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Exploring the facilitators and barriers affecting the way women report sex crimes

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Exploring the facilitators and barriers affecting the way women report sex crimes

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Content EXPLORING THE FACILITATORS AND BARRIERS
AFFECTING THE WAY WOMEN REPORT SEX CRIMES
by
Tracy Faye Tolbert
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
(SOCIOLOGY)
August 2002
Copyright 2002 Tracy Faye Tolbert
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UMI Number: 3094374
Copyright 2002 by
Tolbert, Tracy Faye
All rights reserved.
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Graduate School
University Park
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This dissertation, w ritten b y
1 * A C y ? A l o l& E g t _________________________
Under th e direction o f hSA... D issertation
Com m ittee, and approved b y a ll its m em bers,
has been p resen ted to an d accepted b y The
Graduate School, in p a rtia l fulfillm ent o f
requirem ents fo r th e degree o f
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
^—r0Ean o f Graduate S tu dies
p )ate A ugust 6 , 2002
DISSER TA TION COMMITTEE
C
...
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Acknowledgments
It is impossible at this time to name all the people who participated in
the development, and completion, of this dissertation. But there are several
who were instrumental, and I want to acknowledge the contributions they
gave during the long years of classes, exams, data collection, and the writing.
First I would like to thank the faculty and administrators of the USC
Graduate School and Department of Sociology, all of whom provided this
wonderful opportunity to raise my life expectations. While many of the
programs I applied to for graduate study failed to recognize a potential in me,
you did and I’ll be forever grateful.
In this regard, I thank the members of my dissertation committee. To
Dr. Pierrette Hondagnau-Sotelo, (Department of Sociology, USC) I give my
most gracious thanks. Despite your busy schedule, you provided the structure,
guidance, and passion I needed to get this done. A most gracious thanks is
given to Dr. Elaine Bell Kaplan (Department of Sociology, USC). Your
comments on the manuscript provided the clarity needed to bring out the best
analysis. I also thank Dr. Judith Grant, (Department of Political Science,
USC) who came aboard at the last minute. It’s not often that an individual of
your stature would find the time to help a sister out, but you did. For that I
will always hold you in the highest of esteem. And finally, I give a special
thanks to Dr. Elis Sanasarian (Department of Political Science, USC).
Although you were unable to attend the final defense, I will always be grateful
for the care given during these years of preparation.
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The research would not have had definitive structure, or meaning,
without the proper conceptualization of the problem. For this I thank
Kathleen Bartle-Schulweiss, past Director of The USC Office for Women’s
Issues, and current Director of The Caltech Women’s Center, and Elizabeth
Davenport, current Director of The USC Office for Women’s Issues. I thank
you both from the bottom of my heart. Because of your guidance, and
continued support over the years, the research has the potential to affect social
policy, and create social change for women affected by a variety of sex
crimes.
I want to also thank the following individuals for going above and
beyond the call of duty in their unwavering support and continued faith during
these long years. To Dr. Mike Keen (Department of Sociology, Indiana
University South Bend), and Dr. Daniel Cohen (Chancellor, Indiana
University South Bend). Thank you for the mentoring, and guidance, given
during my undergraduate years. You changed the course of my life, and
helped me reach goals I could only dream of. You guys really walked the
walk, instead of merely talking the talk. I will remain always grateful. To Dr.
Barbara Solomon (Department of Social Work, USC). Thank you for having
faith in me during my early days at USC. I simply could not have lasted
beyond one semester without your support. I am equally thankful to the staff
of Northern Trust Bank of California. Many times you have come to my aid,
and made it possible for me to maintain during the hardest of times. I remain
ever grateful for your care and concern for my success. To Dr. Terry Mills
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(Department of Sociology, University of Florida, Gainseville). Thanks for
being the best friend a woman could have in graduate school. We shared so
many laughs, and so many sorrows. And although you finished before I did,
the memories of those days kept me going. To Dr. Alice Watkins (Dean of
Behavioral Sciences, Azusa Pacific University), and Dr. Sally Bell Alonzo
(Chair: Department of Social Work, Azusa Pacific University). Thank you for
trusting me with my first teaching assignments, and for being such excellent
role models. I learned from both of you, and I continue to spread that
knowledge in, and outside of, the classroom. To Dr. Les Howard (Chair:
Department of Sociology, Whittier College). Thank you for taking me out of
the darkness, and into the light. I could not have completed the writing and
preparation for the pre-oral and final defense without your providing a
positive and supportive space. And last but not least, to Debra Sexton. Thank
you for being there during times of ultimate stress and pain. Thank you for
being faithful to my cause. And most importantly thank you for being my
great friend and sister.
No project of this magnitude could ever come to fruition without the
participation of a team of assistants who are committed to the research. In this
respect, I would like to say thanks to Carol Ann Chavez who served most
efficiently as my chief research assistant, Elsa Ramos who always had my
back whenever I needed papers graded, and Shawna Embleton who spent
hours transcribing taped interviews. Thanks to all of you. I simply could not
have done this without your ultimate dedication to the project.
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I also want to thank the twenty women who agreed to interview for the
project. While I struggled to find a voice in detailing and analyzing your
experiences, I discovered that the strongest voice was yours all along. You
are indeed brave women, and your stories, and narratives, which you have so
willingly shared, will provide decades of knowledge, which I shall use to help
others survive sex crime victimization. Thank you from the bottom of my
heart.
And this section would not be complete without saying thank you to
my mother, Laverne Tolbert, my former student, Tatiana Ramirez, and my
favorite showgirl, Lynette Langston. Although each of you have transcended
this earthly plain, I want all of you to know in spirit that I appreciated deeply
the time we shared, and the support you gave me while you were here. The
research would have little or no meaning without your presence in my life.
With all my love: Thank You.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ii
List of Figures vii
Abstract viii
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Sex Crimes and Reporting
- The Uniform Crime Report.
- Social and Psychological Studies
- The Feminist Approach
4
Chapter Two
Methodology
- Obtaining the Sample, and Risk to Participants
- Interview Questions, and Coding Procedures
27
Chapter Three
Childhood Experiences and Family Structure
- Facilitators to Reporting
- Barriers to Reporting
46
Chapter Four
Subjective Experiences of Sex Crimes
- Facilitators to Reporting
- Barriers to Reporting
78
Chapter Five
Social Support Networks
- Facilitators to Reporting
- Barriers to Reporting
116
Chapter Six
Discussion of the Research and Conclusion
- Epistemology of Victimization
- Advances on Previous Research
- Contributions to Sociology
157
Bibliography 169
Appendix 177
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Chapter Two
Figure 1
Figure 2
List of Figures
Primary Conceptual Themes
Secondary Conceptual Themes
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Abstract
This study explored the facilitators and barriers affecting the way
women report sex crimes. Interviews with twenty women, of varying social
and demographic ascriptions, revealed three key themes affecting the
reporting process.
First, data illustrating the affects of childhood experiences and family
environment on reporting indicated that the potential for reporting to police
increased, if women were socialized in environments where protection from
predatory behavior was available during childhood. Four characteristics of
protection emerged as facilitators: 1) positive female role - models, 2) adult
intervention, 3) kinship ties, and 4) stranger intervention. By contrast, the
potential for reporting decreased, if socialized in environments where family
members failed to offer protection. Six characteristics of social disorder
emerged as barriers: 1) sexual coercion, 2) physical abuse, 3) prior sexual
assault, 4) domestic violence, 5) alcohol, and 6) drug abuse.
Second, data illustrating how the subjective experience of the sex
crime itself affected women’s likelihood of reporting, indicated that
victim/survivor response patterns of anger, rage, and fear, manifested as the
product of a fluid, contextual, range of social responses merging between
simple dyads, to more complex structures linked to the institutional structure
of the family and religion The study finds that fear, in particular, manifests
out of several social factors: 1) a finding supported by The Uniform Crime
Report indicated that women fail to report out of a fear of retaliation from the
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family and friends of the offender, 2) women also fear being cut, hurt, or
killed during the event, 3) fear is derived by the institutions and ideological
structures that rationalize and justify sex crimes, in the home as normal
behavior, and where the dissemination of information pertaining to this
behavior is eschewed by very institution itself, and 4) fear causes
victim/survivors to question their own role and responsibility in the attack
rather than that of the perpetrator.
And finally, the data illustrating the extent to which social support
networks were available in the aftermath of sex crimes, revealed that the
characteristics of social support networks range in a continuum from informal,
small, dyadic forms extended among families, friends, and acquaintances, to
large social networks, to more institutionally organized and funded agencies.
Facilitators to reporting emerged as social support networks manifested
among family and friends, within law enforcement agencies, religious
organizations, and academic environments. By contrast, barriers emerged
when social support was weak within any variation of these networks.
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Introduction
While searching for a proper introduction to this study, I began to
reflect on a night early in the spring of 1991. It was about 2 a.m. and I was
covering my shift as a police officer in a city somewhere in the heartland of
America. The night was quiet and rather routine until I received this radio call.
“720, see the woman at 529 Lexington. Domestic Violence and possible Rape
in progress.” “720, Ten-Four.” I sighed with frustration. I, like every officer
in the sector, recognized the address. I adjusted the seat belt, as two back-up
units responded, turned on the overhead lights, activated the siren and took
off. About five minutes later we all arrived at the address to find a woman and
three young children huddled in the living room. The man who lives here has
attacked this woman on several occasions. Yet he has never been arrested
because the woman, his wife, repeatedly refused to press charges. He would
make sure there were no visible signs of battery. He would usually act like
nothing happened and blame her for any obvious altercation. However, the
husband left the scene on this occasion because one of the children had the
foresight to dial 911. The usual charge of domestic violence was now
complicated by the possibility of spousal rape. Due to signs of physical assault
and emotional trauma, paramedics and detectives were called to the scene.
At this point the case was the responsibility of the detectives. All I had
to do was fill out a brief report describing the incident upon arrival. Yet I
couldn’t stop wondering if this situation would be any different. Will she
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actually file a full report this time? Will she follow through with the
prosecutor’s office? Intellectually I knew that the decision to report was
difficult for her. How do you charge your husband with rape? What if you’re
deathly afraid of him, his family, and his friends? I remembered that she had,
like many sex crime victims I’d had previous contact with, a plethora of
excuses. “Oh it was my fault! I fell down the stairs! I was dressed too sexy!
I shouldn’t have gone to the bar! If I hadn’t had that last drink! He seemed so
nice! He couldn’t help himself! I know I can change him!” I repeatedly asked
myself what would I do if I were in her shoes? How could I help her? I have
never been raped, and I don’t recommend that anyone place themselves in that
situation for the sake of research. However, in the immortal words ofKarl
Marx, I knew it was time to conduct a “ruthless critique” of the events, and
circumstances that constitute sex crimes, as well as the facilitators and barriers
affecting the way women report them.
It was not difficult as a female officer to relate to the physical abuse
each woman experienced, yet today I find it equally impossible to ignore the
emotional trauma they experienced as well. It was always difficult to question
and comfort these women because of the sheer weight of the terror they had
recently experienced. Unlike male, or sometimes female, victims of robbery,
the female victim is not only subject to the loss of her property, but her body is
seen by the assailant as sexual merchandise. I also recall how over the years I
became increasingly frustrated when called to the scene of a sex crime. Yet
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the frustration was not the result of the physical act itself nor the trauma
associated with each case. I realized that I was frustrated and angry because of
an inadequate understanding of the social processes that brought me to the
scene. There had to be more than the physical act itself, and this lack of
knowledge offended me greatly. I felt as though I had to increase my ability to
serve and protect. I was sure I had to do more than take reports, process
information, and hope that somewhere in all the bureaucracy the offender
would be prosecuted. I had to become active on a broader level. As fate
would have it, I left the field of law enforcement in 1992 and accepted an
invitation to begin graduate studies in Sociology at the University of Southern
California. Today I offer a critique of sex crimes and reporting through this
dissertation entitled - The Sex Crime Scenario: Exploring The Facilitators And
Barriers Affecting The Way Women Report Sex Crimes.
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Chapter One
Sex Crimes and Reporting
Female victimization is part o f a social norm in American
society, and all one has to do is listen to the screams o f the
raped, and the sobs o f the battered. In the center o f that
scream is the deafening sound o f women’ s silence. It is a
silence into which we are bom because we are women and
which most of us die.
Andrea Dworkin, 1993
Research suggests that the number of sex crimes committed in the U.S.
annually are increasing, while the number of women reporting these crimes are
decreasing at a similar, or faster rate (Arbabanel & Richman 1990, Los
Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women and The Family, Jewish
Family Service 1990, United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics 1991, American Association of
University Women 1993, U.S. Department of Justice, Uniform Crime Report
for the United States, Federal Bureau of Investigation 2000).
I found this rather unusual and contradictory phenomenon interesting.
The decreasing rate in reporting trends emerged in spite of advancements in
research on a variety of sex crimes, and in spite of the development of strong
support networks for sex crime victims during the past thirty years (Feldman-
Summers & Ashworth 1981, Feldman-Summers & Norris 1984, Reynolds
1984, Williams 1984, Russell 1986, Sheffield 1987, Maitland 1987, Chesney
Lynd 1989, Sanday 1991, Bell 1992, Buchwald 1993, Adams 1993, Koss
1994). Women have had problems reporting sex crimes in previous decades
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but it appears today, in spite of current advances, that the reporting process is
still affected by what appears to be silent forces operating in the current
environment. This paradox led to the formulation of my research question.
What are the facilitators and barriers affecting women’s reporting of sex
crimes?
The primary goal of the research is to identify these characteristics of
reporting, to understand their affects on the process, and to encourage a
dialogue leading to decreases in the number of sex crimes committed, and
increases in the number reported. This chapter, which offers a brief discussion
of the literature reviewing previous, and current research, on sex crimes and
reporting, is divided into four sections. Section one presents the Uniform
Crime Report (UCR), a quantitative analysis of the prevalence and incidence
rates of forcible rape, as well as reporting and non-reporting trends. Section
two introduces research conducted within the social psychological framework.
Here investigators introduced studies designed to ascertain the extent to which
behavioral models are useful research tools in the domain of sex crimes and
reporting.
Section three advances the research overall by introducing the feminist
approach, particularly the way feminists’ researchers illuminate the affects of
several diverse factors such as; race, ethnicity, social status, and sexual
orientation, on the reporting process. And finally I conclude the discussion
overall with a brief overview of the three substantive chapters.
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The Uniform Crime Report
Police estimates of all crime appear yearly in the Uniform Crime Report
(UCR), a quantitative study issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI). Today, over 17,000 law enforcement agencies, representing 96 percent
of the U.S. population, voluntarily submit information to the UCR reporting
program (FBI, 2000). In the year 2000, for example, approximately 11.6
million serious crimes were reported to the police, and approximately 2.2
million arrests were made (FBI, 2000). All serious crimes are listed under the
Crime Index including violent crimes such as murder, non-neghgent
manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, as well as
property crimes such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
Of the overall Crime Index offenses, forcible rape constituted 8 percent
of all serious violent crime in 2000. Forcible rape, as defined by the program,
pertains to “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”
(UCR, 2000). Assaults or attempts to commit rape by force are also included,
however statutory rape (without force) and other sex crimes are excluded.
According to the UCR study 92,846 forcible rapes were reported to law
enforcement agencies during 2000, and this figure represents the lowest total
since 1989. In fact, the 2000 report is arguably 2 percent lower than 1995, and
12 percent below the 1992 level, but 5 percent higher than the 1987 volume
(UCR, 2000). By UCR definition, the victims of forcible rape are always
female, and in 2000, an estimated 71 of every 100,000 women in the U.S.
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reported themselves as victims of forcible rape (UCR 2000). Interestingly, the
study reveals, also, that many complaints are found to be groundless, and are
therefore excluded from crime counts. The unfounded rate, or percentage of
complaints deemed false, is arguably higher for forcible rape than for any other
index crime. In lieu of the 8 percent founded in 2000, 8 percent were also
excluded as unfounded (UCR, 2000). Nevertheless, over half of the forcible
rapes reported to law enforcement officials in 2000 were cleared by arrest or
exceptional means.
According to UCR statistics, several variables manifest as facilitators to
reporting (National Victimization Survey 1993, U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics 1993, FBI, 2000).
1. Women want to stop it from happening again
2. Women want to prevent a similar crime.
3. Women want to punish the offender.
The UCR indicates, also, that several variables manifest as barriers to
reporting (National Victimization Survey 1993, U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics 1993, FBI, 2000).
1. Women refuse to report because they fear similar attacks by family and
friend’s of the offender.
2. Reporting is a waste of time since in many instances law enforcement
officials seem to show little concern for African American women.
3. Family members and friends are not likely to believe them when the
offender is an acquaintance or family member.
4. Reporting is simply an embarrassing ordeal.
5. The violence experienced was a private or personal matter.
6. Women decide to take care of the situation themselves.
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These elements of reporting strategies, those representing both facilitators and
barriers, were significant in centering my thoughts on some of the most
important social characteristics of sex crimes and reporting. And in doing so,
several questions came to mind pertaining to the conceptualization of the
problem, which appear buried within the mathematical structure of the report.
1. Was it simply the sex act itself that produced fear after the event, or was it
a series of events, situations, and circumstances working together to
produce fear? Are there specific levels of trauma associated with this type
of fear? To what extent does the trauma actually affect the reporting
strategy? Is forcible rape the only sex crime that produces fear?
2. Why is it that reporting is a waste of time for women of color? Law
enforcement officers and criminal justice administrators are sworn to protect
all people regardless of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation, yet the
fact that reporting is problematic in the area of ethnicity suggests that more
emphasis is needed in this area.
3. Why are family members least likely to believe victims if the perpetrator is
an acquaintance or family member? Families are supposed to be the most
essential institutional framework of support for its members, yet the fact
that the institution of the family is under question here it is necessary to
look at several potential flaws within family structure.
These questions opened the door to a further evaluation of the overall scope
and range of the project, particularly drawing emphasis on the complex
intersection between sex crimes and reporting, and the fact that forcible rape is
the only sex crime of empirical importance to UCR researchers.
