5/18/18
Forward: A Revisit
Looking back, this research paper was a little too on-point for the events and revelations that would dominate the news within the next year or so. I wrote this paper in the Fall of 2016, a year or two before the #metoo movement gained prominence and before many of the high-profile sexual assault cases came to light. It was an exceptionally interesting paper to put together, and time has demonstrated further how important this topic is in the modern world.
Now with the time and space to make a few changes, I have some notes for future readers. To start, this version of the paper is without some personal details from the original introduction and some minor tweaks here and there to accomodate. Secondly, I wrote this paper as part of an independent study with a professor as a culmination of my time in her advanced Social Psychology course. This explains some of my usage of terminology and social science theory that was more course-specific and potentially opaque to the layperson reader. If you are willing to forgive the occasional dip into academic-ey prose, I think you will find that this paper tackles this important and salient topic in a way that ties together many different threads like gender norms, power, and socialization. I hope this paper adds something to your perspective on this topic; whether it is validating, challenging, agreeable, disagreeable—whatever it is, I think it vitally important that this discourse happen.
Best Regards,
Ian Hajnosz
I hardly need introduce sexual assault to a reader in 2018. The news of the past couple years has been dominated by these stories. As more survivors come forward, and we start to understand just how (for lack of more eloquent terminology) bad of a situation this really is, you’d be forgiven for wondering, “How the hell did it come to this? How did we get here?” Not only must we understand how pervasive sexual abuses are, we must also come to grips with how so much of it has been under our noses for so long. However, the first step to moving forward is to understand where we’ve been. We need to understand how gender norms, power, and socialization come together to allow for this kind of behavior on this kind of level. When it comes to how we “got here,” regarding sexual assault, we need to understand how we interact with ourselves and each other, as well as the systems we have created to facilitate those interactions. In other words—we need to break open the psychology and sociology books.
To start, sexual assault needs to be considered in the context of many different levels of socialization. In other words, the social world that allows for such frightening regularity of sexual assault must be examined. As will be discussed, the power dynamics at work here facilitate what realities and roles people are allowed to have. However, the least powerful are sometimes not even able to recognize the “secret script” they themselves are operating with, perhaps because both men and women are intimately involved in this system at large. This work seeks to encapsulate the nuanced dimensions involved in sexual assault in terms of its larger environment and desire expectations while also recognizing the importance of individuals’ experiences.
Most research on sexual assault comes from large university Greek systems as sexual assault perpetrators are disproportionately high amongst fraternity members and university athletes (Tharp et al., 2013, as cited in McDermott, Kilmartin, McKelvey & Kridel, 2015). Some of this, Professor Kathleen Boyle argues, stems from the construction and maintenance of fraternity member identities within an organization that is essentially devoid of university oversight (2015b). Fraternities, and the parties that frequently occur there, also encompass many factors that proliferate sexual assaults like party rape, namely: alcohol, masculinity trials for men, women’s socialization of sexuality and desire (i.e. approval from men), “slut” discourse etc. And fraternities’ self-selection of members and theatrical demonstrations of masculinity are key to the process of perpetuating dangerous situations.
The identity of men in fraternities plays a significant role in reinforcing sexually dangerous environments. This process can be seen in the selection of new members also known as “rushing.” New members self-select, or are selected, based on congruence with the values and attitudes of the fraternity itself. For prospective members this is a process about reflective appraisals on masculinity from significant others, specifically current fraternity members (Boyle, 2015b). Challenging the norms of the fraternity risks negative appraisals, forcing a prospective member into challenging their own identity, and incentivizing adherence to the norms of the group. This dynamic has been described with affect control theory (Mackinnon, 1994, as cited in Boyle, 2015b). The theory is that people seek out a world experience that is coherent and that does not disrupt views of self or others. In other words, people want a coherent world experience that does not face frequent significant challenges to their social definitions. Fraternity members are motivated by this self-identity congruence (i.e. avoiding fragmentation of their social definitions) to reduce deviance and therefore subscribe more readily to significant others’ attitudes and behaviors. In other words, members are incentivized to keep the status quo and, in order to reduce challenges to that quo, will go along with what they think other members accept more readily. It may pass on a chapter’s culture through generations of the fraternity but it also makes the culture incredibly resistant to change as its culture and type of fraternity members are constantly reinforced every rush period.
