“…To refer to the identity‐category itself, I invoke the hyphenated “Victim‐Survivor” (Capital V‐S, enclosed in scare quotes, the linguistic equivalent of saying “so‐called.” 2 ). Otherwise, I rely (rather ambivalently 3 ) on verbs (victimization, survival) and adjectives—the use of person‐first language (people who have experienced sexual violence, person violated (noun before adjective, like “person with AIDS”) (Winkler 2002:vii), or “to whom sexual violence has been done”) (Chandra 2021:105).…”
Section: Discourses Of Victimization and Survival: The Language Of Se...mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…along the continuum of non‐consensual sexual behavior, that is “sexual violence” (Kelly 1988). It also linguistically differentiates its “Victimizers,” for whom there is long list of specific terms: Rapist, Pedophile, Reckless Athlete, Harasser, Dirty Old Man, Bad Date, Only Human, Peeping Tom, Exhibitionist “depending on the nature of the harassment or assault, age, circumstances, context, etc.” (Brekhus 1996; Chandra 2021:105). The same is not true of the conventional schema for classifying those they victimize, for whom they are only two terms: “Victim” and “Survivor.” As Giti Chandra (2021:105, emphasis in original) argues, The labels [victim or survivor] attached to the person to whom violence has been done define who she is , confining her to a single event, while those ascribed to the predator describe what he did , opening up the vast world of socio‐cultural, political, human, and individual circumstances within which to situate him.In other words, “Victimizers” do things; “Victim‐Survivors” are things.…”
Section: Discourses Of Victimization and Survival: The Language Of Se...mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Consider the labeling of teenage girls as “jailbait” or the oft‐recited refrains “she was asking for it,” “why didn't she fight back,” and “what was she wearing?”, which implicate women and girls as accomplices for crimes they did not commit—crimes that were instead committed against them. The syntactic pair “accuser/accused” serves an analogous rhetorical function, making the “Victim‐Survivor's” accusation the offensive action rather than the “Victimizer's” act of sexual violence (Chandra 2021; Katz 2013; Spry 2011). It makes the shift from “[alleged] victim” to “accuser” a particularly insidious linguistic contortion, one that not only inverts the actor‐acted upon relation but is even more incredulous than “alleged” that the act of sexual violence actually occurred.…”
This article offers a cultural cognitive theory of sexual violence: a Zerubavelian reading of its classificatory, attentional, perceptual, semiotic, mnemonic, and temporal dimensions. It maps the asymmetric syntactic contrasts between the cultural trifecta of “Victim‐Survivors,” “Victimizers,” and the hitherto unnamed, taken‐for‐granted “Unvictims,” arguing that those who experience sexual violence are marked in contrast to both those who victimize and those who have never been victimized. Suggesting that one need not be the actor of a marked act to be marked by it, a victimizing person's marked act crystallizes as a marked identity for the person they victimize, a process I call “semiotic ricochet.” Extending critiques of the victimhood‐survivorship frame, this article argues that the “rigid‐minded,” binary classificatory scheme of “Victim” or “Survivor” reifies, universalizes, derivatizes, and temporally displaces its attributed. It proposes hyphenating, encasing in scare quotes, and capitalizing the identity category of “Victim‐Survivor,” as well as referring to individuals as “those who experience sexual violence.” Using the Zerubavelian theoretico‐methodological practice of “concept‐driven” sociology, it identifies the “Victim‐Survivor” as merely one specific instantiation of the generic social type the “Damaged Good,” alongside other identities derived from marked non‐acts such as placement in foster care or undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer.