I knew from previous experience in law enforcement that reporting
procedures, and strategies, are extremely complex structures manifesting out of
a plethora of social factors occurring within women’s lives. I decided that we
needed to see these complex forces as they emerge, and evolve, within the
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process itself. In this respect, the concept of the study should broaden the
explanatory power to focus on the long-term cycles of physical and emotional
violence inherent to sex crime victimization. This change in conceptualization,
in my opinion, is extremely important because, despite the belief that rape,
domestic violence, incest, and a range of criminal activity involving sexual
assault, are anomalous occurrences, sex crimes do not occur within a vacuum.
Rather, they are produced by a series of events, situations, and circumstances,
which come together in time and space to form relationships where sex crimes
are committed on a regular basis. Furthermore the experiences of the victim,
prior to, during, and after the event, strongly influences whether or not the
crime will be reported.
For example, the research indicates that less than a third of female
victims of sex crime report to police (Buchwald et.al. 1993). The general
belief, or research finding, here is that over 1.5 million female survivors of
forcible rape, or attempted rape, emerged in the U.S. during the last twenty
years (Buchwald et.al. 1993). Yet the impact of additional related crimes over
the same twenty-year period indicates that the survival rate is larger than
expected (1993). One such study examining long-term cycles of sex crimes,
found that 13 % of the women surveyed reported having been victims of at
least one completed rape (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation 1992).
Of this statistic, 39 % were raped more than once (occurring during
childhood and adolescence), with 29 % of all forcible rapes occurring when
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victims were less than eleven years old, and another 32 % occurring between
eleven and seventeen years of age. The research also suggests, that many
women are assaulted by males in their family as well as boyfriends, and other
acquaintances. For example, 9 % were raped by husbands or ex-husbands
during domestic violence and stalking scenario’s, 11 % by fathers or
stepfathers during the course of incest, 10 % by boyfriends or ex-boyfriends
during the course of date and acquaintance rape as well as stalking, 16 % by
other relatives, and 29 % by other non-relatives, such as friends and neighbors
(1992). This wider range of sex crimes indicates, that forcible rape is not the
only sex crime of empirical importance. Rather, there is a complex pattern of
overlapping sex crimes that many women experience during the course of a
lifetime.
The numbers indicate, also, that these experiences include sexual
victimization at the hands of several so-called normal individuals such as
husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, acquaintances, dates, as well
as strangers who traditionally represent the forcible rapist. It is estimated that
of the crimes committed by these individuals, only 16 percent, or
approximately 1 out of every 6, were reported to police (Rape in America: A
Report to the Nation 1992). In lieu of these findings the survival rate seems to
increase significantly. The numbers of survivors are probably closer to 12
million, while the actual number of sex crimes committed annually may have
increased to 639,500 (Buchwald et. al. 1993).
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It is clear from these statistics that reporting procedures, and strategies,
are indeed complex structures manifesting out of a plethora of social factors
occurring within women’s lives. In this respect, the research should expand to
cover a wider array of sex crimes. Maybe one of the problems with this
general lack of interest is the result of earlier studies, which also had similar
problems with the way researchers conceptualized the dynamics of sex crimes.
While these studies focused on the social and psychological characteristics of
the event and the way reported in the aftermath, forcible rape was still seen as
the only sex crime of concern to women.
Social & Psychological Approaches
Some of the earliest research on the actual question linking sex crimes
to the reporting process is found in research conducted by Feldman-Summers
and Ashworth (1981), and Feldman-Summers and Norris (1984), who
advanced within the social and psychological framework.
The purpose of the original study was two-fold: (a) to identify the
factors related to women’s intention to report or not report rape to a variety of
reporting agencies (e.g., police, rape crisis center, husband); and (b) to
ascertain the extent to which behavioral models are useful research tools in this
domain (Feldman-Summers and Ashworth, 1981). Findings revealed that
women’s intention to report varied substantially according to the ethnic
identity of the victim, that normative expectations were typically better
predictors of intentions to report than perceived outcomes of reporting, and
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that specific perceived outcomes best predicting behavioral intentions varied
according to ethnic group (Feldman-Summers & Ashworth 1981).
The purpose of the second project was to identify the variables that
predict whether or not a rape victim will report to either a law enforcement
agency, or public agency organized to provide services to rape victims
(Feldman-Summers and Norris, 1984). Findings revealed that women
routinely refuse to report to police because social expectations encourage or
discourage reporting, and that women who tell their husband or lover they
have been raped are more likely influenced by his belief that she should not
report. Likewise individual characteristics of the victim also play a significant
role in determining the extent to which reporting occurs. For example, several
diverse factors identifying ethnic identity, marital status, and age - as well as
psychological characteristics pertaining to self-esteem, and beliefs about rape -
intersect to influence the way reporting within the context of police, and social
service agencies occur. And finally, several situational characteristics of rape
influence behavioral patterns and decision making in the aftermath of the event
(1984).
Both studies were quite useful in helping me conceptualize some of the
more complex issues intersecting between sex crimes and the facilitators and
barriers affecting the way women report. What I see here is an advancement,
whereas Feldman-Summers et. al. take into consideration the social and
psychological factors unseen in current UCR studies. This emphasis of course
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constitutes a significant advance in then current research, yet as previously
stated, the typical problem in the research design emerged.
For one their re-conceptualization of the problem of rape and reporting,
gave the reader the impression that forcible rape is the only sex crime of
serious import to women. Furthermore I discovered in the first study that the
researchers use of random sampling was a bit troubling. For example, none of
the women were victims of any sex crime, let alone forcible rape. In this
respect all findings are questionable due to the fact that during the telephone
interview the women were told they could participate as long as they were 18
years of age, and could read English or Spanish. Thus, as the researchers state
clearly, that the focus of the research is to examine the “potential” for
reporting, which means that participants offered entirely subjective views based
on what they thought would happen, rather than the actual facts of an event.
Because of this, and the previous, conceptual flaw, I continued to
search for studies that included a wider range of sex crimes, and where women
with real life experiences are examined. For example, other’s working within
similar social and psychological frameworks shifted the focus to include not
only a wider range of sex crimes, but also the theoretical frameworks through
which the problem of sex crimes and reporting are better examined (Reynolds
1984, Williams 1984, Bachman 1993).
For example, the research conducted by Williams examined the
similarities between men who rape as strangers, those who rape within the
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context of normal relationships, and the way women perceive themselves as
victims of criminal contact when confronted by either offender (1984).
Findings revealed that women who find themselves targeted by strangers are
more than likely to report if the circumstances of the rape correspond with,
what she called, the classic, i.e., atypical, rape scenario. This is where weapons
and physical intimidation are used (1984). It appears that the use of weapons,
and/or some other form of violent means, provides victims with the evidence
needed to convince both themselves, and others, that they were raped
(Feldman-Summers & Norris 1981, and Williams 1984). If the evidence is
lacking, if they did not experience a high level of force, or was not threatened
with a dangerous weapon and seriously injured, they are less likely to see
themselves as true victims. By contrast the typical rape scenario is more
complex. This is where women are raped, assaulted, and abused by individuals
who are known to them. Barriers to reporting emerge here in lieu of a social
structure that views these individuals, and the relationship women have with
them, as normal (1984).
Reynolds shifted this theoretical focus into an arena that not only
broadened the potential range and scope of the types of sex crimes under
consideration, but she also shifted the venue through which the long term
aspects of sex crimes and reporting are now examined through the socialization
of the victim/survivor (1984). Socialization is the process by which humans
learn the behaviors and beliefs appropriate for their surroundings. Herein
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people gain a sense of self, and personal identity through the reactions and
expectations of the social world. Bom female or male, all individuals go
through a process of learning how to he a woman or man through human
contact, stimulation, as well as natural and nurturing influences (Macionis
1996).
Advancing from this theoretical framework Reynolds drew a roadmap
illustrating the more complex nature of reporting, particularly the way women
are taught at early ages the normative responses of sex crimes, which occur
within certain family environments (1984). Here the characteristics of
gendered socialization prepared young women to take responsibility for their
own victimization. She wrote:
Sex-role socialization into conformity and need for approval fimction to
establish the victim role for women in social or dating rape which is the
most prevalent, yet least reported, form of rape. Her self image as
“feminine” which translates into playful, tempting, attractive,
unavailable, is called into play. She has been enjoined through
socialization against active self-defense as well as against “making a
scene.” Furthermore, since the conventional stereotype of a rapist is
that of an unknown assailant, and this rapist is “known,” she does not
react to the situation as rape. Even though intercourse without consent
is rape. Since she has internalized the cultural myth that rape is a form
of sexual (versus assaultive) behavior as well as her responsibility for
provocation it then follows that she should feel “guilty” as an aftermath
of the assault.
Here Reynolds describes how the insidious nature of the relationship, while
couched within normative frameworks, would make it difficult to report acts of
incest, domestic violence, sexual battering, and a variety of sexual offenses
omitted by much of criminological research (1984, p. 153). It’s not just the
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fact that sex crimes occur within certain environments harboring such
relationships, but that victims are influenced a-priori through a process that
ensures self-blame, self-deprecation, and self-abasement (1984). Barriers to
reporting emerge here in lieu of a social structure that views the behavior of
the offender, and the unequal relationship women have with them, as normal.
In my opinion, socialization theory, when used as an epistemological basis for
shaping the conceptual development of research on sex crimes and reporting,
constitutes a major theoretical advancement. Researchers could now make the
link between sex crimes, reporting, and the way the long-term social and
psychological characteristics of this relationship are affected, to some degree,
by prior socialization.
Following theoretical advancements of this type, it appears that interest
in the debate waned significantly. For example, the only study of sex crimes
and reporting of the 1990s was conducted by Bachman (1993), who
resurrected the quantitative approaches established by both Feldman-Summers
(1981, 1984), and Williams (1984). Here she expanded the concept to include
an emphasis on social support networks such as the medical attention
victims/survivors receive in hospitals. I believer that a factor which may have
affected the debate emerged as legislation in the U.S. successfully advanced
social policy dictating several changes in the way law enforcement officials
handled sex crime offenses, and many other aspects of sex crime victimization.
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Underscoring the seriousness of the need for changes in social policy
was the newly approved Crime Bill, for example, which provided state and
local grants for more police, prisons, and a variety of crime prevention
initiatives. What was salient about this particular bill is that it included, for the
first time, the Violence Against Women Act (Criminal Justice Newsletter
1994). This proviso was designed to strengthen enforcement and prosecution
of laws governing crimes against women including sexual assault and domestic
violence (1994). The significance of this measure was seen in the general shift
in thinking whereas women’s experiences were finally taken into consideration.
Here several studies which focused on the affects of a wide range of
violent crimes against women, directed attention to the fact that most crimes
against women are of a sexual nature, and that the majority o f these crimes go
unreported (Russell 1986, Sheffield 1987, Maitland 1987, Chesney Lynd 1989,
Sanday 1991, Bell 1992, Buchwald 1993, Adams 1993, Koss 1994). Yet
despite the advances, the paradox continued to grow, and I wondered why.
There is no doubt that women have had problems reporting sex crimes in
previous decades but it appears today, in spite o f current advances, that the
reporting process is still affected by silent forces operating in the current
environment.
The following discussion o f the feminist approach sheds light on some
of the darkness shaping this silence. As Andrea Dworkin stated so eloquently,
“female victimization is part of a social norm in American society, and all one
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has to do is listen to the screams o f the raped, and the sobs of the battered. In
the center of that scream is the deafening sound of women's silence. It is a
silence into which we are bom because we are women and which most of us
die” (In: Buchwald, Fletcher, and Roth. 1993. Pg.13).
Feminist Approach
Many feminist researchers agree that problems occur when women
resist rape by someone she intimately knows as opposed to those women who
resist rape by strangers. According to some researchers, all forms of violence
against women are interrelated (Russell 1974 - 1986, Sanday 1990, Bart
1993). Regardless of the intimate structure of rape, and other sex crimes, all
women suffer long-term trauma and severe mental health consequences, which
may effect whether or not the incident is reported. What is salient here is that
“intimate relationships” are, also, often related to several traditional and
institutional values constituted by paradigms of submissiveness and silence in
which women are forced to adhere, while simultaneously yielding a more
dominant and aggressive behavior in men.
There is much to question of an environment that creates this type of
paradox. This is where women and men, wives and husband, girlfriends and
boyfriends usually co-exist within the same environment, but it is extremely
ironic that the more inclusive category of “intimate” (e. g., family member, ex
spouse, boyfriend, ex-boy-friend, family friend, or neighbor) is classified as,
someone the victim knew in an intimate manner (Bart & Moran 1993).
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Particularly since women are victims of “violent intimates” at a rate 3 times
that of men, e.g. 6.3 per 1,000 women compared to 1.8 per 1,000 men (Bureau
o f Justice Statistics 1993).
Reporting strategies are also affected when racial ascriptions intersect
with social status. Reporting is less likely because of the stigma attached to
being female, a woman of color, poor, or a combination of either. Many
women of color, as well as lower-class white women, are seen as unlikely
victims. Yet by intersecting these variables the problem of race, and ethnicity,
on the reporting process is more fully revealed (Davis 1978, Hall 1983, Collins
1990, Moore-Foster 1993). It is not merely the fact that being a woman of
color is a problem in itself. The problem lies, more, within the perceptions of
people who maintain the ideology and institutional frameworks from which the
proper adjudication of rape and other sex crimes are reserved for specific
classes, and social ascriptions.
Vachss explained, for example, that law enforcement officers, and
criminal justice officials, are sworn to protect all citizens regardless of gender,
race, class, and sexual orientation, yet when we place women, along with these
diverse characteristics, at the center of analysis, we find that sometimes the
ideals creating the system of criminal justice, does not accommodate women
with a variety of unique characteristics (1993).
This is a system that subjugates women on every level. Particularly if
these women are invested with characteristics considered anathema to the
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social norm. Poor working class women, for example, are routinely ignored by
law enforcement officers and stigmatized further with labels such as sluts,
whores, jungle bunnies, and loose women (Buchwald 1993). By contrast,
wealthy - respectable “White” women are considered more credible and less
likely to have consented to a sex crime. Yet the same is true when women of
color attempt to report to social service agencies or health care professionals
(Feldman-Summers and Norris 1984). Here they encounter racism on a larger
scale. Rarely are they greeted in an emergency room, doctor’s office or rape
crisis center by women of their own race or ethnic group - or at minimum -
someone trained to be sensitive to their needs (1984).
Moraga also found that a white lesbian having a relationship with a
Chicana lesbian, is in a precarious position if she is raped by a white man
(1986). Here the likelihood of reporting decreases again when the idea of
women loving other women is added to the matrix. These women are lesbians
and white lesbians are still seen as agents of white men. The idea of this
women not needing a man for sexual gratification further challenges the male
to female power structure (1986). The sexual association between women
alone is enough to keep many lesbians from reporting to police, but reporting
options are further reduced if the relationship is interracial, or if she has a-
priori knowledge that police officer’s, doctor’s, attorney’s, as well as women’s
advocates are more judgmental about a woman’s sexual orientation than about
the actions of her attacker (1986). Should she decide to report, she may
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withhold important facts about the assault if such information would reveal her
sexual orientation.
Yet another issue related to lesbian lifestyle, and problems associated
with institutionalized homophobia, pertains to the prevalence and incidence
rates of violence within lesbian relationships, which makes reporting all the
more difficult. Elliot explains that the myth of lesbian tranquility, or the idea
that woman-to-woman relationships are “more peaceM and egalitarian than
heterosexual unions has been shattered by the reality of lesbian battering”
(Renzetti & Miley 1996, p.2). Current research on lesbian relationships find in
many instances women will beat, rape, and verbally abuse their lovers (1996).
This seemingly new phenomena, has presented traditional domestic violence
service providers, and the gay/lesbian community with a troubling dilemma.
Current research indicates, also, that 22 percent to 46 percent of all
lesbians have been in a physically violent same-sex relationship. In this regard,
it is no more likely, maybe less likely, that these women would report to the
police nor social service agencies. And in light of previous discussions on the
problems that women of color, and lesbians, face when attempting to report to
either resource, it is clear that intersections between lesbianism, social status,
and racism has a negative affect on the reporting process.
For example, Coleman conducted a study of 90 women living in
domestic partner relationships where she found at least 46 percent of these
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women experienced repeated acts o f physical abuse in their relationships
(1990). In a previous study, Brand and Kidd found an incidence rate of 25
percent of women who might have actually reported (1986). Of course the
statistics mentioned in the latter report are significantly higher than UCR
estimates (8 percent o f rape victims), however the percentage may account for
several additional factors consistent with increases in the overall numbers of
social support networks found in the U.S. today (National Organization for
Women 1973, U.S. Attorney Generals Taskforce on Family Violence (1984,
American Medical Association 1991).
It is clear then, that there has been a significant growth in the numbers
of reporting resources found in the gay/lesbian community (Renzitti and Miley
1996). However reporting strategies are better adhered to when health care
workers are either, themselves gay or lesbian, or heterosexuals trained to deal
with a variety of problems women face when attempting to report within
mainstream agencies. From these discussions, a new case is built for advancing
research on sex crimes and reporting.
Advancing The Research
While much of the research, particularly the work by Williams (1984),
Reynolds (1984), Bachman (1993), and several feminist researchers (Russell
1986, Moraga 1986, Sheffield 1987, Maitland 1987, Chesney Lynd 1989,
Collins 1990, Sanday 1991, Bell 1992, Vachss 1993, Buchwald 1993, Adams
1993, Moore-Foster 1993Koss 1994), successfully advanced empirical studies
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relating to the reoccurring problem o f sex crimes and women failing to report
them, the current study finds that any intersection between them still falls short
of a significant advancement.
In recent years not much attention has been given to advancing studies
of reporting within the social sciences. And, as previously suggested, much of
the inattention is arguably the result of numerous advances made in social
policy and legislation, law enforcement procedures, and general education on
the issue of rape, and domestic violence. Yet the fact that the paradox still
exist, specifically when considering the high numbers o f women reporting acts
of forcible rape while estimates of non-reported acts are higher, justifies the
need to advance into a more realistic stance on the issue of sex crimes and
reporting in general.
