perpetrator simply does not see that person as a person. They are objects and not subjects. Historians know this. They are aware that slave holders generally did not see slaves a people, as subjects with their own complex lives. Certainly not as equals to themselves. Psychologists know this. Those who study serial murderers or serial rapists understand the ways in which the perpetrators objectify their victims. They are objects. They are beneath their consideration as subjects. Cops know this. They know that criminals do not see their “marks” as subjects.
Of course, crimes occur between friends, lovers, and family members. One cannot say that they do see their victims as subjects, that the perpetrators do not know the hopes, dreams, and desires of their victims. Yes, sexual assault can occur between subjects.
In 1984, Cheryl Benard and Edit Schlaffer published “‘The Man in the Street’: Why He Harasses” (published in Feminist Frameworks). They also suggest that the condition that allows men to harass women in public spaces is that they do not see them as subject. Furthermore, they conclude that the effect of harassment (even if it is not the intent) is to make women uncomfortable, to remind them at all times that they are sexual objects to men, and that they will never be equal participants in public life.
And so, I understand that reminding men that the woman being sexually assaulted might be their own relative can be an effective strategy. And I understand that the reminder just might alter that man’s behavior in the future (though I have yet to see any proof). But I also understand that that reminder perpetuates the very root of the problem — they only see the women as theirs, as an object under their protection. At the same time, I understand that it is much more difficult to convince someone to see another human being as a subject, as a person in their own right, as someone with intrinsic value. And maybe that just has to be a longer term goal.
In the meantime, what if that were your mother? Would you want someone talking to her like that?….
Ritch Calvin is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of a book on feminist science fiction and editor of a collection of essays on Gilmore Girls.