Though fraternities offer a model of masculinity reinforcement, the performance of masculinity may apply beyond the confines of university campuses. The performance of masculinity to an audience, mainly to other men, involves self-identifying as a man while also perpetuating masculine stereotypes even if one does not believe in them (McDermott et al., 2015). Researchers found that college men believe other men accept rape myths at higher rates than they themselves (Kilmartin et al., 2008, as cited in McDermott et al., 2015). In a college fraternity setting, this disproportionate association only furthers toxic masculinity ideologies within the organization. If anything, this system opens up a self-fulfilling-prophecy-like sequence in which fraternity members believe their brothers have certain acceptance of rape myths while also knowing that group membership and maintaining their own sense of self requires subscription to fraternity norms. Behavior is thus directed towards imagined fraternity-wide expectations. This all in turn only reinforces that type of rape-myth-accepting masculine ideology amongst other members who are all making similar assumptions, thereby forming at least a surface level culture that appears to be accepted by all group members. It would be irresponsible of me to say that all fraternities are like this, or that all groups of men follow similar trends. However, the striking correlations between organizational cultures with strong masculine-centered ideologies and the pervasiveness of sexual assault and harassment is worrisome. That highly masculine organizations like the United States military and Hollywood have such high levels of sexual assault and harassment suggest that the performance of masculinity amongst men plays an important role in the discussion of sexual assault.
Though the more obvious focal point of attention may be on men’s participation in the construction of a sexually dangerous reality, women are involved in it as well. A revealing example of this initially counter-intuitive concept is in a study that examined the way in which both men and women interact with sexual objectification. Martha Nussbaum, a renowned philosopher from the University of Chicago, has argued that instrumentality is a key aspect to the process of objectification. In being objectified, the person becomes a tool for a certain goal and will remain interesting and important to other people who strive for such a goal (Nussbaum, 1999 as cited in Vaes, Paladino, & Puvia, 2011). In regards to sexual objectification, seeing someone as a tool for a certain goal limits interaction for both men and women, ultimately resulting in dehumanization. Sexually objectified women were associated as less human both by men and women but for different reasons (Vaes et al., 2011). For men the sexual objectification of a woman helps facilitate an achievement of a ‘sex’ goal. This is further shown in how, for men, sexual attraction to the woman in question shifted focus away from her personality and towards her body. Alternatively, women dehumanized other sexually objectified women by separating themselves away from the “vulgar” and “superficial” sexual representations of their gender (Vaes et al., 2011). Her goal here being to remove her own association from the negatively perceived group. In this sense, sexually objectified women are seen quite more akin to an out-group rather than as just another individual within the in-group of women. In other words, women distance themselves from other sexually objectified women; they are not another “woman” but rather something else, perhaps simply just a sexual human. What comes out of this study is a theme that permeates through the literature, and one that will be seen time and again in this paper, and that is the divergence of men and women’s social definitions about their approach to sex. Men view sex and the ritual ‘hunt’ associated with it, as a goal, a part of their masculine performance, whereas women must confront, and reconcile, their own sexual identity while also avoiding the ‘less-human’ label that is associated with ‘loose’ or ‘slutty’ women.
Delving deeper into the boundary of slut stigma reveals a far more complex phenomenon than simply an example of a sexual double standard. Slut shaming, a process that contributes to the rape-myths that alienates survivors, is frequently seen as an imposed structure onto women that men have been able to establish due to their social power. Alternatively, Elizabeth A. Armstrong and her colleagues argue that female use of slut labels is not merely a commentary of sexual activity and behavior but also as a way to establish class-based moral judgements that organize both sexual behavior and presentation of one’s femininity (Armstrong, Hamilton, Armstrong, Seeley, 2014). In other words, this is a discussion of power; high-status, thus high power women (those with money and who frequently are the gatekeepers to parties) succeed in enforcing their definitions of stigma—what does and does not constitute as sexually applauded or shamed. This process of “defensive othering” (Schwalbe et al., 2000 as cited in Armstrong et al., 2014) that deflects stigma onto others allows for a woman’s participation in slut stigma while shielding herself from the effects (Armstrong et al., 2014). What that stigma is may be defined differently by different women. Low-status women, generally from lower socioeconomic status’, viewed slutty-ness as partying and frequent hook-ups while high status women relied on economic status to distinguish themselves as “classy versus trashy” (Armstrong et al., 2014). High-status, generally affluent, women could enforce their version of the stigma definition, forcing lower-status women to resent unsuccessful attempts to level the playing field. In this sense, the term “slut” is a disciplinary, organizing, controlling tool amongst women, wielded most strongly by those who define slutty-ness as looking trashy, engaging in out-of-relationship intercourse, and hooking up with men below a certain status-grade. The engagement with this definition speaks to the interactional reality in which slut shaming is used. The mindlessness of what constitutes a slut, and who’s definition is being used, should be considered when thinking about the social makeup of what allows dangerous sexual behavior to be explained away with, “because she’s a slut.” And being labeled as a slut offers a look at what women are deemed to expect when it comes to sex and desire.