“…To refer to the identity‐category itself, I invoke the hyphenated “Victim‐Survivor” (Capital V‐S, enclosed in scare quotes, the linguistic equivalent of saying “so‐called.” 2 ). Otherwise, I rely (rather ambivalently 3 ) on verbs (victimization, survival) and adjectives—the use of person‐first language (people who have experienced sexual violence, person violated (noun before adjective, like “person with AIDS”) (Winkler 2002:vii), or “to whom sexual violence has been done”) (Chandra 2021:105).…”
Section: Discourses Of Victimization and Survival: The Language Of Se...mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…along the continuum of non‐consensual sexual behavior, that is “sexual violence” (Kelly 1988). It also linguistically differentiates its “Victimizers,” for whom there is long list of specific terms: Rapist, Pedophile, Reckless Athlete, Harasser, Dirty Old Man, Bad Date, Only Human, Peeping Tom, Exhibitionist “depending on the nature of the harassment or assault, age, circumstances, context, etc.” (Brekhus 1996; Chandra 2021:105). The same is not true of the conventional schema for classifying those they victimize, for whom they are only two terms: “Victim” and “Survivor.” As Giti Chandra (2021:105, emphasis in original) argues, The labels [victim or survivor] attached to the person to whom violence has been done define who she is , confining her to a single event, while those ascribed to the predator describe what he did , opening up the vast world of socio‐cultural, political, human, and individual circumstances within which to situate him.In other words, “Victimizers” do things; “Victim‐Survivors” are things.…”
Section: Discourses Of Victimization and Survival: The Language Of Se...mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Consider the labeling of teenage girls as “jailbait” or the oft‐recited refrains “she was asking for it,” “why didn't she fight back,” and “what was she wearing?”, which implicate women and girls as accomplices for crimes they did not commit—crimes that were instead committed against them. The syntactic pair “accuser/accused” serves an analogous rhetorical function, making the “Victim‐Survivor's” accusation the offensive action rather than the “Victimizer's” act of sexual violence (Chandra 2021; Katz 2013; Spry 2011). It makes the shift from “[alleged] victim” to “accuser” a particularly insidious linguistic contortion, one that not only inverts the actor‐acted upon relation but is even more incredulous than “alleged” that the act of sexual violence actually occurred.…”
This article offers a cultural cognitive theory of sexual violence: a Zerubavelian reading of its classificatory, attentional, perceptual, semiotic, mnemonic, and temporal dimensions. It maps the asymmetric syntactic contrasts between the cultural trifecta of “Victim‐Survivors,” “Victimizers,” and the hitherto unnamed, taken‐for‐granted “Unvictims,” arguing that those who experience sexual violence are marked in contrast to both those who victimize and those who have never been victimized. Suggesting that one need not be the actor of a marked act to be marked by it, a victimizing person's marked act crystallizes as a marked identity for the person they victimize, a process I call “semiotic ricochet.” Extending critiques of the victimhood‐survivorship frame, this article argues that the “rigid‐minded,” binary classificatory scheme of “Victim” or “Survivor” reifies, universalizes, derivatizes, and temporally displaces its attributed. It proposes hyphenating, encasing in scare quotes, and capitalizing the identity category of “Victim‐Survivor,” as well as referring to individuals as “those who experience sexual violence.” Using the Zerubavelian theoretico‐methodological practice of “concept‐driven” sociology, it identifies the “Victim‐Survivor” as merely one specific instantiation of the generic social type the “Damaged Good,” alongside other identities derived from marked non‐acts such as placement in foster care or undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer.
“…(V. Chandra, 2021: 175) In India, the movement emerged and took shaped predominantly as a protest due to sexual harassment in the workplace. 8 It started famously with Raya Sarkar's LoSHA list of names of sexual harassers including several prominent academics (Bhandaram, 2017;G. Chandra, 2021;Kaur, 2017).…”
The #MeToo movement has claimed to mark a ‘new era in Indian feminism’ by introducing feminist articulations into the quotidian through the powerful use of social media. The ‘sharing’ of survivor stories has served as a means to challenge the taboo of victimhood while also creating the possibility for solidarity. The #MeToo movement in India claims inheritance of previous movements such as the 2009 Pink <i>Chaddi</i> movement against moral policing, the 2011 Slut Walk movement against victim blaming, the 2015 <i>Pinjra Tod</i> movement against sexist curfew in hostels, and the 2017 <i>Bekhauf Azadi</i>. All these movements from which #MeToo claims heredity from, are movements proclaiming women’s right to access public space.<br />
The article will delve into the positionality of the speaker; the role of intersectional identities of caste, class, and gender in determining subjecthood, and solidarity. In its focus on gender inequality and sexual violence, the #MeToo movement, ironically, reproduces casteist, classist and sexist hierarchies. What seems to drive the #MeToo movement in India is the anxiety regarding women’s confinement in the domestic sphere and the resultant inability to ‘speak’. This understanding categorically erases Dalit women, whose lives as well as oppression, encompass both private and public spaces. This article highlights the latent Brahmanism of the #MeToo movement by examining the erasure of Dalit women.
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