Constructing Victims: The Erasure of Women's Resistance to Sexual Assault

Abstract

How do the news media portray women's resistance to sexual assault? We analyze articles from a systematic sample of 16 U.S. newspapers across 1 full calendar year to assess whether and how newspapers describe women's resistance. We find that in most cases, newspaper reports reinforce the belief that women are incapable of effectively defending themselves. Most articles fail to mention women's resistance or do so only to note its failure; the longer the article, the more likely it is to follow these patterns. Headlines exaggerate these patterns, presenting virtually no evidence that the articles that follow, or that assaults themselves, contain any female resistance or agency. In only a very small minority of cases are women described as strong, competent actors with the ability to defend themselves against violence. We conclude with a discussion of the potential individual and societal consequences of these patterns.

Everyday self‐defence: Hollaback narratives, habitus and resisting street harassment

“…Rape prevention advice tells women how to avoid rape and what to do afterwards but remains silent on effective defences (McCaughey ). News reports describe women’s successful self‐defence as lucky rather than deliberate (Hollander and Rogers ) and focus group research finds that although women are more likely to recognize and comment on women’s resistance, both men and women tend to frame successful self‐defence as exceptional (Hollander ).…”

Women's self‐defense and sexual assault resistance: The state of the field

“…Self‐defense training challenges existing stories about sexual violence—for example, that it is inevitable or that women cannot influence the outcome of an assault—and creates new cultural narratives (Cermele, ; Hollander & Rodgers, ; Kelly, Radford, Hesler, Kelly, & Radford, ; McCaughey, ) that may contribute to larger social change.…”

Introduction: Orienting Feminism: Media, Activism, and Cultural Representation

“…This chapter is part of a long genealogy of feminist theorising and activism about sexual violence, victimhood, resistance, gendered bodies and the discourses that constitute them (Marcus 1992;Hollander and Rodgers 2014;Bordo 1992;Bartky 1988;Butler, Gender Trouble, 1990;De Beauvoir 2014;Grosz 1994;Vetten 2011;Phipps 2014;Talbot 2005). Feminists in Aotearoa have engaged with self-defence in nuanced ways since the early 1900s: From Florence LeMar who toured Aotearoa instructing women and girls in the art of Jiu-Jitsu with her vaudevillian performances ( LeMar and Gardener "The Life and Adventures", 1913; Rouse and Slutsky 2014), through the second wave of feminism in the 1970s and 1980s which saw a resurgence of interest in women's selfdefence and the proliferation of programmes informed explicitly by feminist analyses of gender and power such as Sue Lytollis, Whakamaru Tinana, Positive Action and The Women's Self Defence Network-Wāhine Toa which is still going today (Irwin "Power in Our Hands", 1990; Lytollis "Self Defence", 1983; Jordan and Mossman 2016).…”

“…The existing literature makes strong theoretical arguments, supported with empirical data, for the merit of feminist "empowerment" based self-defence programmes as part of a broader strategy towards ending sexual violence. While ongoing research and interventions to reduce perpetration are essential, to date the only educational interventions that have been able to show empirical reductions in sexual assault are those informed by feminist analyses that provide women with effective resistance skills (Senn et al 2015;Hollander 2014;Sinclair et al 2013;Sarnquist et al 2014; Exner-Cortens and Wells 2017). 6 Beyond preventing actual assaults, such programmes are associated with decreased levels of fear; decreased levels of agreement with victim-blaming statements; increased knowledge about the realities of risk, one's rights and the social causes of gendered violence; increased self-confidence, self-esteem and positive feelings about one's body; and increased confidence in one's ability to defend oneself, find support and support others to be safe and recover from violence (See What is not so clear from this literature is how we might define a feminist empowerment approach to self-defence teaching, one which is clearly distinguishable from neoliberal iterations of "empowerment" in the context of sexual violence prevention.…”