I already mentioned, for example, that forcible rape is generally viewed
as the only violent crime committed against women of empirical importance.
Yet researchers seem to agree that additional crimes of a sexual nature should
be added to the UCR Index Category illustrating the most violent crime rate
trends (Russell 1986, Sheffield 1987, Sanday 1990, Vachss 1993). Here the
long-term cycles of physical and emotional violence, inherent to sex crime
victimization, are better ascertained. Sex crimes such as date and acquaintance
rape, domestic violence and spousal rape, incest, and stalking, all need
inclusion because of the offender’s violent intent against women, which reflect
the same, or similar, conduct of those individuals who commit acts of forcible
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rape.
The current study advances on this theme, and provides, what I think
is, a more definitive examination of the paradox shaping the research question.
This new approach contributes to sociology, and the research on sex crimes
and reporting, on two distinctly different levels. First, I consider a wider range
of sex crimes, while much of previous research has focused mainly on
reporting behavior as it pertains to forcible rape only. And second, I take a
more holistic approach to examine how the status of particular women in
culture and society affects their ability to report. Here the problem is examined
on a continuum whereas the long-term affects of sex crimes and reporting are
affected by events, situations, and circumstances occurring prior to, during,
and after the crime. The following section offers a chapter summary
illustrating how these factors shaped the substantive framework of the
dissertation.
Organization of the Chapters
Chapter three examined how social factors in women’s lives, prior to
victimization, affected their likelihood o f reporting future events. The data
indicates that women are more likely to file police reports if they experienced
protection from sexual predators as children. Four characteristics of protection
emerged during the data collection process as facilitators to future reporting:
1) positive female role - models, 2) adult intervention, 3) kinship ties, and 4)
stranger intervention. These protective measures are significant when
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considering the extent to which young girls are abused within so-called
normative family structures. The reader will see several examples when it was
necessary for an adult, i.e. parent, relative, or/and stranger, to intervene and
protect these girls from other adults who prey on unsuspecting females on a
regular basis. The data indicates, also, that women are less likely to file police
reports if they experienced a lack of protection from sexual predators as
children. Six characteristics of social disorder emerged during the data
collection process as barriers to fixture reporting: 1) sexual coercion, 2)
physical abuse, 3) prior sexual assault, 4) domestic violence, 5) alcohol, and 6)
drug abuse.
Chapter four examined how the subjective experience o f the sex crime
affected women’s likelihood of reporting. The data revealed that victim/
survivor response patterns of anger, rage, and fear, manifests as part of a fluid,
contextual, range of social responses merging anywhere between simple dyads
(victim/predator), to more complex interactions, linked to social institutions
and ideological structures that shape the way women respond to a variety of
life experiences.
The data also indicated that fear derives from many situations, and as a
subjective experience, must be examined as such. For example, UCR findings
were validated since several participants failed to report out of a fear of
retaliation from the family and friends of the offender (2000). Some feared
being cut, hurt, or killed during the event. In some cases, fear, anger, and
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rage, all manifested, singularly, or in any combination, as part of a long-term
series of social and emotional patterns that created these responses on certain
occasions. Fear was derived here, by the institutions and ideological structures
that rationalized and justified sex crimes, in the home, for example, as normal
behavior (Williams 1984, Reynolds 1984), and where the dissemination of
information pertaining to this behavior was eschewed by very institution itself
(Dworkin 1983). In this respect, fear caused victim/survivors to question their
own role and responsibility in the attack rather than that of the perpetrator
(Reynolds 1984).
Chapter five examined how women responded when law enforcement
officials, and other individuals professing support for women victimized by
sexual predators, react, or fail to react, in the aftermath of sex crimes. It was
seen that the characteristics of social support networks ranged in a continuum
anywhere from informal, small, dyadic forms extended among families, friends,
and acquaintances, to large circles of social networks, to more institutionally
organized and funded agencies and organizations. The data also indicated that
the likelihood of reporting increased as social support networks manifested
among family and friends, within law enforcement agencies, religious
organizations, and academic environments. These institutions formed
organizational structures, projecting ideologies o f support. Without this
support, it appeared that women are not only less likely to report to police, but
won’ t report within any other context as well (Feldman & Norris 1984).
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Chapter Two
Methodology
Feminist research on individual lives is a type o f scholarship that
begins with an insight about women’ s condition that requires further
elaboration so as to solve the puzzle o f one’ s own life. It may begin
with a discovery about a hitherto ignored woman or trivialized aspects
o f women’ s competence that needs careful examination and then
distribution. Once the project begins, a circular process ensues: the
woman doing the study learns about herself as well as about the
woman she is studying.
Shulamit Reineharg (1992)
This chapter discusses the sample, risk to participants, data collection
procedures, interview questions, coding procedures, limitations, and
advancements made in the study. I take an inductive approach. Inductive
reasoning, for example, proposes that the “truth of a proposition is made more
probable by the accumulation of confirming evidence” (Abercrombie, Hill, &
Turner 1994, p. 211). The evidence established a basis for analysis.
One method employing this principle is explained in Kathy Charmaz’s
elaboration of the Grounded Theory Approach, which “stresses discovery and
theory development rather than logical deductive reasoning which relies on
prior theoretical frameworks” (1983, p. 110). Discovery and theory
development leads the grounded theorist to several distinctive strategies
(1983).
For example, in the grounded theory approach, data collection and
analysis proceeded simultaneously. I found this strategy useful in shaping the
dating collecting process, interpretation of the data, and improved my
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observation and analytical skills. Furthermore the processes and products of
research were shaped from the data, rather than from logically preconceived
and deduced theoretical frameworks. Yet the theoretical strength of this
method, while allowing for a more complex development, was not always
reliable. Thirdly, grounded theorists don’t usually follow traditional
quantitative canons of verification. These researchers follow the qualitative
tradition by checking developing ideas with further specific observations, and
often take their research beyond the confines of one topic, setting, or issue.
Finally, not only do grounded theorists study process, they assume that
making theoretical sense of social life is in itself a process. In this regard,
grounded theory established a venue through which a combination of events,
situations, and circumstances leading to the temporal relationship, occurring
before and during the event, were examined as long term cycles of emotional
and physical trauma producing barriers to reporting after the event (1983). It
was my goal to develop fresh theoretical interpretations of the data rather than
explicitly aim for any final or complete interpretation of it. As seen in the
following discussion, the strategy inherent to grounded theory made it easier to
collect, organize, and analyze, this data. The grounded theory method
established a venue through which, a combination of events were examined
within the narratives provided by the women in the study.
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The Sample
I conducted intensive interviews with twenty women living in and
around Southern California over the course of the four years (1996-2000).
Interviewing is “essentially a conversation, ‘merely one of the many ways in
which two people talk to one another,’ but it is also, significantly, an
instrument of data collection” (Oakley 1981, p. 32). As a qualitative data
gathering technique, often used in the social sciences, face to face interviewing
made it possible to establish a rapport with the woman who comprised the
sample (Oakley 1981, Charmaz 1983, Reinharg 1992).
The first women to actually participate in the study were volunteers
from the Office for Women’s Issues at the University of Southern California
(1994). I was the graduate assistant in the office, and, being familiar with the
type of sex crimes each woman experienced as well as problems with
reporting, I was able to begin a process of discovery and theory development.
As the project took life, I recruited participants from other campuses in and
around the Southern California area as well.
Researchers often utilize female populations on college campuses
nationally to study the effects of sex crime victimization (Sanday 1990,
Bohmer & Parrot 1993, Sullivan 1994). After approximately twelve years of
living, working, and interacting in universities, and on college campuses, it is
easy to see why. Education marks one of the most significant social
institutions in the U.S., and universities and colleges reflect pretty much every
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behavioral pattern, and social interaction inherent to U.S. culture. As the
following section will show, sociologists, while deeply invested in the theories
and models detailing the cause and effect of sex crimes, should develop
strategies to help women transcend the depths in which sex crimes occur.
Strategies For The Interview Method
As a qualitative data gathering technique, often used in the social
sciences, face to face interviewing made it possible to establish a rapport with
the woman who comprised the sample. I was able to establish a rapport with
these brave women by proposing a more holistic view of the way we approach
the interview in of-itself. For example, I first had to consider that there was an
element of maximum emotional risk to the women. In earlier interviews, which
were four hours long, I discovered that several of the questions caused
emotional discomfort, but also that this lengthy process increased the potential
for subjects to become traumatized all over again. Well being the novice that I
was at the time, I became quite concerned and sought more experienced advice
from my dissertation advisor, Dr. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. I was able,
with her help, to establish a way to minimize many of the risks.
Well for one thing, I cut down the interview instrument from 100
questions - covering demographic variables such as age, occupation,
education, etc., and questions pertaining to what I thought would give me
insight into both cause and effect of the crime, and subsequent reporting
strategy if one existed - to 18 questions covering 16 demographic variables,
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and 2 questions pertaining to the main research emphasis. For example,
question number 17 read; are you now, or have you ever been, a victim of a
sex crime. Of course the answer would be yes, due to the pre-selected sample.
Now question 18 asked subjects to follow up with a description of the event.
The result of this change in strategy was startling. What happened was
that I began to slow down on the demographic questions and probe deeply on
variables such as occupation for example. I would say; could you tell me about
your occupation? And one subject replied: librarian. Well I would then spend
the next few minutes probing her occupation. I learned to never assume that I
knew the definition of the occupation, so I would ask her to explain on many
levels what the job entailed, what was her feeling about her occupation, did she
plan to do this job as a lifetime career, etc.
From this strategy I found that I could learn many things about my
subjects before the real interview began. This strategy provided a link to later
probes where the events, situations, and circumstances occurring prior to,
during, and after the event, were made more relevant. I learned to simply have
a conversation with my subjects without leading them. And by all means, let
her talk at length. Don’t cut off her stream of consciousness. You can always
return to probe later on an additional point of order.
So while the interview, in itself was cut down to approximately 2
hours, rather than 4 ,1 found that the intensive probing strategy yielded much
more information than I expected. It was quite a chore having the tapes
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transcribed, and the coding process was a nightmare until the themes presented
in the substantive chapters began to show themselves. Nevertheless, I found
that many of the women, interviewed, had never told anyone about their
experiences. They talked to me at length because I spent a great deal of time
establishing a rather unique rapport with each woman prior to, during, and
after the interview.
And to further minimize the risk, I conducted pre-interviews once I
made contact with a potential subject. I did this mainly to assess the potential
for reemerging trauma, social affability, and overall willingness, in some cases
need, to share her experiences. I also found it quite useful to share some of my
own experiences in law enforcement, advocacy at the USC and Caltech
Women’s Centers, as well as my own sense of humor and empathy for their
situation. I know that much of the research on the interview method dictates
that the researcher remain “objective” during this process (Lofland and Lofland
1984, Berg 1998), however I subscribe to the Weberian school of thought,
which requires that researchers adhere to the rule of “verstehen.” Here we give
credit to the subjective meanings individuals place upon their own experiences
and the experiences of others (Coser 1977). And to do this, one must show a
certain level of empathy, and a certain openness that the women can feel
emanating from the interviewer. After all she has agreed to share some o f her
most traumatic secrets, and interviewers working within this genre must
provide enough space for a certain level of trust to manifest between you.
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I know from previous experiences in law enforcement that Weber is
correct in this assumption. A police officer while trained to adhere to the
passion of the job (physical aspects), must also know when to utilize
perspective (empathy and understanding). I employed this method often
during my days on the job, and so I was sure that I could use it within the
context of the qualitative interview method. So I gained a rapport with each of
my subjects’ before conducting the interview. They trusted me and I trusted
them. They knew that I cared about them as individuals with real feelings, and
experiences that meant everything to them. By the time we got down to the
taped interview, they knew me well enough to share whatever they wanted, or
needed too.
But it doesn’t end there. You can’t just walk away from the interview
after collecting the data. Too much is at risk, namely her emotional status after
describing what often was years of physical and emotional abuse. You have to
be sure that you leave her in a consistent mental status. You want the
experience to be cathartic. Although both of us were well aware that a
psychologist was on call during the interview, as required by USC-IRB
standards, that option is not available once the interview has ended. So it is
essential that you follow-up, and supply a list of resources for positive social
support, including the indices needed to file police reports. You want to be
absolutely sure that she is okay. Today I still talk to several of these wonderful
women, and I feel that I have fostered friendships I will value for life.
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The last thing I need to say about the qualitative interview method
pertains to the feet that the trauma victims/survivors experience, and then share
with you, will also affect your own mental status. For example, during the
summer of 1998 I found myself living within an angry nightmare. I was
snapping at everyone. I hated all men during this period. I couldn’t sleep.
And my eating habits were out of sync. In fact my entire vision of the world
was quite dark and foreboding, and I wasn’t sure why. Well as fate would
have it, I was a member of a dissertation support group with four other women
who were specialist in Marriage and Family Therapy. During one meeting in
particular, one of the women asked me flat out: what was wrong with me? I’ m
usually a hard case about most things, but I guess I was being more recalcitrant
than usual. I told her that I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Almost in
unison, all of them replied: how many interviews have you done recently?
In that instance it all came together. They explained that researchers
often take on the trauma of their subjects, particularly trauma resulting from
violent experiences. This made sense because I had conducted four interviews
within the two weeks preceding our meeting. I was mad. I had taken on the
trauma of my subjects. Although I could never profess to understand, from a
personal perspective, what each of them had experienced, I wanted to hurt
someone. I wanted to avenge them, which of course is dangerous, and can
escalate into a predatory nature o f your own.
So thanks to the ladies in my group, I learned that researchers
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working in the field o f sex crimes, reporting, and any perspective involving
violent behavior with traumatic responses, must take care of themselves.
There are times when the empathetic investigator must also receive some
amount of empathy. All in all, these strategies, and new experiences, yielded
20 robust data sets, which proved to be instrumental in developing an analysis
of the facilitators and barriers affecting the way women report sex crimes.
A graph illustrating the demographic variations in the sample is found
in an appendix following the reference section, however Ages of participants
ranged between 19 and 59 years. Although the mean age registered at 32,
twelve of the women were 19 to 27 years old. This sample was not
intentional. Ages reflect the word o f mouth inquiry used to develop the sample
overall. Despite attempts to develop a heterogeneous sample, fourteen of the
women reported their Occupation as College Student (2 graduate, 12
undergraduate), three as Administrator, one Library Analyst, a Secretary, and
one Housewife. Incomes ranged between $5,000, and $50,000 with the mean
income registered at $15,650. Educational Status ranged between tenth grade,
high school diploma, one to three years o f college, Bachelors and Masters
degree’s, as well as Juris Doctorate candidate, and Ph.D. This range reflects a
high degree ofhigh educational attainment in the sample, however the
educational status of 12 of the women ranged between one to three years of
college.
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The Race and Ethnic Status of the sample varied to some degree. Ten
of the women were White, one European/ White, three African American, one
Filipino/African American, two Mexican, and three Asians. Religious
Orientation varied as well. Five identified as Christian, three Roman Catholic,
one Episcopalian, one Presbyterian, one Jehovah Witness, one Feminist
Spiritualist, and six claimed to profess no religious beliefs of any kind. In lieu
o f Marital Status, and Offspring only four of the women are married, one is
separated from her husband, four are divorced, and eleven remain single. Two
children are bom to one single women, and two single women have one child
each. Two children are bom to one married woman, and one married woman
has one child only. Two children are bom, also, to one of the divorced
women. The Sexual Orientation of the sample was overwhelmingly
heterosexual. For example, fifteen women claimed heterosexual sexual
orientation, four bisexual, and one lesbian.
Of the sample overall, four of these women Reported to police, campus
administrators ministers and priest, family members and friends, or social
service agencies -while 16 did Not Report. This does not imply that the latter
group never attempted to report, but that the barriers to formal reporting were
insurmountable. Finally, Sex Crimes ranged on a wide scale from Sexual
Harassment to Rape. Participants reported: 1 case of Sexual Harassment, 7
cases of Domestic Violence, 18 cases of Sexual Assault, 2 cases o f Stalking, 3
cases of Incest, 5 cases of Sexual Terrorism, 4 cases of Sexual Molestation as
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children, 3 cases o f Forcible Rape, 2 cases of Stranger Rape, and 4 cases of
Acquaintance Rape.
I realize that the risk of bias in developing this sample was high.
Particularly that exclusive use of this homogeneous population o f women made
it difficult to study the reporting process in a heterogeneous population of
women. While most college campuses reflect several characteristics of the
social structure in general, the facilitators and barriers affecting the reporting
process of women in the academic setting may not reflect the experiences of
women at large. Excluding this population presented a major concern. To
offset the risk, I asked some of the first participant’s to recommend other’s
with similar experiences. These inquiries led to memo’s and word-of-mouth
queries to family members, friends, and associates who wished to talk about
similar experiences (Taylor & Bogdan 1984).
Risks and Discomfort to Human Subjects
There was an element of maximum emotional risk to the women
participating in the project. Early on I discovered that several of the questions
caused emotional discomfort. Particularly those requiring subjects to relive
personal trauma associated with past sex crimes. I established several
guidelines in an attempt to minimize the risks. In addition, the Institutional
Review Board at the University of Southern California established several
guidelines as well (USCIRB 1996). According to Berg, “Among the
important elements considered by IRB panels is the assurance of informed
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consent” (1998, p. 37). The researcher is required to obtain written informed
consent statements from potential subjects (1998). Furthermore, the IRB
ensures that “subjects in research studies were advised of both the potential
risks from participation and the possible benefits” (1998, p. 40). And finally,
the IRB is concerned with methodological strategies, particularly as these
methods pertain to the adequacy of the research design and ability of the
researcher to safeguard the rights of subjects (1998).
In addressing the later issue my qualification to conduct the interviews
are twofold. First, I was a police officer for six years before attending USC as
a graduate student. Not a month went by where I wasn’ t called to the scene of
any number of sex crimes ranging from domestic violence to rape-murder.