The social repression of feminine sexual desire is an important system to consider when thinking about the type of pressure women must navigate regarding sex. For women the concept of sexual desire is frequently associated with fear: fear of STIs or STDs, unwanted pregnancy, loss of self-control, etc., all of which could have implications of a slut label. And since being a slut forfeits respect, intelligence, and integrity, women know very early on what to think about sex; suppression of sexuality is required to stay socially respectable, despite the simultaneous sexual awakening that happens during puberty (Orenstein, 1994). This is not at all helped by an educational system that denies sexual entitlement by exacerbating vulnerabilities, directly or indirectly, like highlighting victimization perils (Orenstein, 1994). Compared to the entitlement given to males in education, whose sexuality is considered uncontainable and uncontrollable (‘boys will be boys’), girls are taught the opposite. The question of “why do women have to be the ones to say ‘no’?” is given a quick answer in that they must control the urges of their sexual partner. Girls are brought up to be sexual gatekeepers, pure, virgin individuals waiting for long-term commitment with a man (which in and of itself leaves non-heteronormative individuals with an even more precarious minefield to manage). Sex means diving in between these sexual rules and doing so has high potential for long-lasting labels. Alternatively, sex does not change much for men, if anything it bolsters their male image (Orenstein, 1994). In other words, boys are neither expected, nor taught, to be responsible with their desires while girls are not taught how to manage their desires at all yet still must bear the burden of conflict.
These are the rules of society for women regarding their sexual desires. It is of note to remember that “society” here is a mental construct of scripts from reference groups and significant others; in other words, the establishment of such a definition for women’s desire is reinforced by the attitudes of important persons or groups of persons. This is not a social definition created by some oppressive fraternity house in a university and enforced by sleezy men in bro-tanks as it is so easy to imagine. ‘Society’ enforces women’s definition of sexual desire through school code policing of women’s dress, media images, reputation concerns, fear of male violence in intimate relationships, and fear of violent repercussions of violating norms of compulsory heterosexuality (Tolman, 1994). The feedback from these systems leaves a woman’s own sexual desire outside of the narrative of the sexual script, leaving little to no room for reconciling personal enjoyment. Sex, for women far more than men, becomes a conflict between connecting with one’s self, body, sexual pleasure, and connecting to the sexual rules of the social world (Tolman, 1994).
All of this background information builds a more complete picture of the two very different environments men and women inhabit and alludes to the messy interaction between the two. Though not specific to sexual assault, or even to sexual harassment, I believe it is necessary to have an understanding of these dimensions to understand that this topic is far more complex than the ‘bad-boy plus gullible-girl equals sexual danger’ equation that is so colloquially prevalent. I understand that this work has not even included the myriad of equally important concepts like language as a foundational aspect of self and identity (why are women introduced with relationship defining identifiers e.g. Mrs. vs Ms. while men are not?), cross-cultural examinations (how does the U.S. compare to other cultures?), standards of prosecution (how much power does a survivor hold in a court of law?), and the list could go on. However, for the sake of brevity I would like to take some space to talk about what happens to survivors of sexual assault to illustrate just how significant sexual assault is to the individuals involved.
An early distinction for individuals who experienced a sexual assault is the label for oneself; victim or survivor. The two labels have very different connotations with ‘victim’ seeming more passive and ‘survivor’ suggesting more agency (Boyle, 2015a). This is a cultural aspect; America is very accustomed to war-like terms such as how a patient is “battling cancer” so that they are a “survivor” of it or how America is seemingly ‘at war’ with many different amorphous constructs (drugs, terror, etc.). Individuals with self-sentiments of “victim” after a sexual assault experience higher rates of anxiety and depression and lower self-esteem compared to “survivors” as well as being more likely to associate themselves as “losers,” all possibly attributable to negative self-identities (Boyle, 2015a). Though a positive finding in shedding some light on how to frame sexual assault survivors, it should be remembered that such a dramatic change in self must be reconciled with appraisals from significant others and reference groups. All parties need to shift role expectations when an individual is sexually assaulted to prevent his or her fragmentation of former identities with the new, unshakeable self-concept of an individual who has been deeply violated.
