Following up on my previous post and cultural sensitivity an even shorter way to say it might be that while different cultures often have different values, and even value systems, and while (as a minor fan of Ruth Benedict) I’m aware that it’s difficult for someone with one cultural value system to make moral declarations of another, I think its safe to say blaming victims of sexual assault is pretty universal.
And so to the extent blaming the victim is a universal cultural value (as common to Louisiana as Liberia, as common to feminists as anti-feminists) there’s no need to tiptoe while confronting victim blaming.
Yes, we should strive to be sensitive in our approaches to changing the narratives from blaming victims to blaming perpetrators. And so it might be necessary to recognize that in more overtly patriarchal “shame-based” or “honor-based” societies it’s not just the victim herself but her father and family who are blamed. And that the patriarchal connection to victim-blaming is only more subtly veiled, but no less solid, in nominally “1st-World,” and/or “guilt-based” cultures like, oh, say, Maryland.
But at the end of the day the responsible parties are the parties that commit the fucking crimes and not the victims of those crimes. Thus regardless of culture it’s long past time to hold the perpetrators rather than victims (however broadly or narrowly one chooses to define “victim”) responsible.
Submitted by 3082 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-07-26 19:15.
Actually Fig, I think women's liberation IS in many ways easier in guilt based cultures, than in shame based cultures.
True women are often judged extremely harshly in heavily guilty oriented cultures such as Puritans, modern Ashkenazi Jews (Hebrews were probably more shame oriented) or Catholic Irish. But they are rarely if ever locked in the house for fear that the family be shamed if they step out of line or are even victimized by somebody else.
Take for example the earliest feminist and suffragette movements, when the ability of women to reason and make moral judgments was central to the debate. In shame based cultures their actual abilities wouldn't matter. If goes outside unveiled, is raped, isn't infibulated or footbound, or whatever else, the family is going to be shamed either way.
Sometimes the shame factor even makes it unthinkable to have the conversation. Whereas in a guilt framework, it is easier to argue that so and so did nothing wrong.
[Hi Red. While I happen to agree completely not everyone does. So I'm trying to build a universal case: blaming the victim(s) universally misses the point because blame lies with the perpetrator(s). Thanks! --fl]
Submitted by 3082 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-07-27 03:03.
While I agree completely the blame for sexual assault lies with the perpetrator(s), changing the frame of mind that contends that the victim is at fault is not as easy as simply asserting that the perpetrator is at fault.
I studied (not extensively) the effect of rape on the social fabric and the reason why it is being used as a tool of war in the context of Darfur, which is a shame based culture.
I don´t want to generalize to all ¨shame based cultures¨, but in the context of Darfur it is the responsibility of the woman´s guardian (father, brother or husband) to keep her safe and pure. It is part of his masculinity, his identity as a man. Hence, when a woman is raped or has consentual sexual relations outside of marriage, culturally, her ¨guardian¨ is seen to have failed in his charge of protecting/controlling her. He has failed as a man, which is why it brings shame on the family. This is the basis of rejecting women/girls who have been raped. It isn´t really about ¨blaming¨ the victim. It is about the man´s inability to ¨be a man¨.
Of course, this particular view of masculinity is based in the idea that women are inferior and that men can´t control themselves sexually. However, the specifics are different than in ¨guilt based cultures¨, and I think it is important to keep that in mind.
[Nicely put, Christina. That's the piece I kept missing when I was trying to explain it. In our theoretically non-shame-based culture we say it's the woman who's ruined, and the woman who's behavior and/or weakness is responsible for her sexual assault, right? And often you'll see fantasy and even realities where men "hate fuck" or outright rape women not for their own sexual gratification but for the power dynamic of "violating" and specifically demeaning them.
And you're corroborating what I've heard elsewhere: that in, say, Darfur, it's the father who's ruined, and the father who's behavior and/or weakness is said to be responsible for "his" woman or girl's sexual assault. And yes, in Darfur as, perhaps, in Liberia but also in Europe (Bosnia, say, during the war) and America, men commit rape against their enemy's women and girls specifically to demean and debase the women, sure, but as you say even more to demean and debase the men who can't protect them.
In other words, in what's called "shame based" or "honor based" systems when someone's raped it's their *custodial male* who's blamed for allowing "his" woman, and thus himself, to be the victim. Which is... blaming the victim, just not the same victim we're used to seeing blamed.
Anyway, yes, it's a complication that cultural misunderstanding can make harder, but at the end of the day it's still the fallacy that the victim (whether the actual *victim* or her "protectors") is to blame and not the perpetrator (whether they intend directly to harm the woman or indirectly harm her menfolk.)
See what I mean? Thanks, Christina. --fl]