Despite the heavy emphasis on combat training, a police officer must be
extremely sensitive at such times. She must know how to recognize many
unseen characteristics of the scenario upon arrival at the scene of the crime.
And most important, she should recognize signs of trauma victims are
experiencing. In most cases there is no time to second-guess, which means
that the officer has to respond accurately and immediately. Second, I received
additional training as an advocate in the USC Office for Women’s Issues
(1992-93), and The Women’s Center at the California Institute of Technology
(1993-94). I was personally trained by Kathleen Bartle-Schulweis
(USC/Caltech), and Elizabeth Davenport (USC). Both are experts in the field
of sex crime trauma and women’s advocacy. Therefore, I felt prepared to
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respond properly if participants appeared to experience intense reactions.
Personnel from USC, and/or Calthech, who made themselves available in case
of emergencies, provided information packages pertaining to rape crisis
treatment centers, and reporting procedures.
In addressing other IRB concerns, all interviews were strictly
voluntary, and I informed each participant in advance that they had the right to
stop the interview at any time. All participants received a copy of the Human
Subject’s Consent Form, and I followed up with additional visits as a way of
ensuring emotional stability. While the identity o f these women still remain
confidential, all were informed, in the case that excerpts from the interview
appeared in research reports and publications, that such excerpts would appear
without the names, or identifying characteristics, of the participant. I did not,
then, and do not, now, foresee any legal or social risks leading to danger of
public exposure and embarrassment to participants or the university. My
impression, based on knowledge of the community, and previous research
experience, is that people in general will discuss and reflect on the issue of sex
crime victimization if they believe the research will be ofbenefit to others
The Interview
Early interviews were conducted on the USC campus, Office for
Women’s Issues, and at California Institute of Technology, Women’s Center.
Later interviews were conducted in offices at Azusa Pacific University, Mount
Saint Mary’s College, California State University Long Beach, and at the
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homes, and offices as requested by participants. One of the interviews was
conducted at a park in Pasadena, Ca. at the request of the participant. And
two were conducted by telephone using an electronic recording device made
especially for this type of interview. Subsequently, there are problems inherent
to the telephone interview, such as not being able to observe the participant,
which is important in cases of reoccurring trauma, however I am confident that
the data received in this manner was valid, and that subjects were in no danger
of emotional duress. I had several conversations with subjects prior to the
actual interview, and was assured of their emotional status.
Interviews lasted anywhere between two to four hours, and were
recorded on cassette tape. I also took notes. All subjects agreed in advance of
the interview to this method of collecting data, and as stated previously,
subjects were given confidentiality statements guaranteeing that pseudonyms
would be used in the place of real names. Any and all references to location,
appearance, employment - and other identifying characteristics - were altered
to ensure further confidentiality in the event their narratives are used in
publication. All narrative data was stored under lock and key in a location
known only to myself. At this time, the data will remain in storage, and will
not be destroyed due to plans to continue the project statewide. Existing data
will form part o f a larger sample. Enlarging the sample will ensure greater
analytical capability, as well as increase the potential for validity and reliability
of the study. Finally all tapes, were transcribed verbatim, and coded for
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similar themes. I personally transcribed five sets of transcripts at the onset of
the project. However, due to an intense teaching schedule, and other faculty
related responsibilities, I hired a student assistant at California State University,
Long Beach to assist in this work. Shawna Embleton was a student of mine at
CSULB, and I found her interest, and undergraduate research, in the area of
sexual abuse quite impressive. I personally trained her in the ethics and
procedures inherent to qualitative research, particularly the interview method,
and equipped her with a Tape Transcriber, which she kept at her private
residence. Over the years Shawna has proven to be loyal, and trustworthy, and
I am sure that the specifics of every woman participating in the study will
remain confidential. The forthcoming analysis in this dissertation is the result
of several long hours of she and I scanning the data for similar themes.
Interview Questions
The first interview instrument, used in the data collection process,
contained approximately 100 questions, which led to about 4 hours of
interview time. 20 close-ended questions were used to reveal the affects of
social ascription on the reporting process. In addition, 80 open-ended
questions were used to examine the social and psychological processes creating
both facilitators and barriers to reporting.
However, as stated in my discussion on strategies for the interview
after the first year of data collection, the instrument was reduced to, the
demographic questions, and approximately 30 open-ended questions. I began
4 1
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to notice that the potential for reemerging emotional trauma was high when
experiencing this long, and often tedious, questioning process. It seemed more
like an interrogation than an interview. Mindfiil of the need to protect my
subjects from the potential of emotional risks, I discussed the problem with my
advisor. After reviewing the questionnaire (interview instrument) she
suggested that I ask the demographic questions, proceed to the main question,
and then probe for additional information. Are you now, or have you ever
been, a sex crime victim? Can you describe the incident? This is what
Charmaz described as the “discovery” process (1983). By having an open -
ended conversation, I was able to illicit information pertaining to the
facilitators and barriers affecting the reporting process:
1. Did the incident occur in public or in private? What did you do afterward?
2. Did you report the incident(s) to police or other officials?
3. How did family and friends influence your decision?
4. Do you believe in the values held by your family and friends?
5. Do you believe that a woman could ever be at fault in a sex crime?
6. Do you experience recurrent recollections and/or dreams of the event?
7. Do you avoid some places, people, and activities that remind you of the
event?
8. How do you go about establishing relationships with new people?
9. Do you feel that your perceptions have been altered or changed in any way.
The questions listed here represent only a few used in the actual interview,
however this change in strategy, which yielded a 2 hour interview and
approximately 16 to 22 pages of narrative data (transcript), proved
constructive and timely for both researcher and subject.
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C o d in g
In this respect, coding provided the pivotal link between the data
collection process, and its conceptual rendering, which emerged, and became
one of the fundamental means of developing an analysis (Charmaz 1983).
Figure 1, as seen below, illustrates three primary conceptual themes that
emerged within the data. For example, the Facilitators are first represented by
the letter: A, and Barriers are represented by the letter: B. The model, and
corresponding coding scheme, was then translated into computer files. Data
sets were then copied from the original transcript, also stored in computer files,
to the file representing the longitudinal theme, and reporting characteristic.
In this respect, the chart illustrates three major themes coded as events
occurring in a longitudinal order including the following thesis statements.
1). Before: events prior to sex crimes affect the likelihood of reporting.
2). During: events during sex crimes affect the likelihood of reporting.
3). After: events after sex crimes affect the likelihood of reporting.
Figure 1
Primary Conceptual Themes
Facilitators Barriers
Before
1A IB
During
2A 2B
After
3A 3B
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These concepts, Le. themes, were then separated to illustrate primary
categories representing reporting characteristics.
As figure 2 indicates, these concepts were not treated separately as
single topics, but as secondary conceptual themes. The preceding chart
illustrates how secondary conceptual themes merged and provided a clearer
picture of the facilitators, and barriers, shaping both reporting and non
reporting strategies, as they emerged before, during, and after the event.
Figure 2
Secondary Conceptual Themes
Facilitators Barriers
Before
Childhood Family Structure & Experience
1A IB
*. Positive Female Role Modeling. *. Sexual Coercion.
*. Adult Intervention. *. Physical Abuse.
*. Kinship Ties. *. Domestic Violence.
*. Stranger Intervention. *. Alcohol/Drug Abuse.
During
Subjective Experiences of The Sex Crime
Stranger Rape
Date and Acquaintance Rape
Sexual Assault
Domestic Violence
2A 2B
*. Rage, and Anger. *. Fear
A fter
Social Support Networks Available Following The Crime
Friends and Family Support
Law Enforcement Personnel
Religious Leaders and Campus Administrators
3A 3B
*. Strong Social Support. *. Weak Social Support.
*. Human Barriers
*. Structural Failures
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The following substantive chapters will show the extent to which both primary
and secondary concepts were shaped by the reporting strategies of the women
participating in the study.
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Chapter Three
Childhood Experiences and Family Structure
This chapter examines how social factors in women’s lives, prior to
victimization, affect their likelihood of reporting future events. The data
indicates that women are more likely to file police reports if they experienced
protection from sexual predators as children. Four characteristics of protection
emerged during the data collection process as facilitators to future reporting:
1) positive female role - models, 2) adult intervention, 3) kinship ties, and 4)
stranger intervention. These protective measures are significant when
considering the extent to which young girls are abused within so-called
normative family structures.
The reader will see several examples when it was necessary for an
adult, i.e. parent, relative, or/and stranger, to intervene and protect these girls
from other adults who prey on unsuspecting females on a regular basis. The
data indicates, also, that women are less likely to file police reports if they
experienced a lack of protection from sexual predators as children. Six
characteristics of social disorder emerged during the data collection process as
barriers to future reporting: 1) sexual coercion, 2) physical abuse, 3) prior
sexual assault, 4) domestic violence, 5) alcohol, and 6) drug abuse.
Facilitators
Rose, is a 20 year old, Caucasian female, who reported future incidents
of sexual assault, as a result of positive female role modeling, and adult
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intervention in the family. She is one o f four women, in the study, who
reported her experiences to the police. She is married, has no children, and
attends a private university in Southern California. She is also a domestic
violence survivor, as well as survivor of several incidents of sexual harassment,
and sexual molestation committed by relatives, peers, and a youth minister.
My parents got separated when I was 13. She got the locks changed
and he came to the house after work. I was the only one home. I
wasn’ t supposed to open the door, but I was 13 and I didn’ t know who
it was. I opened the door a little bit without thinking. And he came in
and was really pissed and stuff. It was the day after he got locked out.
And he was chasing me around and screaming. I was hiding from him
And I called my aunt because I didn’t know what to do. And then my
mom came home and she called the police. She kept telling him he had
to leave. They were separated. She had a restraining order, and he had
to leave the house. The police were really nice. They were really
accommodating. They came right over and they told him, you know,
sir, you have to leave. And my dad was pissed. He was swearing. He
was like this is my house, you can’t kick me out of my house. All of
that. And they said your wife has a restraining order, if you don’ t leave
we’ll take you into jail. That was when I was 13, and that was really a
scary thing. I believed in them. I saw them do the right thing and
support my mom, and supported me because I was freaked out. I
would say it was good in that sense.
Here the significance of protection as a characteristic of long term reporting
strategies, manifested out of several incidents of domestic violence, which
routinely occurred during her childhood. For example, Rose observed how the
police protected her mother, which gave her a sense, also, that the police were
capable individuals who did what they were sworn to do.
I believed in it. I trusted the system. I liked to believe that things were
good, that things were supposed to be good, and that police officers,
judges, and people like that were people that you were supposed to be
able to trust.
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Rose was further influenced by the fact that her mother demonstrated a strong
sense of independence, and unwillingness to succumb to her father’s emotional
and physical intimidation. She, like the police, protected Rose, and in theory
established the significance of the first and second protective factors; positive
female role modeling, and adult intervention.
Adult intervention forms perhaps the most singular important factor in
ensuring the safety of young girls living in environments where violence is part
of the normative structure. Her mother gave her a clear sense of
empowerment in her resistance to violence against her own person, and ability
to utilize other venues, such as the police, as a means of protection. It is
significant, in this respect, that adult females recognize the importance of
positive role modeling, which deeply affects the way young girls learn to react
in future situations. Furthermore, adult intervention is especially significant
when sexual predators manifest within other aspects of family structure.
For example, one of Rose’s earlier experiences of sexual harassment
came at the behest o f an uncle who made lewd overtures while playing in her
front yard.
The first thing I remember is being about 4 years old, and my uncle
came over to the house and I was hula-hooping in the front yard. And
he came up to me and told me that if I keep that up I would make a
good wife someday. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about.
And then my dad got really pissed at him and kind o f took him aside,
and was yelling at him. Even though they didn’ t say anything to me, I
knew when my dad was mad that he meant sex. I don’t know how a
four year old would know that from just that imprint. But I kind of
think that’s how my family was. My dad’s family was really sexually
perverse like that.
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This characteristic of adult intervention is significant because, although her
uncle’s behavior, i.e. predatory status, is verbal at the time, the behavioral
pattern reflects the beginning of, what could have been, a growing number of
predatory incidents, which would have had a tremendous impact on Rose’s life
expectations.
Research indicates that increasing numbers of victims of domestic
violence, for example, often have experienced incidents involving rape, sexual
assault, and several forms of sexual battery (Los Angeles Commission on
Assaults Against Women 1990). Battering, which involves the use of force, is
used also to control and maintain power over other persons. That force can be
physical, verbal, psychological, and/or sexual. The behavior escalates mainly
through intimidation and frightening someone repeatedly over a period of time
through verbal threats, and beatings (1990). In Rose’s case, this pattern was
cut short because her father intervened and protected her from her uncle, but
as seen in the following scenario, in some households the pattern flourishes.
Asha, is a 36 year old, African/American female, who also experienced
a similar incident where adult intervention was necessary for her survival within
the family. Of the four women who reported in the study, she is the only one
who reported a future incident of stranger rape with complete success, i.e. an
arrest was made, and the perpetrator was charged with a sex crime. She is a
single mother, raising 2 sons, attending a private university, and was employed
as a library analyst at the time of the interview. An interesting characteristic
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of her childhood is that she experienced a great deal of anger and rage, which I
think intersected strangely with the way she interacted with several adults in
the family. Both factors appear, in later chapters, as facilitators in her
reporting strategy. She said;
Oh. the rage? It comes from the rage of the betrayal of the family
members. It comes from not being normal, growing up in a lie. I
had to live this certain life that really wasn’t me. But I was hurting
so much inside. I was always clean, I was always dressed like a doll,
but inside I was having all these emotional problems.
The “lie” she speaks of is consistent with the research on, what appear as,
normative aspects of family life, which on the outside gives the impression of
normal relations between family members, but they belie the reality behind
closed doors. Here young girls, and women, are often subjected to high
degrees of family dysfunction, and as in Rose’s case, it is seen that households
are not always unified social groups. Any assumption of women’s safety
reflects an idealized view (Kibria 1993). Sexual danger within families can be
an everyday reality for many women, and Asha’s case indicates that the home,
is this respect, is not always a safe haven for young girls (Bart & Moran 1993).
I could describe incidents, and they happened over a period of time. I
don’ t know, but I know that by the time I started having a period it
wasn’t happening any more. I started menstruating at maybe 12 or 13.
So we’re saying maybe a period o f time, a year, two years, something
like that. They happened in my grandmother’s house. She was raising
3 teenage boys who were my uncles, my father’s brothers, my father’s
stepbrothers. They were all boys, two of those uncles, my grandfather,
and my father, all did something. One of my uncles would sexually
assault me, and it seems to me that it was happening around the time
that I was starting to develop. For a long time I thought it was because
of my developing body. I was very much ashamed of my body. Not so
much I guess ashamed of it, but also wanting to cover it up so that it
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wouldn’t cause any more problems. We bad a swimming pool at our
house, in an enclosed patio, and one of the uncles, I remember him
fondling me in the pool. Taking my top off and fondling in the pool.
For example, from this data I ascertained that she lived in a household lull of
sexual predators. There is obviously a lack of female role models here. And
the overwhelming unwanted attention paid to her by this phalanx of predatory
men, surrounding her at all times, particularly as she transcended from young
girl to young woman, appeared to negatively effect her self esteem and self
worth. No wonder she was angry and full of rage. She was forced to feel
shame for herself and blamed all of this negative attention on her own
developing body, which by design damages any potential for reporting future
incidents o f sexual assault.
The data also revealed, running counter to the behavior exhibited by the
men within this family, the way another uncle, who disagreed with his brother’s
predatory behavior toward Asha, stepped in and intervened on her behalf.
There was a time when one of my uncles, the only one that did not try
to do anything to me, walked in and caught my older uncle, and then it
kind o f came out. That’s why it stopped. Once he made it clear that
he would not tolerate this form of abuse, her grandmother stepped in as
well. She found out about the uncle when it happened, and that’s a
part of the reason it stopped.
Interestingly this action is once again significant, as was seen in Rose’s case,
because it changed Asha’s life expectations. For one thing, his actions, set off
a flurry of activity within the family particularly where additional avenues of
protection opened up through more adult intervention.
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As seen in the data set, also, her grandmother decided to help, and
interestingly she spoke of an incident where her biological father utilized the
adult intervention model. Recalling several times when his own father, Asha’s
grandfather, was physically and verbally abusive to his mother, he intervened
and made it possible for her to live without fear of physical abuse, and
emotional intimidation. According to Asha;
He used to be physically abusive toward my grandmother, but that
stopped by the time I came along. My lather was a man, and told him
that if he ever hit his mother again, he knew where he worked, what
his schedule was, and that he would kill him. So the physical abused
ended.
While it appears that her father’s statements are a bit extreme, the key to
understanding the effect of his message is that the abuse ended. Her
grandfather clearly got the message. This action is significant since it shows
the potential that adult intervention has on the life experiences of young girls
living in environments where sexual danger is an everyday reality.
Yet as the following discussion reveals, protective measures of this
type are not only instrumental within the venue of the immediate family
environment, but that they transcend into broader areas also. Here kinship ties,
and intervention by strangers, appear to form added frameworks of protection
for young girls within and outside of the family.
Carol Linde, is a 24 year old, Filipino/African American female who,
along with her sisters, was saved from the long term effects of incest and
sexual assault, as a result o f kinship ties and intervention by strangers. She is
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also one of four women in the study who reported to the police, albeit
facilitated through outside sources. She is single, with no children, and a
student attending a private university in Southern California. She is also the
survivor of several years of incest committed by her father.
I remember, I think I was maybe, six or so and ah my father was drunk,
and he was trying to get me to stay in his room because my mother and
father don’t sleep in the same room. He wanted to me to stay there with
him and he wanted to, perform oral sex on me. He would always do that
to me. And I remember I pulled off Ms shoes because he couldn’t pull
them off and then he was just dead drunk, and fell asleep. I remember also
when my mother was pregnant with the twins, and she was in the hospital.
My father came to my room and it was during the night that he had oral sex
with me. And then another incident I remember. I had to go to the doctor.
