Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Silent Male Survivors and the Stigma of Victimhood

I certainly didn't expect to stumble upon this topic when I started researching trauma theory for my Women's Lit class. Like any other grad student, I started my research at EBSCO, typing in some pretty generic terms, such as trauma, to see where it would lead me. And one of the first studies that showed up was from Journal of Loss and Trauma, a study by Ramona Alaggia, titled " Disclosing the Trauma of Child Sexual Abuse: A Gender Analysis." Since one of my favorite ways to apply a feminist theoretical lens to literature is to look at it through the lens of the social sciences, I figured this study would be helpful.

But the study was also surprising - it raised some surprising issues about how gender can impact a survivor or victim as he or she decides whether or not to disclose the traumatic experience. While the study used a relatively small sample (30 adult survivors of childhood abuse, 19 of whom were female and 11 of whom were male) and shouldn't be generalized to describe the experience of all survivors of child sexual abuse, their findings merit further discussion, particularly what they found about which factors prevent male survivors from disclosing their experiences and which factors prevent female survivors from disclosing.

While there were a lot of consistent factors, such as how close the survivor was to the perpetrator and to other adults who may have been able to help, Alaggia found a few key differences. The three main factors that prevented men from disclosing were a fear of being viewed as weak and effeminate, a fear of being seen as homosexual (since many of the male victims were abused by men), and a fear of becoming (or being viewed as) an abuser.  For women, the main factors preventing them from disclosing were a fear of not being believed and/or being blamed, and a conflicted sense of who was responsible for the abuse. 

While each of these factors is a serious issue, worth full discussion in its own post, let's hone in on the male fear of being seen as weak or effeminate. Sometimes people tell me that I shouldn't be a feminist, because I should be concerned about the problems that face men, and not just the problems that face women. But I cannot express enough just how much men are hurt by the policies and beliefs that hurt women. Female infanticide? It deprives men of daughters, sisters, brides, and friends. Unequal wages? It hurts male dependents of female bread winners. Devaluing women? That stigmatizes every male who aspires to a vocation or personal trait that has been labelled feminine. 

So we can't devalue women and femininity without hurting men in the process. If being seen as a victim makes a person seem weak, then boy, do we ever have some sorting out to do. An abuser is the one who's weak. The person who survives abuse is typically left with some damaging scars, but he or she is scarred because of the Hell that is abuse, not because he or she is inherently weak. Nobody, no matter how strong, survives abuse without some deep scars.

One question I have after reading this study is whether victimhood is stigamatized by femininity, or femininity is stigmatized by victimhood. That is, between the two characteristics, which is the most stigmatized?
Chances are it's a combination of both factors, but I think it's pretty easy to start thinking more highly of the conquering or privileged group, simply because they appear to be strong, smart, and successful - why wouldn't they, when they've had the luxury of defining intelligence, strength, and success? And we even see this rhetoric echoed in pop culture

But the hammer-and-nail dichotomy Simon and Garfunkel provide in this song is a false one - as they may very well have intended when they wrote these lyrics. Not being on top doesn't mean you're on the bottom, and even if you are on the bottom of the social hierarchy, that fact in no way makes you less worthy than the people at the very top of the social hierarchy. 

So please, for the sake of men and women alike, don't think of victimhood and survivorhood as a "weak" or "feminine" thing.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Easy A: Feminist Film Review



I was skeptical about a movie that had the word "Easy" in the title, but the protagonist's wit won me over, since it set her up as an interesting individual, rather than one of the stock Barbie Doll characters you find in most chick flicks (When in Rome, anyone?). So, here is my review of the movie.

In case you didn't watch the above trailer, let me tell you the premise: Olive (Emma Stone), a good but quiet and unnoticed girl, accidentally establishes a reputation as someone who sleeps around. At first she enjoys the attention, but pretty quickly she discovers that the men she's pretending to sleep with are the only ones profiting from this arrangement. While they become popular and get more dates, she only gets more solicitations for fake dates (and worse). This whole scenario is complicated by Marianne (Amanda Bynes), a Christian girl who makes it her goal in life to either save Olive or send her to Hell trying.

While the film loses a few feminist points by portraying religious people as zealots - the only religious people we see are Marianne and her equally judgmental father - it nevertheless produces an overall feminist-friendly feel. It accomplishes this end mostly through portraying the sexual double standard that hurts so many women, and it it earns extra points for providing examples of cruel behavior in men and women alike. After all, Olive's best friend is the one who gets the rumors started in the first place, and it doesn't take long for the friend to turn on her.

I'd also call this a pro-family film, in the sense that Olive has a good relationship with her parents. They trust her, and they're willing to stand up for her, but when they start worrying that something is going wrong they let her know that they're worried. Also, while it's a love interest who initially offers to help Olive out of the mess she's found herself in, Olive follows his offer by choosing to turn to her mother for advice. So there's no damsel-in-distress ending. Also, I want to point out that men aren't demonized in this film - there are several examples of very good men, along with examples of men who aren't trying to hurt people but nevertheless do.

Also, instead of portraying people who actually sleep around as the real culprits - which easily could have happened in a movie about a protagonist who is wrongly accused of doing something she didn't really do - the movie makes people who do sleep around seem sympathetic. For one, Olive's mother admits that before  meeting Olive's father she slept with a lot of people, which brings women who actually sleep around into the fold of people who are kind to Olive. Also, Olive comes to look and act like women who sleep around, and when the viewer sees how people mistreat her as a result of that reputation, it would be pretty difficult for the viewer not to feel sympathetic for anyone who is mistreated in those ways.

Now, one downside of the film is that it's set in a predominantly white, upper middle class location. It certainly doesn't address any racial or class issues. And that's a real drawback - the cast is mostly white. Almost surprisingly mostly white. And that drawback, along with the negative portrayal of religious people, hold it back quite a bit in terms of global feminist concerns.

However, as a retelling of The Scarlet Letter, this movie really hits the nail on the head. So, I'm gonna give it a B+ in terms of Feminist Friendly values.