‘Victim’ or ‘survivor’?: language, identity and ethics revisited
- Barker, Kim, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143738 , vital:38278 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Initially in feminist circles, and subsequently in more common usage, the term ‘survivor’ came to signify those who have been (sexually) violated and live on, and even thrive. The passivity implied by the term ‘victim’ therefore gave way to the more agentic connotations of ‘survivor’. However, neither term adequately captures the complexity and fluidity of subject positions taken up by and ascribed to women who have been subjected to sexual violence. The selection of an inadequate word is not neutral: each identifier calls forth particular identity constructions which have real effects. Reducing women’s experiences to one pole of this simple binary can diminish and totalise those experiences. In this paper we re-consider the use of these terms with reference to research conducted with protestors participating in an annual anti-rape protest held at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. We focus on the perspectives of women who are ‘survivors’ of sexual violence.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143738 , vital:38278 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Initially in feminist circles, and subsequently in more common usage, the term ‘survivor’ came to signify those who have been (sexually) violated and live on, and even thrive. The passivity implied by the term ‘victim’ therefore gave way to the more agentic connotations of ‘survivor’. However, neither term adequately captures the complexity and fluidity of subject positions taken up by and ascribed to women who have been subjected to sexual violence. The selection of an inadequate word is not neutral: each identifier calls forth particular identity constructions which have real effects. Reducing women’s experiences to one pole of this simple binary can diminish and totalise those experiences. In this paper we re-consider the use of these terms with reference to research conducted with protestors participating in an annual anti-rape protest held at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. We focus on the perspectives of women who are ‘survivors’ of sexual violence.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
‘… a huge monster that should be feared and not done’: lessons learned in sexuality education classes in South Africa
- Shefer, Tamara, Kruger, Lou-Marie, Macleod, Catriona I, Baxen, Jean, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Shefer, Tamara , Kruger, Lou-Marie , Macleod, Catriona I , Baxen, Jean , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6314 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020933 , http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/aspj/2015/AhugeMonster.pdf
- Description: Research has foregrounded the way in which heterosexual practices for many young people are not infrequently bound up with violence and unequal transactional power relations. The Life Orientation sexuality education curriculum in South African schools has been viewed as a potentially valuable space to work with young people on issues of reproductive health, gender and sexual norms and relations. Yet, research has illustrated that such work may not only be failing to impact on more equitable sexual practices between young men and women, but may also serve to reproduce the very discourses and practices that the work aims to challenge. Cultures of violence in youth sexuality are closely connected to prevailing gender norms and practices which, for example, render women as passive victims who are incapable of exercising sexual agency and men as inherently sexually predatory. This paper analyses the talk of Grade 10 learners in nine diverse schools in two South African provinces, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, to highlight what ‘lessons’ these young people seem to be learning about sexuality in Life Orientation classes. We find that these lessons foreground cautionary, negative and punitive messages, which reinforce, rather than challenge, normative gender roles. ‘Scare’ messages of danger, damage and disease give rise to presumptions of gendered responsibility for risk and the requirement of female restraint in the face of the assertion of masculine desire and predation. We conclude that the role which sexuality education could play in enabling young women in particular to more successfully negotiate their sexual relationships to serve their own needs, reproductive health and safety, is undermined by regulatory messages directed at controlling young people, and young women in particular – and that instead, young people’s sexual agency has to be acknowledged in any processes of change aimed at gender equality, anti-violence, health and well-being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Shefer, Tamara , Kruger, Lou-Marie , Macleod, Catriona I , Baxen, Jean , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6314 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020933 , http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/aspj/2015/AhugeMonster.pdf
- Description: Research has foregrounded the way in which heterosexual practices for many young people are not infrequently bound up with violence and unequal transactional power relations. The Life Orientation sexuality education curriculum in South African schools has been viewed as a potentially valuable space to work with young people on issues of reproductive health, gender and sexual norms and relations. Yet, research has illustrated that such work may not only be failing to impact on more equitable sexual practices between young men and women, but may also serve to reproduce the very discourses and practices that the work aims to challenge. Cultures of violence in youth sexuality are closely connected to prevailing gender norms and practices which, for example, render women as passive victims who are incapable of exercising sexual agency and men as inherently sexually predatory. This paper analyses the talk of Grade 10 learners in nine diverse schools in two South African provinces, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, to highlight what ‘lessons’ these young people seem to be learning about sexuality in Life Orientation classes. We find that these lessons foreground cautionary, negative and punitive messages, which reinforce, rather than challenge, normative gender roles. ‘Scare’ messages of danger, damage and disease give rise to presumptions of gendered responsibility for risk and the requirement of female restraint in the face of the assertion of masculine desire and predation. We conclude that the role which sexuality education could play in enabling young women in particular to more successfully negotiate their sexual relationships to serve their own needs, reproductive health and safety, is undermined by regulatory messages directed at controlling young people, and young women in particular – and that instead, young people’s sexual agency has to be acknowledged in any processes of change aimed at gender equality, anti-violence, health and well-being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
“Peer pressure” and “Peer normalization” : discursive resources that justify gendered youth sexualities
- Macleod, Catriona I, Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6312 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019877 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Description: “Peer pressure” is associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors and with undermining public sexual health messages. Interventions are instituted encouraging young people to resist peer pressure or to model positive peer norms. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people themselves use the discourses of “peer pressure to have sex” and “peer normalization of sex” to explain and justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a South African further education and training college, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and talking about, sex and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of peer-endorsed sexual norms: masculine virility, the avoidance of shameful virgin or gay positions, and multiple sexual partners were emphasized for men, while the necessity of keeping a boyfriend and avoiding a “slut” position were foregrounded for women. These discourses potentially undermine the aims of public sexual health programs targeting youth. Nuanced engagement with peer group narratives, especially how sexual activity is explained and justified in a gendered fashion, is indicated. , Full text access on Publisher website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6312 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019877 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Description: “Peer pressure” is associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors and with undermining public sexual health messages. Interventions are instituted encouraging young people to resist peer pressure or to model positive peer norms. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people themselves use the discourses of “peer pressure to have sex” and “peer normalization of sex” to explain and justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a South African further education and training college, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and talking about, sex and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of peer-endorsed sexual norms: masculine virility, the avoidance of shameful virgin or gay positions, and multiple sexual partners were emphasized for men, while the necessity of keeping a boyfriend and avoiding a “slut” position were foregrounded for women. These discourses potentially undermine the aims of public sexual health programs targeting youth. Nuanced engagement with peer group narratives, especially how sexual activity is explained and justified in a gendered fashion, is indicated. , Full text access on Publisher website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015