So he took me to work with him, wMch was not unusual, sometimes he
would do that. And no one was there for some odd reason I think maybe it
was a holiday, cause I know I just had my birthday, and I remember I
couldn’t wait to eat my birthday cake. He took an office and performed
oral sex there. And it was several times. The next incident was when we
moved out here. My father and mother were living in an apartment in
Hollywood and I know my mother found out. She was examining me, and
could smell liquor on my private part. She got up and confronted my
father. She told him, why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this
to her. You leave her alone. And they started to get into a big argument.
The narrative is quite revealing because it illustrates a pattern o f incest
perpetuated by her father.
Incest, wMch is a form of rape, is the most illusive of sex crimes mainly
because it is successfully Wdden within the context of normal family life. The
commission of rape represents a form of “person-to-person violence deeply
embedded in power inequalities and ideologies of male supremacy” (Connell
1987). In tMs respect, the family represents the perfect environment for rape
and incest because of its social structure, wMch is not only invested in
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ideologies of male supremacy, but because the family is also an environment
that eschews secrecy and silence as a major part of family life (Brownmiller
1975).
In Carol Linde’s case, father and daughter incest represents a paradigm
of female sexual victimization. It is a place where young girls are most
powerless, and where silence is necessary to her survival (Herman &
Hirschman 1981). The relationship between father and daughter adult male
and female child, is one of the most unequal relationships imaginable, so it is no
surprise that incest occurs within this relationship with some degree of
regularity (1981). The female child is in the most powerless position of her
life. The actual sexual encounter, or criminal act, may be brutal or tender,
painful or pleasurable; but it is always, inevitably, destructive to the child and
later the woman. In essence, the father is forcing the child to pay, with her
body, for the affection and care she should already be receiving. Any child
having sexual contact with an adult, especially a trusted relative will experience
significant trauma and long-term mental health consequences (1981).
What is interesting in this case, despite the dangers expressed in the
research, is that Carol Linde,s mother was unprepared on any level to offer
protection. This lack of protection, on her part, is significant because Carol Linde
and her sisters where in danger of increasing levels of physical and emotional
abuse, carried out on a scale so large that these affects could have scarred them for
life. Be as it may, of all the women in the study, Carol Linde is still, today, the
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most vulnerable, i.e. subject to further physical and emotional abuse. Carol Linde
described her mother’s reaction this way;
She was upset. She was crying. She said I don’t know what to do. Your
father is getting worst and ah, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t
know who, I guess, to turn to. And so she said Carol Linde I’ve been
thinking about it, why don’t we all drown each other in the bathtub there.
And at that time I was thinking yeah you drown us, and then you just,
think about yourself and say maybe not. I said no, that’s not right.
Her behavior demonstrates one of the more serious problems affecting the
ability of some women to offer protection against sexual predators within the
immediate family. Specifically speaking mothers are often responsible or
“complicit” in incest (Herman and Hirschman 1981).
The father, like the children, is presumed entitled to all of the mother’s
love, nurture and care. His dependence on her supersedes those o f the
children. If the mother fails to provide the accustomed, or expected,
attentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must take her place.
The oldest daughter is the usual choice and these feelings reproduce and
manifest repeatedly if younger daughters are available. It is possible, in this
regard, that mother’s have no choice but to acquiesce in these affairs. While
many react with rage, shock, outrage, and demand prompt action in defense of
daughters, it is unfortunate that by patriarchal standards the mother in an
incestuous family is unusually oppressed (1981).
It appears that Carol Linde’s mother is inundated with many of these
symptoms. She is a traditional wife, dependent upon, and subservient to her
husband. It is also obvious that she was having deep emotional problems. At
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first she reacted with rage and shock, however the emotional trauma
manifesting in the shock of discovery, coupled with her dependent status,
reduced the rage to some form of violent acquiescence. Rather than provoke
the husband’s anger or risk desertion, for example, she capitulated even if it
meant the sexual, or physical sacrifice of her daughters. Her statement, “why
don’t we drown each other in the bathtub” demonstrates the depth of emotion
playing into her destruction. It appears that her first loyalty is to the husband
regardless of his behavior. These maternal disabilities represent a significant
family stress, and emerge as a form o f family deprivation (1981). Here the
potential for protection within the immediate family diminished significantly.
Yet in an interesting turn of events, Carol Linde’s Aunt Sarah
intervened, and established the significance of the third protective model;
kinship ties, which emerged in the study as an important factor used to protect
young girls subjected to sexual abuse within the family when adult intervention
is not available.
I get the impression that the family knew on my father’s side. And
finally, my aunt stepped in. I guess because my mother didn’t do
anything. She didn’t know what to do. I’m confused, because I don’ t
if my aunt spoke to her and said, well we should take this to the police
or something. My mom was just too scared. I don’t know. But
she called and they came down. And I remember it so vividly cause
my father took me, my younger sister, and the twins to the store. My
mother and aunt was at home. When we came home they weren’t
there, and I remember seeing a police car waiting across the street. It
was parked and it came up to our driveway and they asked him if he
was [name withheld] and they handcuffed him.
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The key here is that Sarah lived outside of the immediate family structure, yet
the distance did little to diminish her ability to recognize certain features of her
brothers behavior, and family structure. The most specific of which relates to
her brother’s behavior around Carol Linde, and her sisters. Realizing that her
sister-in-law was not capable of dealing with the situation, she intervened and
notified the proper authorities. As a result ofher intervention, the police
responded and arrested her brother, while social services took all of the
children into custody. Subsequently the police placed the mother under
investigation, also, since she failed to protect the girls. Carol Linde and her
sisters were placed in foster care during this period, but were eventually
returned to their mother once the investigation cleared her.
Finally, the data also revealed that actions of this type are just as
significant when carried out by person’s unknown to, and unfamiliar with, the
family in general. Carol Linde’s narrative further highlights this characteristic
of protection, i.e. kinship ties, which manifested in the form of stranger
intervention.
It happened when I was fifteen. I was in small department store,
and there was this guy. I went there with my mother, and I noticed
that he was watching me. I wanted to test it out to see if he was really
watching me. And so I walked one way and he followed me, I walked
another and he followed me and that’s when I began to panic because
he seemed kind of agitated. He was pretending to look at some yam,
and he just kept looking up at me. He was just agitated like he wanted
to do something. At that point I was looking at him and I was mad. I
knew he was going to come and grab me, but I got in the way of this
lady that worked there and he grabbed her instead. After that he ran
out of the store and she called security and, they went out to look for
him.
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As seen in the data, Carol Linde is now 15 years of age, and enduring her first
stalking experience. She is in an extremely tenuous situation here because this
mans behavior seriously dangerous.
Current reports estimate that as many as 200,000 stalkers are operating
in the U.S. As many as 1 out of every 20 women will be pursued and harassed
by a stalker at some point in her life (Kohn 1993). The cause of stalking is
unclear since individual incidents are beset with a myriad of circumstances.
Yet patterns of harassment, surveillance, obscene language, threats ofbodily
harm, and murders provide some insight into stalking as a distinct form of
sexual terrorism (Sheffield 1987).
Underneath lies the fact that stalking is a deadly game of power and
control driven by the stalkers hatred for women. Here terror results from the
systematic use of violence and intimidation (Pelligrini 1990). Once the victim
begins to exhibit intense overwhelming fear, the terrorist has then achieved
his/her goal, and can maintain a sense of supremacy over the victim. Therefore
it is significant that the sales lady, although a stranger, protected Carol Linde
from the game he was playing.
At first it appeared that she was merely doing her job. An unusual
incident occurred therefore she followed procedure and called for store
security officers, who responded immediately. But further investigation of the
data revealed that the lady took an active role in the situation. Her actions
suggest that some people do understand, and recognize, the necessity of
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protecting young women in dangerous situations, although they have no ties to
this women’s family or peer group.
The lady got in his way. He couldn’t get to me readily so he just went
out the door. I had told her what had happened, and she called security
and they went outside to look for him. She knew. She said, I noticed
he was just looking at you.
And while this lady took an active role in protecting Carol Linde from further
harm, true to form, her mother failed to recognize the situation.
That was the funniest thing because I was not more than eight
feet away from her. But she was busy looking at the cards. I can
see, her but I couldn’t get to her. If I went towards her he would have
grabbed me. He was right by my mother. So even if I wanted to go
there, I knew I couldn’t. I was pretty much stuck where I was.
Her mother was not only unaware of Carol Linde’s dilemma, but she
responded to these events in the same manner as she did during previous
incidents of incest. “She said I was crazy. That all of these things happen in
the movie. She doesn’t know, why me, what am I doing? So, she gave me no
support.” I can only conclude here, that Carol Linde’s mother never fully
recognized the importance of protecting her daughters from sexual predators.
This analysis, on the failure of adults to protect young girls from sexual
predators, in and outside o f the home, is further examined in the following
section, where the absence of adult intervention, and parental protection,
intersect within what I see as, six negative characteristics of social disorder in
the family; 1) sexual coercion, 2) physical abuse, 3) prior sexual assault, 4)
domestic violence, 5) alcoholism, and 6) drug abuse. All emerged in the study
as barriers to future reporting.
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Barriers
Helen was 59 at the time of our interview, and described herself as a
White/Mexican female. She is divorced, with two grown children, and after
years of building a successful career in marketing, she returned to the academic
arena and was attending a university in Southern California. Her narratives
directed attention to the effect that social disorder within the family can have
on young girls struggling to attain adulthood in environments where protection
is either non existent, or limited at best.
For example, her brother tried his best, on many occasions, to protect
her from an abusive father who demonstrated many anti social personality
traits.
My brother, at one time, dug this hole that was right next to the
bedroom window and put grass over it. He somehow hooked up these
razor blades, so if somebody tried to open up the window something
was going to happen to them. There were a couple of times when I
woke up in the middle of the night and my sister could verify this and I
heard the window opening. My window was right on the street. I
lifted up the drapes and there was my father who was trying to get in.
This was a delightful family.
It appears here, that the situation had reached such a desperate stage that her
brother dug holes and planted razor blades outside of her window. Apparently
he thought that the razor blades would serve as an effective deterrence to his
dad who was attempting to rape his sisters, yet his attempts at protection had
no effect on his father’s proclivity toward incest. To make matters worse, the
father encouraged Helen to engage in sexual activity at an age when young
girls are neither mentally or physically ready for sexual activity.
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There was a boy in our neighborhood. I must have been about seven,
and he must have been about twelve years old. My father encouraged
that I befriend him. So this boy got me to the side of the house, and he
told me to like pull my pants down or something. So there was some
involvement there. It wasn’t intercourse or anything, but the two areas
were touching. I was eight years old by this time. I go back and tell
my mother and she was really upset and told my father. I kept track of
his little cynical smiles. A child knows the difference, and I thought to
myself, wow I don’t see the right reaction from him. There was
something in that look that I stored. He didn’t react right to what I
was saying. He didn’t get angry or upset. It was like almost like ha,
ha, ha. The mother fucking son o f a bitch. It was mental abuse.
Her lather’s predisposition toward sexual coercion is well calculated here.
Instead of being angry that she was emulating sexual intercourse with this boy,
as one would expect of any parent, his reaction was one of amusement. After
all, he encouraged this activity for his own pleasure. The research indicates
that his behavior is akin to the sociopath, which is an individual who exhibits
antisocial behavior, and reflects several behavioral patterns that are anti -
social, and lacking in a sense of moral responsibility or social consciousness
(Lachman & Lachman 1995).
In light of this analysis, sexual coercion, i.e., the ability to encourage his
daughter to have sexual relations at age eight and then laugh about it, manifests
within this family as a social disorder of serious magnitude. Mainly because
the implications of such activity can have serious long-term emotional impact
on women socialized in environments where adult intervention is unavailable,
and where parents are unable to protect their daughters from individuals who
engage in these types of activity. For example, Helen’s mother, while quite
upset after learning of this event, was somewhat complicit in the event. Like
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Carol Linde’s mother, it appears that she was not mentally prepared to protect
her from future incidents.
I felt some anger towards my mother and yet she was like this helpless
person. She had no power. My sister has been mad at her. I knew she
was off at a very young age. She lacked some kind of power. And
those are the kinds of people you feel sorry for. She had no power.
Somebody could try to kill her and she stood there like a rag doll.
As the traditional wife, she was virtually powerless, and capitulated to his
activity even if it meant the sexual, physical, and mental sacrifice of her
daughters through her husbands proclivity for anti-social behavior. All
opportunity to protect her daughter diminished significantly, and Helen and her
sisters where left to endure years o f emotional trauma and physical abuse.
One day we were in the kitchen and he started slapping her again, he was
drunk, and it would get harder. He punched her in the stomach. She had
bruises on her face. He took her by the arm and he twisted until it broke.
And I begged her to let me help her. I tried to get in between them. He
wouldn’t quit and she told me just get out. She said get out and she got
mad this time. So I went into that fucking bathroom, and I banged my
head against the wall because I hated her and I hated myself because she
wouldn’t let me stop him. I just banged my head as hard as I could. My
father is shit. He shouted for hours until your chest was vibrating. You
are demolished both mentally and physically. After someone does that it is
like you have been beaten up.
This emphasis on the long-term affects of physical abuse directs attention to an
additional of aspect of social disorder within the family.
Here the discussion shifts to examine how young girls are affected by
an array of dysfunctional behavior manifesting when individuals in the family
exhibit patterns o f destructiveness compounded by alcoholism and domestic
violence. According to some researchers, alcohol is just as much a drug as
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crack, heroin, or cocaine Each are known to affect mental and physical
activity, and, as a depressant, reduces an individual’s mental and bodily
function (Goode 1997, Thio 1998). These patterns escalate over time and
seriously impact young girls during the socialization period.
Emma, for example, is 40 years of age, Caucasian, divorced with no
children, and recently earned an advanced degree in history. O f the women in
the sample, she is the only one classifying her sexual orientation as Lesbian.
She is the survivor of several years of physical abuse, and domestic violence.
Emma, like Helen, grew up in a family where the probability of protection was
low, alcoholism was high, and where domestic violence shaped the life
experiences of every female living within the family structure. According to
Emma:
My dad is a recovered alcoholic. His alcohol consumption was causing
so much tension in our family. He hit on my mom a lot. He hit us
under the guise of being spanked under punishment. We had some
episodes where the furniture was overturned and we were all terrified
in our rooms, and we were little girls. We were never sexually abused
by him. It was more o f just drunken ranting and raving.
While most of the physical abuse was aimed at her mother, it appears here that
the drinking created a great deal of mental and physical abuse within the family
overall.
My parents would have these raucous fights. I was the kid that stood
between them and told them to cut it out. I was always in there face.
And I always got punished for that. The scare on my lip was from my
dad. I had gotten between one of there fights, and I said, “you leave
her alone.” I saw him raising his hand, and I ran away. He told me he
was taking my babysitting money away because I spent it on candy.
And I said, “no you are not, it is mine.” I saw him raise his hand and I
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ran around the house. And ran around and around. I turned at the
exact moment that the lock that he threw was flying in the air and it
caught me square in the lip. Another time, I had talked back to my
mom. She back handed me so hard that her wedding ring knocked my
teeth out. So I think it might have been out of a response. Or if I
speak up I will get in trouble.
In light of Helen’s father’s proclivity for anti social behavior, sexual coercion,
and physical abuse, her life was also complicated by the feet that he was also
an alcoholic who drank during violent rampages.
I guess he was drunk. The night that he set the house on fire, he would
pull us out from underneath the bed, and he would start cussing at my
mother. Then he would beat her up. She would just take it. She would
just tell me to keep quiet. He would cuss at her and call her all kinds of
names. Part of me thought my mother was an idiot. But I remember this
as vividly as anything. I would but my hands like this and I would stand up
and I would start mimicking him. Because then the son of a bitch would
leave her alone. He won’t hit me.
While Helen demonstrated similar survival techniques, i.e. making fun of his
violent antics, in Emma’s case the violence reached such a level that she tried
to make peace between her parents as the only way she knew to avoid an
escalation of the violence. Unfortunately her efforts were hopeless as the
drinking and violence continued out of control. Consequently she became a
target as well. For example, her mother began to exhibit violent behavior as
well. In this sense, she became both victim and predator. Emma’s statement,
“she back handed me so hard that her wedding ring knocked my teeth out,” is
quite revealing in this respect. Clearly there is no protection here, female role
models are absent, adult intervention was not forthcoming, and kinship ties and
stranger intervention, were not viable factors in this environment. The people
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who should have protected Emma were the same people creating the trauma
within her life.
From this analysis, and a further review of the data, I conclude that
alcoholism, as a form of drug abuse, has broader implications when considering
the extent to which the use and sales of drugs by individuals within the family
increases the potential for protection strategies to fail. Here social disorder
and family dysfunction magnifies exponentially.
For example, Alice, who was 25 years old at the time of our interview, is
an African/American female, single mother, and college student attending a
university in Southern California. She has survived several incidents of sexual
abuse committed by a father and uncle, as well as rape by several male
acquaintances. Not only was she in a situation where protection and positive
female role - modeling was not available, but also that the environment was
inundated by a combination of sexual predators, alcoholics, drug dealers, and
people who hung around using drugs in the home. The data indicates that these
symptoms manifested as a destructive force during her childhood, and throughout
her adult life. She stated:
My father was a real big time drug dealer in Watts. He said he did it to
take care of us. We had a three bedroom, two bathroom house. We had a
swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, arcade games, pool tables, and big screen TVs.
We had TVs in every room. We had everything we could want. When I
was thirteen I was getting Gucci purses. My step-mom was materialistic.
We had cloths all the time. When I was sixteen she bought me a Gucci
watch. My father bought me a lot o f jewelry as well. I had a gold bangle
that had like gold leaves inscribed in it. I had earrings and necklaces.
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It appears, from this statement, that the monetary benefits of drug sales brought
much happiness because of the material goods bestowed on upon the family.
However it was inevitable that happiness came at an extremely high price.
Particularly that the family disintegrated as word of his activity reached authorities.
We never knew he was in jail. We always thought he was out of town, but
he would be in jail. He would go out of town a lot too. He told me
recently that he went to jail for three months. Our house was also raided.