For those involved, sexual assault goes beyond the ‘official’ distinctions placed upon it, a note that has implications for how to approach survivors. Shane Muldoon and his colleagues went through police files spanning four years to create what they call a master narrative of “identity shock” in sexual assault survivors (2016). Sexual assault, they argue, hits on another level of trauma in knowing that sexual assault is intentionally perpetrated by another human being (Muldoon, Taylor, and Norma, 2016). Frequently survivors were stunned into an inability to account for the intense violation of their physical body. Many survivors consciously decided not to pursue complaints or abandoned them, attributing it to moving on or trying to forget. Others used denial: one woman tried to consciously deny the offender as her father, thus allowing her to “not” be his daughter (Muldoon et al., 2016). Such intense psychological shock is not matched by the “minor”/“serious” sexual assault binary used by police, a distinction that dissuades survivors from pursuing perpetrators as they fear they will not be taken seriously. Medical diagnoses like PTSD for sexual assault survivors explains away deviance as individual mental illness and distracts from the issue of dangerous social constructs and overall oppression of women (Muldoon et al., 2016). The medicalization of survivors fails to recognize that the survivor experience is not about trauma in the medical sense but more about psychological and sociological shock. Specifically, the shock is regarding the betrayal of trust in fellow citizens, giving rise to additional needs beyond mere “survival needs” like employment (Muldoon et al., 2016). These additional “justice needs” are for a recognition of the transgression and a healing of the damage done. In a system that individualizes and diminishes sexual assault experiences, survivors are left frustrated by both the betrayal of citizen trust and the social system at large that has little indication of addressing root causes.
LGB individuals face additional unique challenges compared to those within the heterosexual norm. Sexual assault is distressingly high among lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and a history of sexual assault is unfortunately not too uncommon. Some literature on the subject has reported that 12% to 54% of gay or bisexual men and 16% to 85% of lesbian or bisexual women report a sexual assault in their lifetime (LSA: Rothman, Exner, & Baughman, 2011, as cited in Gemberling, Cramer, Miller, Stroud, Noland, & Graham, 2015). African American LGB individuals had even more negative sexual identity, possibly a reflection of their double minority status (Gemberling, et al., 2015). Such a history was associated with higher levels of acceptance concerns, identity uncertainty, and attachment anxiety, the last of which being exacerbated by internalized negative associations with one’s own homosexual identity, a concept known as homonegativity. The additional stressor of internalized homonegativity suggests that LGB individuals view sexual victimization also as an attack on their sexual identity (Gemberling et al., 2015). In addition to losing faith in other’s decency (Muldoon et al., 2016), LGB individuals also have to face a personal sexuality that may be self-perceived as tainted, damaged, or a target for future abuse (Gemberling et al., 2015). The accentuated nervousness in quality of romantic relationships (i.e. attachment anxiety) suggests implications to relationship commitment and functioning (Gemberling et al., 2015).
In the face of a supposedly logical, universally permeable, collectively constructed reality (or perhaps more aptly, realities), addressing sexual assault requires multi-level thinking and attention. Here I will attempt to offer a series of future paths for confronting sexual assault from literature used above with my some of my own comments and ideas. This is by no means a comprehensive list nor is it a resolution for action ready to be implemented. Rather, it is intended to put varying different approaches in a single space for the sake of comparison and a possible jumping off point for new ideas and discussions.
Though a complete overhaul of what traditional masculinity means and stands for is rather unreasonable (on many levels), a possible inroad into this area could come from the ownership of an individuals’ masculinity. As noted earlier in this paper, men tended to think that other men accept rape myths at a higher rate than they themselves, possibly in connection to the performance of masculinity amongst peers (McDermott et al., 2015). An emphasis on taking ownership of one’s masculinity could be a possible inroad to changing this phenomenon. This could come about from a slight re-direction of what constitutes masculinity. Emphasizing ownership of one’s own masculinity, even in the face of others’ definitions, could be positively reinforced as being the ‘better kind of man.’ There has been some success in changing men’s perceptions of feminism through a similar model; though research suggests that a feminist man’s masculinity is still called into question (Anderson, 2009), introducing a positive image of a feminist man can increase other men’s solidarity with feminists (Wiley, Srinivasan, Finke, Firnhaber, & Shilinsky, 2012). In other words, positive reinforcement of a different kind of masculinity, a different slant on the social definition, can produce beneficial results.