I remember one time we came home and our house was messed up and we
never knew why. But now I can look back. Our house was raided when
our father was gone for those three months.
From the data it is clear that the police arrested Alice’s father, and he spent
three months in jail. In addition to this, the house was not only compromised
by the loss of the principle breadwinner, but also by thieves who raided her
home at every opportunity. Before this, people were buying, and using, drugs
in her home at any given hour of the day or night.
They used to come to our house all the time. A lot o f people would come
in and out of our house all the time. I know they were coming to buy
drugs. Sometimes people would be there all night. We would wake up in
the morning and people would be there. My father had a back room and
he would say that that was his office and we knew not to go in there, if the
door was closed. So we would never go in there. Sometimes it would be
closed all night, sometimes we would get up and he would be cooking
stuff on the stove. But we didn't know what it was. I would see things,
but I didn't want to acknowledge it. I would just block it out.
Alice blocked out much what she saw, and in doing so learned to cope within the
environment. Part of the coping strategy relied on her having to deal with several
incidents of sexual assault. In fact, her father was the first male in the family to
make a sexual overture at Alice.
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I was approached by my father. I was the only one home. Everybody
was gone. I was in the ninth grade, and I was just watching TV. I was
lying on the bed in my room. My father came in and he said you are
pretty. You should let me try you out.
The term, “let me try you out,” pertains to additional forms of sexual coercion and
incest, where ghetto speak, i.e., slang, is used to ask his daughter for sexual favors.
Alice explained that he was “high” at the time of the incident, which means that he
had been using drugs. As previously explained, drugs are known to affect mental
and physical activity, and, as a depressant, reduces an individual’s mental and
bodily function (Goode 1997, Thio 1998).
She further explained: “he had been in his office all day and all night,
snorting coke, smoking reefer, or shooting crack, or something.” I found these
statements rather interesting because she felt that she and her father had had the
best of father daughter relationships until this event. So it is arguably possible that
this marathon drug session reduced his capacity to understand the difference
between Alice the daughter, and Alice the potential sex partner. There is little
doubt that she was “stunned” as the person she loved, and trusted the most, asked
her to have sex with him. However, in an interesting turn of events, he reversed
his behavior, apologized, and attempted to reconcile his mistake.
He said get dressed and go to your grandmother's house. And I said
OK. So I got up and I was crying and stuff. He came and said I
apologize, I am sorry. I didn't mean that. So he went back into his
office and did whatever he was doing. He came back out and he went
into his room and he said come here let me talk to you. He said I am
sorry. I was just trying to show you how people in the family will try
to have sex with you and you should have never let that happen. I
never told anyone.
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Now the statement, “I never told anyone” is a definitive example o f how long
term emotional trauma, which characterized much of her childhood, and then
adult life, manifested out o f the social disordered created by the drug activity in
this family. For example, she has watched her family disintegrate as a result of
alcoholism, drug sales, drug use, and drug abuse. Each characteristic of social
disorder, and family dysfunctional is enough, in itself, to produce a certain
measure of emotional instability in children. Particularly when children are
exposed to a plethora of people moving in and out of the house in various
stages of mental stability, and instability. Add this to the shock of her father’s
betrayal, and Alice might have reached the point where she realized that no one
was there to protect her from future abuse. After all the man that she trusted
the most had just betrayed her. Therefore his excuse, “I was just trying to
show you how people in the family will try to have sex with you” is prophetic.
I had an uncle who used to grab my butt. He would just touch on
everybody in the family. One day he grabbed my butt and I hit him
back. He threw me up against the wall and my whole family, my
grandmother, my auntie, his girlfriend, and I think one of my cousins
just sat there and watched. Nobody did anything about it. He threw
me up against the wall and told me don't ever hit him again.
From Alice’s narrative, one can see that the prophecy told here is clearly reflected
in this uncle’s behavior in and outside of the pool In this respect, betrayal is a
common theme in her life. The men in this environment are no different than those
found in Asha’s case study. Everybody, it seems, wanted to try her out. Alice,
like Asha, was living in a den of sexual predators, and the fact that he could justify
his behavior through open violence, i.e. throwing her against a wall, once again
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underscores the significance of adult and parental protection. It is truly amazing
that everyone just sat around, watched it happen, and made no objection.
How could she report this incident when several family members stood
by and did nothing to help her? How could she tell her father, when he had
betrayed her in the same manner? Therefore she learned to cope with the
violence and sexual intent of male family members in the same manner she
ignored the drugs. She simply blocked it out. But underneath the blocking
mechanisms, she was also harboring a secret longing for protection. She
speculated how different her life might have turned out if she had had a
positive female role model during these events.
I think that if I had a positive female role model in my life to teach me
about being feminine and how to take control of my life that these
things may not have happened to me. Instead of me having to learn on
my own by trial and error, or mimicking, or whatever, to leam how to
be feminine. I think it wouldn't have happened to me.
This rather riveting statement brings great clarity to the issue of positive rote
modeling. However the data bears out, also, that much of the predatory function
occurring within Alice’s family is arguably affected by the abuse and sates of drugs,
which essentially caused a general breakdown in, what might have started out as, a
normal family. However I feel that the intersecting effects of sexual assault, and
then violent reaction to Alice protests, bears further examination here.
Studies indicate that all forms of trauma and aggression toward women
play out within the context of prior socialization (Reynolds 1984, Bell 1992).
Victims often feel a sense of hopelessness in the aftermath of the incident, and as
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in Alice’s case, reporting was simply not an option because she had had negative
experiences in the past, and she was a victim of prior sexual assault (White &
Humphrey 1994).
The final section of this chapter examines one of the most serious cases of
prior sexual assault I have seen. The significance of the case is seen in the way the
motivations shaping the behavior of the men and women participating in this
drama, far superceded those introduced thus far. Here the ideological structure of
rape, social disorder, and family dysfunction intersect to demonstrate the greatest
significance of adult intervention, and parental protection.
Maria is a 22 year old, Mexican/American, female. She is also a student at
university in Southern California. She was raped at age eight by an older male
cousin, and for years she suspected that her mother was aware of the event, and
that she made no attempt to protect her.
I was raped when I was eight. It was a cousin of mine. I was asleep
and I just felt somebody pull me under the covers and they were
grabbing me by the ankles and pulling me under the covers. And he
just laid me on the floor and pulled my, you know, my pants down and
he raped me. It was at night. I don't know if everyone was asleep. I
don't think they were asleep. I don't remember. I just know that when
he was done my stomach was hurting. So I went to the bathroom and I
urinated and I don't remember seeing any blood. I told him that I was
going to have to wake up my mom because my stomach was hurting
and he wouldn't let me. I was walking out of the bathroom and he just
grabbed me and told me no you cant go and wake her. After that I
don't remember anything. I don't remember how I got to bed, and I
don't remember the morning after. I want to remember if I did bleed,
because if I did bleed then I know my mom knows about it. And she
just doesn't want to talk about It. But I don't remember. I mean I was
eight years old I had to have bled a whole lot if I did. There had to
have been blood on the sheets.
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From the narrative it is clear that she was confused, and traumatized, but somehow
she still searched for a way to gather evidence. It was important to her that she
remembered if she bled on the sheets, which would provide evidence that the
incident actually occurred.
This action on her part was essential since the potential for reporting
increased if Maria could present evidence of the crime (Felman-Summers & Norris
1981, Williams 1984). She clearly intended to report the incident to family
members, but, to her dismay, she soon discovered that reporting would be
impossible because the ideology shaping the family structure did not allow such
response to incest, and rape.
It appears that her lather made a deal with her uncle (brother of her father
and father of the cousin who raped her) to let his son, a known sexual predator,
live with his family, despite the fact that he had three young daughters who were
most certainly at risk with his presence in the home. Maria was not allowed to
confront her cousin even as an adult, nor have a conversation with anyone in the
family about her childhood experiences. Hence she has survived many years of
silence, and was unable to report, what might have been many incidents of prior
sexual assault, until the date of our interview.
It appears, that the family worked very hard to obscure acts of incest,
and rape, in order to maintain the patriarchal order of the family structure. The
ideological and physical structure of machismo, which is common to the way
men are socialized in Mexican families, calls for men to be “sexually assertive,
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independent, and emotionally restrained, to wield absolute authority over their
wives and children, and to serve as family breadwinners” (Hondagneu-Sotelo
1994, p.9).
The men of the household. Their word is the last word and the way
they say things, that is the way that they are period. I think it is the fact
that the men have been brought up to think that they are. No body
questions it. No body can question it. I just think that the men like to
play that role. I think that the perfect word would be control. You do
what you have to do to keep things in control.
Conversely the mindset of women socialized within the same paradigm plays
out within the context ofMarianismo (marianism), which is modeled after the
symbol of the Virgin Mary, and “prescribes dependence, subordination,
responsibility for all domestic chores, and selfless devotion to family and
children” (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994, p.9). Before the interview, I was unclear
about the mechanics of this cultural ideal, especially its affects on Mexican/
American households. When I asked Maria to clarify this structure she stated:
You just described my mother, and one of my older sisters. My mom is
just like her (the virgin), and my dad did display machismo. Whatever
he said, that is the way it was done and no one questioned it. No one
could have even thought to question it.
Although both, the macho and maranistic ideal, are validated as consistent
ideological practices in Mexican/Catholic culture (Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994),
both appear as a driving force behind the way female identity is gained within a
more universal framework.
Sheffield argued, for example, the sexual appropriation of women’s
consciousness requires some form of rationale at the ideological and
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institutional level. Psychological trauma, threats, fear, and all forms of
violence against women, has to be rationalized and justified by some
philosophy, theory, or ideology no matter how crude (1987).
In this regard, the ideological boundaries manifesting between
machismo, and marianismo, gave men the rationale needed to abuse women at
will. To ensure that women comply without questioning these practices, it is
essential that the paradigm is ingrained as an integral part of the female
consciousness. In essence Maria, and the women in her family, had to believe
in their own subordinate status.
According to Maria, the macho ideal is transmitted at an early age. For
example, she and her cousin were close to the same age, yet by the time of the
event she knew nothing of sexuality while he seemed to know a great deal.
Furthermore, Maria was unaware at the time that his predatory nature was a
known fact among family members. Today she feels, since he continues to live
in the area, and continues to attend family events, that every female child in the
family is at risk. Yet his presence is consistent since her father promised his
brother that he would take care of his son. “Perhaps it’s a macho thing,” she
said. But it is clear that his daughter’s safety, within the home, was not as
important as his loyalty to his male kin.
Furthermore Maria’s mother, like Carol Linde and Helen’s, had
knowledge of the problem but did nothing to protect her. According to the
marianistic ideal she might have had problems finding any sense of power and
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control within the situation. For example her mother was also raised within a
family environment organized around the macho ideological structure. No
one talked about sex in the family.
Sex was like a forbidden subject in my family. No ever talked about it.
No one never, never. I don't know necessarily if it was the Catholic
thing. It was just that no one had ever talked to my mother about it
and she didn't know how to talk to us about it.
In order to cope, Maria, like Alice, was forced to block out the events
associated with her cousin’s predatory attacks. And although the long-term
impact of these incidents dissipated to some extent after the blocking
mechanisms melted away, it appears that the emotional trauma continued to
trigger feelings of inadequacy, and hopelessness (Arbabanai & Richman 1990).
I had thoughts about committing suicide. I kept having those same
thoughts about how to do it and if it will really be affecting my family
and how they would act. I guess it wouldn't really be that bad because
eventually they would have to get over it. At the time I guess it just hit
me, I couldn't believe that I was having these thoughts. I was actually
planning it. It really scared me. So that Monday morning I went to
school and I went and talked to a counselor and told her exactly what
had happened to me. I had just been remembering that I was raped,
and I was having suicidal thoughts, and that I didn’ t know what to do,
and that I had no one to talk to. I told them that I was planning times
and dates, and stuff like that. So I really think I scared them very
much. They sent for a special counselor right away, and within a half
an hour she was at school. I began talking to her about it and I talked
with her for the whole rest of the semester. Then I met this teacher of
mine and I started talking to her about it. After I met her things kind
of felt like they were falling into place.
She refused to report beyond the venue of counseling, and the interview,
mainly because she didn’t want to hurt her mother, nor destroy family unity.
Now I don't want my mom to know, and I could really care less if my
brothers know. I think that she thinks that if I can't remember it then I
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am okay with it. The way she sees me now, the person that I am
today. I think she feels that 1 am doing fine and there is no reason for
her to say anything. I think that if I told her that I remembered I think
that it would break her heart. The fact that she knew that I had been,
and the she didn't do anything about it would really break her heart. I
don't want to put her through that.
In this respect, the intersecting structure o f social disorder, family dysfunction,
and prior sexual assault most certainly added to her failure to report future
events.
Summary
These findings show how social factors in women’s fives, prior to
victimization, affected their likelihood o f reporting future events. Women who
were socialized in environments where family members saw fit to take on the
role and responsibility o f protecting young girls from sexual predators, in and
outside o f the immediate family structure, were more likely to later report sex
crimes committed against them than were women raised in environments with
weak family protection, and support of young girls.
For example Rose’s father, Asha’s uncle and grandmother, all
intervened and prevented future instances of child molestation, and sexual
assault. In Carol Linde’s case an aunt became suspicious of her brother’s
activity in the home, intervened, and ended years of incest. This latter activity
supported the finding that kinship - ties form significant facilitators in the
reporting process.
It was also seen that women are more likely to report, to police, if
raised in families where other women emerged as strong role - models. For
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example is Rose’s case, her mothers strength in the wake o f her fathers abusive
outbursts, and positive police response, made it possible for her to report
&ture incidents. And Carol Linde had an experience where a woman working
in a department store thwarted an attempt by a man to kidnap her. The woman
not only did her job by calling store security, but she recognized that Carol
Linde was in danger, and therefore intervened before he could complete the
act.
The data also indicated that the potential for filing a police report
decreased in adulthood, when women were socialized in environments where
family members failed to take on the role and responsibility o f protecting
young girls from sexual predators, in and outside o f the immediate family
structure, and where the environment was rife with social disorder. Here it
was confirmed that the home is not always a safe haven for young girls. Helen,
Emma, Alice, and Maria, for example, all were raised in environments where
the potential for protection within the immediate family diminished
significantly. In all instances, except in Alice’s case, the principle antagonists
were fathers. By contrast all the mothers were powerless, and were themselves
victims o f violent physical abuse. In this regard, positive female role -
modeling was not available.
Additional barriers emerged in cases where the women were raised in
environments where sexual predators existed, where sexual coercion was used
to encourage early sex, drug sales and drug abuse was rampant, strangers
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roamed throughout the house for extended periods o f time, and where
alcoholism was seen as a normative aspect of the family structure, ideology,
and organization. It appears that these barriers merged within a number of
violent incidents, which produced blocking mechanisms, coping strategies, and
long - term emotional trauma. I continue this discussion in chapter four with
an examination of the subjective experience of sex crimes, and how the crime
itself raises facilitators and barriers to reporting.
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Chapter Four
Subjective Experiences of the Sex Crime
This chapter examines how the subjective experience of the sex crime
affects a woman’s likelihood of reporting. The data revealed, basically, that
the potential for reporting increased when victim/survivors experienced anger
and intense rage during the event, and decreased when victim/survivors
experienced fear during the event. Yet after considering additional aspects of
these findings, a broader picture emerged suggesting that the victim/response
patterns leading to fear, in particular, are not so straight forward. Fear derives
from many situations, and as a subjective experience, must be examined as
such.
The data validates UCR findings indicating that women fail to report
out of a fear of retaliation from the family and friends of the offender (2000).
It is also seen that women fear being cut, hurt, or killed during the event. Fear,
anger, and rage could all manifest, singularly, or in any combination, as part of
long-term social and emotional response patterns that create fear in specific
circumstances.
Fear is derived here, by several institutional and ideological structures
that rationalize and justify domestic violence and spousal rape, for example, as
normal behavior (Williams 1984, Reynolds 1984). The data indicates that if
women victimized within this structure made any attempt to report sex crimes
in the home, her behavior would be called into question, and eschewed by the
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institution itself (Dworkin 1983). Fear of institutional rebuttal causes
victim/survivors to question their own role and responsibility in the attack
rather than that of the perpetrator (Reynolds 1984).
The following discussion illustrates several aspects of these victim/
survivor response patterns. Specifically how anger, rage, and fear, in
particular, manifested as part of a fluid, contextual, range of social responses
merging anywhere between dyads of victim/predator responses, to more
complex interactions. I pay special attention to the way these patterns are
linked to the social institutions shaping our concepts of self, the family, and
religion, and how all intersect to bring facilitators, or barriers, to reporting.
Facilitators
Asha was 25 years old when she became the victim of an extreme
episode of stranger rape. The event manifested as a simple predatory /response
pattern, which evolved as she walked down the street one morning after
extricating herself from a bad date. The time was approximately 3am. The
neighborhood had unsavory characteristics, but she headed towards a public
telephone to call a friend to pick her up. After all, she was raised in a rough
home environment and considered herself to be streetwise; that is able to
identify and deal with a variety of situations common to women’s life
experiences. Subsequently a strange man approached in a car offering a ride.
I’m on the phone, and this other guy comes up driving a Grand
Wagoneer. He pulls up and parks and he stands outside by me. He
says, do you need any help? I said no, I don’t need any help. He said,
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I see these guys following you, and I just wanted to know if you
needed a ride or something. I said no I don’t need any help.
She was at first skeptical. She accepted the ride mainly because he didn’t
appear threatening, and he looked like a nice guy. Not like the typical rapist.
I’m still messing with the phone, trying to call somebody. He comes
over to me and says, come on let me help you. I don’t want to leave
you out here with those guys. He hangs up the phone, and I say why
are you hanging the phone up? He said come on let me help you. I
don’t want to leave you here. Where do you live? I’ll take you home.
I said I don’t even know you. I don’t get in the car with anybody. He
said look I just don’t want to leave you out here on the street by
yourself. So I make him show me his driver’s license, and his license
had his name on it.
What she failed to realize, however, is that by hanging up the phone he had just
completed his first gambit in establishing control over the situation.
He was kind of a nice looking guy. He wasn’t big. Kind of medium
build and he had brown skin. He was black. I didn’t feel threatened by
him at all. I accepted a ride from him. I said I live in Femwood so I
say make a right turn here. Instead of turning right he turned left. I
said where are we going? He said well I’m just going to take you home,
but I’m going to take you some place where we can talk. I said talk? I
don’t want to talk. I want to go home. Next thing I know he pulls up
into a Hotel parking lot, and I see the manager, or whomever, standing
outside waiving his arms indicating no room. Why are you going here?
He said well I just thought it would be nice you know? We could sit
down and talk in a room or something. I said a room! I said I don’t
want to talk. I knew I was not going into a Hotel room with anybody.
I still wasn’t feeling threatened by him.
From this narrative it is clear that Franklin was extremely confident and
obviously well practiced since he saw no need to physically restrain her. He
even left her alone in the car while he attempted to secure a hotel room. And
while the signs of the consummate sexual predator are obvious at this point,
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her definition of the situation is completely obscured because she did not feel
“threatened.” She didn’t feel fear. She soon had cause for serious doubt. The
following narrative illustrates this point. Particularly that he is one of the most
dangerous sexual predators any woman can encounter in similar situations.
I just thought, you know I didn’t really know what was going on with
him. So when he gets out and goes to check on the room I get out of
the car and run across the street. He sees me running across the street,
runs across and grabs me, and forces me to come back to the car with
him. He locks the door and when he walks around to the driver’s side I
unlock the door, and I try to get out. Well he grabs me again and puts
me back in the car, but this time he gets in with me, and crawls over
me. So now he’s holding me with one hand and driving with the other
so that I can’t open the door. So now I start to get nervous and asked,
what’s going on with you? Why don’t you just let me go? Instead he
drives over to an area where there is a vacant lot. He’s still holding me
so I can’t open the door. I’m sure he’s been here before. I was going
to run. I unlocked the door, opened it real quick, and tried to get out.
What he did was grab me from behind and tore my jacket.
It is clear that Asha was in extreme danger. Specifically that if Franklin had
lost control, he would, more than likely have reestablished control by
murdering or/and, mutilating her. The victim who is compliant will more than
likely receive no additional threats or orders (Ressler, Burgess, & Douglas
1983).
He brings me back, and this time I say ok. I’ll just have to wait for the
opportunity to get away from him. I didn’t feel like I could fight him.
He started tearing at my dress like he’s trying to take it off me. I pull
away from him and took my own clothes off because I didn’t want him
to tear them. He told me to get in the back, and when we got in the
back he proceeded to rape me. I just remembered thinking that I was
going to die. I kept thinking there is no way he would bring me here,
rape me, and leave me alive to identify him. So I really thought I was
going to die. I remember laying there, looking out the window, and the
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only thing that I could see was this dirt rising from down in this ditch. I
was laying there wishing that the Cavalry would come. You know
those movies where the Cavalry would just come and save you. The
Cavalry never came. Just knowing I was going to die just terrified me.
Franklin demonstrated control mechanisms of this type not only during the
violent rape scenario, but also in a several statements reflecting a psychotic
mindset, which, like Rev. Bob, he used to rationalize the crime.
Then he had an orgasm, and finished, and just got up from on top of
me. I just kind of cringed, and turned away from it. I said to him why
are you doing this, and he said oh I really like you. He said your so
pretty, he kept telling me how pretty I am, and then he put his hand up
to mine and he say look we make such a nice couple. I said I want you
to take me home, and he’d say I’m going to take you home when I get
ready to take you! Although he never hit me, or anything like that, he
really treated me like we were on a date. He kept saying how much he
liked me, how pretty I was, and I said well if you like me why did you
do this to me? Why did you bring me over here, and rape me? And he
looked at me, and he said you mean to tell me that if the police came
here right now, you would tell them that I raped you? He told me he
does this all the time. This is how he meets girls. He said, “maybe we
can get together afterwards. Maybe we can go out sometime.” The
impression I got was it was the way he dated. I don’t know for sure
but he could rationalize his behavior away like it was normal.
On one hand Franklin is obviously capable of inflicting severe physical
discomfort to women in the most violent way possible, but it appears that he
also has some need to rationalize this behavior as normal. He let her know that
he was in total control of the situation. Precisely stating that he would take her
home when he was ready. He imagined that they might have an intimate
relationship. For example, he told her how pretty she was while at the same
time denying that he raped her whenever the subject of reporting was
broached. “It was the way he dated.”
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Despite the fear and trauma she was experiencing while he went on
with this psychotic rant, Asha continued to think of ways to survive.
I would get angry that he was having sex with me. I was just laying
there and I would get angry. I would turn around and look at him.
Most of the time I had my head turned, and I was crying. But then I
would get mad, and I’d turn around and look at him right in his face.
I wanted to be able to remember his face. Yeah, I want to be able to
identify this mother fucker.
Her response pattern is remarkable here because women who have these
experiences are rarely able to remember the events, let alone report them. The
act, coupled with severe emotional trauma, changes the way survivors relate to
the world around them (Arbabanel & Richman 1989). Current, nor future,
incidents are not likely reported because of the emotional impact of the crime
(Deming & Empey 1984). Yet it appears, in this case, that a certain level of
anger not only increased Asha’s ability to survive the ordeal, but also file a
police report later with the help of friends.
I kicked into survival mode, and so I thought that I’m just going to
have to wait for the right time to come. So he gets out, and he’s
standing there. He begins to put on his pants. He put on one leg, and
when he began to put on the other leg, I thought if he just moves one
step away from the door. That’s exactly what he did. He moved away
from the door, and I reached out, grabbed the door, slammed and
locked it on the passenger side, and jumped over the seat. He tried to
get over to the drivers side because the window was down. He tried to
get in, so I reached over to roll the window up. He tried to catch the
window, but he couldn’t. Then he started beating on the glass, and I
just knew he was going to break the window on the driver’s side. I
yelled at him to stop beating on the glass, and so he stopped. I said
now if I open the door and, let you in do you promise to take me
home? He said yes I do. I told him that he was lying, turned the car
on, put it reverse, hit the gas petal, and backed up the hill we came
down. He was coming at me, and I prayed, “lord please help me off
this mountain” and I hit the gas petal “ Boom” you know? He tried
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going around the other way to cut me off, right? But I finally got to a
spot where I could turn around. He was still trying to catch me, but
he’s on foot, right? So I just left.
This remarkable feat of survival suggests that despite the fact that the common
modus operandi of most sexual predators manifest in the need to gain, and
retain, control over the thoughts and actions of victims, the potential for
reporting appears to increase when survivors experience a certain degree of
anger and rage. It appears that her anger produced an intensity, which
manifested as a survival motivated response to the act itself.
Advancing from this analysis, the next section examines the subjective
experiences of several women who met with barriers to reporting. The data
will show that the potential for reporting decreases significantly as victims of a
variety of sex crimes experience fear linked to institutional structures
promoting ideological doctrines of male dominance.
Barriers
Rose was 14 years old when a minister, (Rev. Bob), assigned to lead a
youth group at her church, made her the target of his sexual fantasies. The
following narrative described how this long-term relationship manifested over
time.
It kept getting worse and more weird. We would spend New Year’s
Eve at his house. The whole youth group. We would stay up all night,
watch movies, play games, and eat candy. I was one of the last people
still awake so I went and laid down in the living room. He came over
and laid down next to me and held my hand. He brought a blanket with
him and covered us up under the blanket and continued to hold my
hand. Intertwined, you know. I really, really freaked out. But the next
day he told me to come sit on his lap. I told him no and he said yeah
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come here, you know, come sit with me, come be with me. I did finally
because I was put on the spot. He was making a big deal out of it in
front of everyone. And he came up behind me and squeezed my waist
and whispered in my ear, I love you.
Rev. Bob was a member of the clergy; which is theoretically an individual who
takes on the responsibility of teaching religious doctrine, and protecting his
congregation from a variety of indices permeating the social world. Yet it is
obvious, from the narrative, that something is not quite right with him. There
appears to be a major disjunction between his spiritual calling, and the manner
in which he carries out the duties of the office.
Due to my lack of expertise in the arena of clinical psychology, I am
not prepared here to diagnose the psychological dynamics playing out within
the context of his bold actions. I will say, however, that the activity described
in this narrative directed attention to the way men of this type exhibit predatory
behavior.
For example, Rose and Bob met during the period her parents were
having marital difficulty. So the minister found himself in an advantageous
position. He conveniently took on the dual role of minister and parent. Rose
was unhappy during much of her childhood, especially as the level of domestic
increased over time. And although the violence abated after her father left, the
reverend seized upon the situation, and set himself up as a father figure. Rose
was too young to recognize and visualize his performance from any standpoint,
but it was obvious, however, that he planned to prey on her youth as a means
of fulfilling a sick sexual fantasy.
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The following narrative provided a clearer view of this series of events
as they played out in real time. One thing to note is that the predatory
behavior continued to increase over time.
I had on jeans that were really loose in the waist, and he asked me to
sit on his lap. He put his thumbs down my pants, and I totally freaked
out. I didn’t know what to do. He said, “What’s wrong?” And I said,
“Nothing.” And then he said, “Don’t you love me?” And I said Yes.”
And he said, “Well don’t you trust me?” And then I said, “Yes.” And
then he said, ’’Why don’t you talk to me?” And I said, “It’s fine, and
nothing’s wrong, I just have to go home.” He said, “Well don’t you
love me?” And I said, “Yes.” And he asked me over and over and
over, “Don’t you trust me?” “Don’t you love me?” “Don’t you trust
me?” And I kept saying, “Yes, yes.” And he’s like, “Then why won’ t
you give me a hug?” “Why won’t you stay and talk to me?” “Why
won’t you believe me?” You know. “Why are you leaving?’ On and
on. And then I said, “You’re driving me crazy. I have to get out of
here.” So I ended up giving him a hug and just left. Next day, he
came to school and brought me a card that said ... I love you like a
daughter ... I love you purely ... I thought to myself, god, I’m going
crazy.
It is clear that while the pattern increased, so to does the affect the pattern has
on victims of this rather unwarranted attention. Rose’s statement on her
mental status, as she endured this series of events, directed attention to the way
some victim’s respond to these situations. She thought that she was “going
crazy,” which, according to previous research, is an expected response.
For example, an Acute Stage emerges as several forms of trauma,
including; shock, disbelief and denial, flashbacks of the assault, anxiety and
feelings of powerlessness, mood swings from depression to anger, poor
concentration on routine activities, and increased fear about personal safety,
affect the way victim/survivors respond to predatory behavior. Each reaction
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is known to occur singularly or simultaneously, but all manifest immediately or
in a delayed pattern, sometimes occurring weeks or months after the incident.
In this respect, fear, which is an offshoot of the long-term trauma
victims’ experience, is a natural response to predatory behavior.
While all of this stuff was going on he would, like at night, he would
hug me. I was afraid he was going to kiss me. I would really be afraid.
And I didn’t know what to do. So I would leave and go home, and I
would be so confused. I would tell myself this is crazy. He’s my youth
pastor. He would never think, about that. How could he think about
that? He prays in front of the whole church on Sunday mornings. He
has a wife.
According to the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), fear is one of several
variables, which have a negative affect on the reporting process (Federal
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1996). Most women refuse to report because they
fear similar attacks by family and friend’s of the offender. And while the data
provided clear indications that Rose was quite afraid in this situation, it was
interesting to find, contrary to UCR findings, that her fear, was overcome by
prior socialization.
This dual aspect of fear, i.e. emerging as both facilitator and barrier to
reporting, is significant. For example, Rose was raised in a family where she
learned to trust police, where adult intervention was used to protect her from
sexual predators within the family, and a positive female role model was
available. Rose characteristically sensed that reporting was the right thing to
do.
I went and told one of the other youth leaders. I was crying, and
totally hysterical. I told her he made me feel really uncomfortable, and
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that I felt totally out of control. I didn’t know what to do. She said
to me, “He loves you like a daughter ... He would never do that... He
didn’t mean anything by it.” She went on and on.
Now just when you think that her characteristic sense of reporting would end
the ordeal she has endured for approximately two years, another interesting
variable emerged in this case study. I assumed, since she filed the report to a
female minister, Rev. Sheila, that the outcome would be easy. After all she
reported to a woman whom she felt, just as her mom did, would protect her in
this situation.
Unfortunately Rose found out later that this woman, along with her
male counterparts, identified more with Rev. Bob as a predator, than her need
for protection. Rev. Sheila, who was obviously in denial, informed Rev. Bob
that Rose had filed a report detailing several charges of sexual harassment and
sexual assault against him. As a result of her betrayal, his anger escalated and
he worked diligently to retain control of the situation.
It didn’t take long for the reverend to summon Rose to his quarters.
Here the true danger, inherent to sexual predators of this type, manifest
through the mechanisms most use to retain control over victims, especially if
victims response is contrary to the desired result, which is to maintain the fear
and emotional trauma necessary to the event.
Control, in this respect, is one of several key factors linking predatory
behavior to victims’ response. The following narrative gives us a sense of the
social and psychological dynamics that play out as control mechanisms.
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I didn’t say anything to him about telling someone, but about a week
later the counselor said something to him about it. He called me up at
my house and told me to come down to the church. He wanted to talk
to me. So I went there and he took me into the office and shut the
door. He was really pissed. He told me I was never to talk to anyone
about our relationship, unless it was with him. It was between him and
I, and no one else had any business. He loved me. How could I do
that to him?
Although no physical violence is evident here, it is significant that he used
physical and emotional intimidation to retain control over her thoughts and
actions. For example, he made her come to him, and then obfuscated the true
definition of the situation by insisting that they were having a relationship, and
that she should discuss any problems they were having with him only. Then he
cast himself as the true victim in this drama; “how could I do this to him,” she
stated.
The control mechanisms emerge here as a paradox designed to confuse
the victim. She is made to question herself, rather than the actions of the
predator. In this way, Rev. Bob not only retained control over the situation,
but also set himself in a position where he could maintain control over a long
period of time. It appears, at least in the short run, that he accomplished his
main objective.
At this point, I didn’t know what was right or wrong. I didn’t know
what to believe. I didn’t know what to think. I just tried to take it.
And just forget it. And finally, my senior year, I was baby-sitting and
house sitting a lot. I wasn’t going away to college. He didn’t want me
to go away. He wanted me to stay with him. If I brought a guy friend
to youth group he would interrogate me. “Do you like him ... who is
he ... are you going to date him ...do you do things with him?” When
I was in high school, I didn’t date at all because I was afraid that he
would be mad at me. I felt really controlled by him.
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Although Rose endured this situation for 2 years, she finally broke the
boundaries of control, through an intersection of the fear she experienced,
strong support from her mother, friends, and family, who finally recognized
this man’s behavior as dangerous, Rose went on to file a police report at a later
date.
I continue this discussion by examining the subjective experiences of
one woman who was the victim of date and acquaintance rape. The predatory
behavior of the individual(s) who raped her, while unique to that of the serial
rape murderer, intersected also within a response pattern grounded in the
victims’ prior socialization. For example, while they also exhibited similar
control mechanisms during the course of events shaping several criminal acts,
the one thing they were sure of is that she would not file a police report. In
this respect, fear manifested as part of an institutional and ideological structure
that rationalizes and justify rape in some situations as normal behavior
Alice, was 15 years old when she found herself in a situation were she
was unable to report instances of date rape, committed by several men who on
the outside appeared normal, but apparently needed to validate their own male
heterosexuality through acts of rape, violence and physical intimidation. Each
event was shaped by similar behavioral patterns imposed by previous assailants,
yet the victim response pattern directs attention to the success of the
mechanisms assailants used to control victim/survivors during and after the
crime.
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When I was around fifteen this guy named Ronnie tried to rape me.
One day he asked me if I wanted to go to the beach. I said OK fine.
So he comes and picks me up and took me over to a friend of ours.
Nobody was there, so we went in the house. He said that I should
come in the room and just sit and wait for a minute. He claimed that he
had to do something. Fine, so I go in the room and he starts grabbing
on me trying to take my clothes off. I told him no but he kept on and
began to hit and sock me. So I socked him back and I said take me
home. He said walk home. I started walking and saw a friend, a guy
who liked me. He asked me where I was going and I said home. He
said okay I’ll walk with you. So we started walking toward my home
and I told him what happen. So while my friend Mouse was walking
with me, Ronnie came back with a friend ofhis. So Ronny and Rodney
just looked at me and started laughing. Mouse said I’m going to go
because they laughing, tripping, and acting funny. So he left me there
and I had to walk home the rest of the way by myself.
This narrative describes an extremely coercive, and controlling relationship
based on several normative aspects of male/female relationships. “Sexual role
- playing by males and females still follow the traditional rules, and some men
take it upon themselves to encourage intercourse, and test the limits of
intimacy to see how far they can get” (Allison & Wrightsmith 1993, p.77). It
is the young woman’s job to refuse sex. If she says no, the young man will
often interpret her defiance as “just following the rules” (1993, p.77). She
really wants it, but if she says no it’s because she’s been taught to say no. In
this regard, dating relationships are sometimes mired within a production of
fear through ideology and expressions of popular culture (Sheffield 1987). In
short the “dating script,” which Alice was forced to endure, has a significant
affect on the way many women report date and acquaintance rape.
At first, the men appeared as acquaintances, which could account for
the fact that she saw them constantly. Ronny, Rodney, Mouse, and Bob were
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all part of her circle of friends. What she didn’t realize was that their friendship
with her was not comprised of the normative social bond between people, but
linked to a paradigm of male sexuality, which includes physical intimidation,
verbal abuse, physical violence, and need to control women in general (Burgess
1983). Sanday suggested that rape, “which occurs frequently in some
societies, is part of a cultural configuration that includes interpersonal violence,
male dominance, and sexual separation” (1990, p. 8). In this regard, sexual
aggression is the means by which these men displayed their masculinity, and
attempted to induce other men into similar masculine power roles.