Additional findings by Elizabeth Armstrong have led her to call for a reevaluation of gender neutral policies on university campuses because such policies exacerbate sexually dangerous environments. For example, many sexual assaults happen off-campus and in fraternity houses where men control desirable resources (e.g. alcohol), know each other well, and see women as anonymous (Armstrong, Hamiliton, & Sweeney, 2006). Sororities are forbidden to host parties, thus pushing women onto men’s turf for a fun night out which only accentuates the expectation for women to ‘play nice’ as guests to the party. Additionally, strict alcohol policing on-campuses pushes party-culture off campus and makes possession of alcohol (what fraternities can do because of relaxed university oversight) an unequally distributed valuable resource (Armstrong, 2006). Campus diversity also contributes to lowering campus rape as it dilutes the young, upper-middle class white peer group homogeny that fosters the party scene (Armstrong et al., 2006). For instance, African American social scenes do not rely heavily on fraternity houses for social life and tend to consume less alcohol (Stombler and Padavic, 1997, as cited in Armstrong et al., 2006). Adding incentives to keep social life on campus, consistently following a less-draconian alcohol policy, making residence halls desirable places for more diverse student communities (even upperclassmen), and all-around allowing residence halls to be more appealing for social life can help prevent school policy from permitting and/or fostering masculine-dominated sexual agendas.
Finally, some attention must also be drawn to misconceptions and avenues that do not productively address the environment or aftermath that is important to sexual assault. Because slut-shaming is so significant within the in-group of women in the first place, equalizing sexual standards would not necessarily eliminate the practice and salience of slut-shaming (Armstrong 2014). That high-status and low-status women use such labels as mechanisms of social power suggests that examinations of class and stigma may be more productive than focusing solely on equalizing sexual standards between men and women. A similar thread can be followed for the “just say no” education style for women’s sexual education, a system that isolates girls who are attracted to other girls and confines young girls to work around boys’ offered definitions of desire (Tolman, 1994). A huge obstacle to this is a national education policy that encourages abstinence by demonizing out of wedlock sex (Orenstein 1994). Intentionally or not, this puts additional pressure on young girls to control their personal desire especially since these programs are federally required to withhold information regarding contraceptives and condoms. And these programs are expanding. In May of 2015 Congress voted to increase funding for these abstinence programs to $75 million a year, the most recent chapter in a policy that the government has invested well over a billion dollars into over the past two decades (Carmona, Elders, & Satcher, 2015). This just goes to show how many dimensions need to be addressed to see real progress.
Reform on national, institutional, and more localized levels needs to be more closely examined in order to make significant progress. Keeping young women in the dark about their own ability to choose desire for themselves restricts personal fulfillment and sense of empowerment with sex which may be a more important, and positive, way to develop their ability to make safe decisions (Tolman, 1994). For LGB members it may mean more focus on bolstering LGB identity and romantic relationships (Gemberling et al., 2015). And all survivors should not have to work through a system that medicalizes their experience and views to “treat” them of “their” problem (Armstrong, 2006). Because, when it comes down to it, this is our problem and it is in our best interests as a society to acknowledge how and why something so deplorable as sexual assault can be so prevalent.
I generally count myself as a realist; only half-jokingly calling myself a natural pessimist trying very hard not forget or discount the amazing things that people do every day. In that sense I am trying very hard not to end this paper like a Debbie-downer. And to that effect, but also as a sincere final thought of mine, I would like to end with this. I generally see the glass half-empty, but before this project I honestly did not pay much attention to this particular glass in the first place. I am not going to pretend that this paper, or my new awareness, is going to stir up that glass enough so that others take notice. But do I know that awareness is the first big step in making meaningful change. Speaking for myself, I am far more comfortable talking about this subject with my peers than before and I already know how applicable it is to the circles I run through. I now know that there are a lot more movers and shakers out there, many of them my age too, doing their best to make that water boil. And then maybe, just maybe, progress will start gaining some steam.
References
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