For example, Alice told Mouse about Ronny’s first attempt to rape her,
and he offered to walk her home. Yet because of the normative expectations
of his masculinity he was unable - or merely unwilling - to escape the bond
between himself and his friends. He abandoned Alice and sided with both
Ronny and Rodney after they returned to the scene. They were laughing at
her, and putting her down, so it was improper for him to advocate on her
behalf although he was well aware of the danger she was in. “I’m going to go
because they laughing, tripping and acting funny” he tells her as he walks away
leaving her to walk home alone. And while the violence and sexual aggression
displayed here is viewed theoretically as a normative aspect of male behavior,
for Alice to act otherwise would have been seen as a step outside of the normal
expectation of being female.
After about a year I forgot what happened and I was going to the
movies with Ronnie. But when we went out to the car this guy named
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Bob was already there waiting. So we left and went to pick up Bob’s
date. We drove over to this house and we knocked on the door. No
one was there. We went to another house and Ronnie said he was
going in to make a phone call. He asked me to come in with him.
Then he said come into the room while I make the call. I said okay.
So he was sitting there and he started kissing me. Next thing I know
he is trying to have sex with me. No I don't want to do this. We start
wrestling and he was trying to take my underwear off, and I said no.
We were tumbling over the bed and I told him to stop, let me go. He
wouldn't let me go. He tore my panties off.
It is not surprising here to find that Alice would agree to go out with him in the
wake of previous events. I wondered about this a great deal, and came to the
conclusion that prior socialization, once again, has an effect on victim
response. Specifically that Alice characteristically used blocking mechanisms
as a way of rationalizing bad things that happen to her as a child. This was
seen in the way she blocked out the effects of her father’s drug sales and abuse,
as well as several instances of sexual abuse within the family. Therefore, it is
possible that she merely blocked previous encounters with Ronnie.
It is clear, however, in this case, that her failure to consider his previous
acts of predatory behavior placed her in danger of a repeat performance on his
part. The outcome of this prophetic statement is seen in the following set of
events.
He said look if you don't let me do this I’m going to call Bob in here to
hold you down while I to do it to you. I said no, but he forced himself
between my legs and stuck his penis in. It lasted about a minute. He
got up and said OK that’s it. When he left the room Bob came in.
Look, I said, I’m ready to go. He said I ’m your friend I won’t do
anything to you. But he turned the light off and started to take his
pants off. I said what are you doing? He said, nothing. I said no don't
do this. Leave me alone. We started fighting, but the guy that lived
there came home and said, “man no don't do this in my house, leave
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her alone.” So he got up and I said I’ll walk home. Bob said let me
take you home. I was going to get into the car, but Ronnie said “no
she said she was going to walk home.” “She can walk.” So I started
walking. Bob said no get in the car. So I got in the car. Ronnie was in
the passenger seat, and I was in the back seat. Ronnie was calling me
bitches, and all kinds of names. He tried to spit on me. He spit a piece
of gum on me. And then he tried to hit me. When they got to my
comer they dropped me off and told me to get out of the car. So when
I got out of the car we started fighting again. And they just left me
standing on the comer.
This particular expression of sexual aggression played out within the context of
“pulling a train,” a common practice found on college campuses (Sanday 1990,
p. 10). What happens is that a group of men will line up like train cars, and one
by one each man sexually abuses, i.e., rapes, a woman specially targeted for the
occasion.
Gang rape is seen as a universal response among men who sexually
abuse women on a regular basis. There is a similarity of patterns in these
incidents, which affect the way women report. While the mechanisms of
power, violence, and ultimate control serve as social and psychological factors
affecting women’s perception and behavior from the point of impact, and as
the event(s) unfold, reporting strategies are more often than not thwarted by an
overpowering sense of fear produced by the assailant(s). Once again UCR
findings are validated as Alice, like so many women victimized by males who
rape within the context of so-called normal relationships, never reported to
authorities because she feared additional retaliation from Ronny and his friends.
I never talked about it. I never told anyone about it and I was. The
reason I didn't tell my father or anybody about it because these were
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gang members and I thought if I said something they would come back
and shoot the house up or do something to somebody in my family and
I didn't want to cause that. So I never told.
Alice was not the only subject who failed to report out of fear, nor to be
affected by the physical violence and emotional trauma characterizing sex
crimes of this type. The following section, for example, examines how the
same characteristics of date, and acquaintance rape, manifest within
environments where women are victims of spousal rape and domestic violence.
Here the subjective experience of the sex crime affects a woman’s likelihood of
reporting on much broader level.
Domestic violence, which usually involves battering, reflects as a type
of force used primarily to control and maintain power over another person.
That force can be physical, verbal, psychological, and/or sexual. The batterer
uses a variety of techniques involving repeated instances of intimidation and
fear through verbal threats, and beatings. Individuals who commit these acts
are overwhelmingly a woman’s husband, ex-boyfriend, or lover. A major
consistency between either is that this person is jealous, controlling, and
obsessed (Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women 1990).
Here the similarity between men who rape as strangers, and those who
rape within the context of normal relationships is high. While the behavioral
patterns of all the men discussed at present, reflect serious anti-social
behavioral patterns, to often it is assumed that these patterns are endemic to an
exclusive group only. It is important to understand, especially when analyzing
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the barriers that emerge during episodes that occur within the home, that the
behavioral patterns exhibited by the men who live within these arrangements
are no different than the average antisocial personality.
The violence, both emotional and physical, which usually unfolds within
the household, manifest as part of a long term cycle that eventually obscures
the ability of some women to perceive the danger. Once the pattern has begun,
reporting is less of an option because the trauma cycle’s around again, and
again, until the threat of emotional and physical abuse overshadows all aspect
of the woman’s life (Pence & Paymar 1986, Graham & Rawlings 1991).
Amanda was 23 at the time of our interview. She is an Asian female
who grew up in a relatively wealthy family in Japan. At age 17 she convinced
her parents to give her permission to attend college in the United States. After
arriving in the U.S., she was befriended by a young Swedish man who was
taking classes at the same college. Sven appeared to be the perfect man. He
was witty, charming, handsome, attentive to her needs, and all of her friends
liked him.
Amanda, like many young women, was excited about the prospect of
finding a boyfriend. Adhering to the guidelines prescribed by what she knew of
normal heterosexual relationships, she began a serious relationship with Sven.
She soon discovered that the rules, which formed her vision of the perfect
relationship, disintegrated into an abstract ideology of love and hate. For
example, Sven was manipulative, immature, addicted to drugs, emotionally
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abusive, and physically violent. He was also so sure of her mental status, i.e.
love for him, that he immediately moved his possessions into her apartment
without her actual consent. All of this took place during the first month of the
relationship. And after several months of emotional abuse, and physical
violence she had trouble defining his behavior.
I wanted to leave him, but I couldn't leave him. That made me feel sad.
I found out after we had been out for two weeks, that he was hiding
drugs. Since we were living together he couldn't hide it. He had to tell
me that he was addicted. At that time I didn't know about drugs. I did
not know about heroine and cocaine. He used to shoot drugs in front
of me.
Drug use had a significant effect on the relationship. Amanda had little
knowledge of the tactics drug users employ to obscure their habits, nor the
potential for these same individuals to display extremely violent behavioral
patterns. She had difficulty recognizing the cycle of trauma that was sure to
follow. Like many women, she felt that she could help him.
I felt like it was my responsibility to take care of him It was my
house, it was like that is how I was raised to take care of people who
ask me to help. My father is a psychiatrist and he helped so many
people who need help. Maybe I got wrong idea by that. I thought I
could help him to stop. I thought I could watch him 24 hours.
Amanda’s naivety, and need to help, is not exclusive. In fact many young
women follow this same pattern when selecting men to share their lives with.
In a similar situation, Hope, a 25-year old Caucasian female, also had
problems seeing the true character of the man she selected as her mate. She
was single, and attending a university, at the time of the interview. And
although she remains single today, she has a daughter by the same man, who
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is now an ex-mate. Like Amanda she is also the survivor of emotional abuse
and domestic violence committed by her live-in boyfriend, her subjective
experience of this sex crime most certainly affected her ability to report any
number of incidents. I found many similarities between the two women
because they both met men who appeared to fit their preordained ideas about
love and heterosexual relationships.
I met somebody through my family. We went on a family camping
trip and he was there with his mother and I was there with my dad and
my brother. And he was just so nice. He told me these nice fabulous
things. He seemed to be really in tune with himself spiritually. We
were out on the Colorado river it was really pretty and me just started
talking a lot. Spending time together. We went off on our own and
looked at the stars and talked all night long. We just had a really good
time together. When we were done with our trip, I drove home and we
started talking on the phone a lot and we started seeing each other like
everyday. He said that he would never ever hurt me. Or say mean
things to me. Then we started spending a lot of time together and
things were okay but I was noticing little things here and there. Little
comments that he would make. He was just so quick to want to be in a
relationship. He didn’t want to date me, he didn’t want to see me, he
wanted to call me his girl friend. He wanted to tell everyone that he
was in love with me. He was telling everybody how in love with me
he was. Calling his grandparents that live far away and telling them
about me. But I just thought that that was a little odd because he
jumped into it too quick.
As in Amanda’s case, some pretty specific warning signs were there. They just
met, but Harvey was obviously in a hurry to cement this relationship. So he
said the things she wanted to hear, and despite her suspicions, she went ahead
with the relationship.
They eventually moved in together, but it didn’t take long for many
character flaws to surface. For one thing, Harvey, like Sven, had a drug
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problem. And like Amanda, Hope tried to cope with it rather than end the
relationship.
He would make me mad. I was trying to talk to him about bills or
saving money. Stuff like that. I was trying to be his mother. Trying
to make him be responsible. He didn’t want to do that. I used to
smoke pot with him. That is why we liked each other. It’s probably
the only thing we had in common. When I got pregnant I had to stop
and so I did. He didn’t. He would smoke right in front of me. It
really bothered me. I would ask him to please not do that. Or can you
at least go to your friend’s house or something. It got so that he
started acting like an addict with pot. I had never seen anybody act like
that before. He would go into my roommate’s room and find her pot
and take it. He smoked it all at once. When she came home she was
like, that is really not okay. You can’t just go to my room and take my
pot. So it made her really uncomfortable. I had a pretty good
roommate situation going. She started to feel like she couldn’t leave
anything in her room. He would go in there and steal it. Then he
would be really grumpy if he didn’t smoke.
I have little doubt, in this respect, that drugs had a significant affect on the
manner in which both relationships evolved into violent paradigms of physical
and emotional abuse. According to Amanda, it didn’t take long for Sven to
exhibit similar forms of anti-social behavior.
Several months later he was getting worse. He took drugs every single
day. He never hit me, but he would call me stupid. Yes I told him that
I would call the police and he said no, no, no. He wouldn’t stop. He
would mess up my house. He was making a mess of my house. He
just did it. He bring scissors and he start cutting up the curtains and
chairs to see if there were hidden cameras and things. He needed to
make sure, so he cut up my shoes. He even burned my couch. Not big
fire, because I had water. I couldn't stop him because he was kind of a
big guy. And I had no choice but to watch it. He is burning my stuff
again. I get used to him doing bad things. Yeah, every time everyday.
Same things, like same place. He broke my phone, but I put it back. It
was OK that night and he said “I am sorry I did it. But I’m paranoid, I
won’ t do that again.” He took drugs again and did the same thing. You
know, see this lying. That is not little stuff.
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By contrast Hope had similar experiences, but in her case the violence
escalated to the point where she began to actually fear for her life.
One morning we got into a fight over something, I was in the shower
and he was saying you bitch, you whore, you bitch, you whore. He
was like singing to me a song. I don’t know what made him so mad.
But he was really angry. He was swearing at me and telling me that I
sucked. Calling me names. Whore, bitch, flicking cunt. He was
making up a song. Like a rap song about how terrible I was. I hid. I
was mad and scared. I went into the bathroom and shut the door. I
locked the door and he just twisted it until it opened. He shook the
shower door so that now the shower door only opens on one side. He
would break things. He was big. He was a big guy. He was six two
probably. I am five four. He was in martial arts. He could of really
killed me if he wanted to. He pushed me a few times and hit me.
In this regard the violence, which occurred within the context of a family
structure, manifested also to form a cycle of trauma that seriously obscured the
ability of both women to perceive the danger shaping their lives. As previously
stated, once the pattern began, reporting was less of an option mainly because
the trauma cycled around again and again until the threat of emotional and
physical abuse overshadowed all aspect of their lives (Pence & Paymar 1986,
Graham & Rawlings 1991).
For example, Amanda was subsumed within Sven’s behavioral patterns,
and she felt obligated to stay with him, rather than protect herself.
My friend saw it. I had her over to my house when he was gone. She
said, “what happened”? I don't know. I lied to her. I don't know why
I lied to people. They asked me because I got scared. I lost fifteen
pounds because I worried so much that I couldn't eat. I usually weigh
one hundred and five. I was under ninety at that time. So my friends
wondered what I was doing. They knew that I got boyfriend. Cause I
stopped going out with them. I just stay home and then stay with him
all the time. They ask me if I was happy. I said, hey of course I am
happy. I don't know why I lied to them. They knew, but they never
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asked me over again. My best friend knew what was going on, cause I
told her once. I told her that he used to take drugs but not any more.
She knows how bad drugs are. She took drugs before. Well I call her
up, asking for help. Then my boyfriend came back and he said sorry
and I forgive him. I call her up and then tell her everything is OK. You
don't have to come over and see. We are getting better. That
happened like everyday. He told me, he was getting better. I believed
him. He will quite using drugs and stuff like that. But he increased the
drugs.
She actually believed that she could be a better girlfriend, so she was unable to
see his behavior as anything but all good, or all bad, despite the fact that her
friend was quite aware of the situation. A tension emerged as she was caught
up in several desperate acts. She pushed him away and pulled him back even
as attempts were made to seek help from friends. But one day she had had
enough, and broke free from this deadly cycle with the help of her friends. She
was finally aware that Sven’s drug addiction, and constant lying, was ruining
her life. However, she refused to file reports on the drug use, or incidents of
domestic violence, mainly because she, like many women, was afraid that he
would retaliate. Hope also found the clarity to end her relationship with
Harvey. And while she forced him to move out, she refused to report incidents
to the police, although she had threatened to do so on several occasions.
I always told him I was going to call the cops. I almost did call the
cops but I never did. He wouldn’t leave. I would tell him to go
outside. Go and take a walk or something. Leave right now because I
can’t sit here and fight with you. He never found a place to live. He
had to move out. So I made him move out. He moved out.
From this statement it is clear that the subjective experience of the sex crime
affects a woman’s likelihood of reporting on much broader level.
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Specifically speaking the behavioral patterns manifesting in the atypical
rapist, are similar to those found within the typical batterer (Williams 1984).
Between them there is little difference in the way physical violence and
emotional trauma is used to gain, retain, and maintain control as the event
unfolds. Amanda and Hope were extremely fortunate to have had family and
friends who cared enough to intervene no matter how long it took. Both were
able to walk away.
From this, I began to wonder about the freedom of movement inherent
to environments where domestic violence intersects with other sex crimes such
as spousal abuse, and where these acts are justified through ideologies of male
superiority, and male dominance. For example, the case studies presented by
Amanda and Hope play out within the context of girlfriend/boyfriend
relationships. What is salient here is that these relationships are fluid. Meaning
that, without certain mitigating factors, either woman could have left the
situation with no strings attached other than perhaps a variation in emotional
and material gains and losses. But what is it like for women who enter into the
institution of marriage, and find themselves confronted by similar
circumstances? As the following discussion demonstrates, this relationship is
not nearly as fluid, and many women find themselves locked in environments
where domestic violence is inclusive of battering and spousal rape, and where
husbands, and other male family members, control this relationship as a form of
person to person violence, rationalized and justified as normal. These are
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social structures invested in power inequalities and ideologies of male
supremacy (Connell 1987).
The reader will see that the women victimized within this structure
refused to report not only because she was afraid, but also because she was
completely aware that any attempt to report would have gone unfounded. Her
behavior was not only called into question, and eschewed by a priest who
represented religious institutions, but the rhetoric of family, and duty to the
ideology of woman as ordained by the church, illustrates the complexity of the
type of fear women feel in this situation.
Elinore is a 41 year old, professional woman of high educational and
economic standing. Her story is remarkable in that she was well aware of the
problems facing many women during the onset of domestic violence. Yet she
found herself trapped by some of same barriers that made it difficult, and
impossible, for Alice, Amanda, and Hope, to report. Specifically speaking she
felt that she was socialized to believe in the traditional benefits of love,
relationships, and marriage. Yet she soon discovered that the ideas, values,
and beliefs associated with women’s role within marriage, manifested as a
barrier to reporting several extremely serious incidents of domestic violence.
That was the thing that made me stay in the marriage as long as I did.
It all fit with my socialization. It is not out of character you know. It
may be the British stiff upper lip or whatever. You just put up with it.
You don't make a fuss. It is just life. All that kind of stuff So there
was a very strong social pressure there to make the marriage work. It
was all multifaceted. It never occurred to me that this would become
part of a pattern. Looking back, of course, it's all abuse. But at the
time it did not register that this was an uncontrollable anger on his part
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or that he believed he could control me by using physical violence. I
just put it down to stress before the wedding.
Elinore was sadly unaware that her husband, Andrew, would take this pattern
of violence to new heights. While he appeared, and acted, normal in public,
behind closed doors he displayed the same forms of contempt, aggression, and
hatred toward women, as the rest of the men presented in this chapter.
The data indicates that potential for reporting decreased significantly as
he gained, and retained, control over her thoughts and actions starting from the
time they said “ I Do” and as the following events unfolded. Like Amanda and
Hope, Elinore’s love for him emerged as a driving force, which obscured
future events.
I thought I was in love at the time, but I was very naive at the time. I
thought we were doing the right thing. I thought we were in love. I
thought we had a lot of shared values and aspirations in life. I thought
that socially we would do well together. But looking back I don't think
I can really say I was in love in way that I would now recognize as
being in love. I wanted to be married, and this was the nearest I've got.
It didn't work sexually which added to the tension. The struggles
around that became part of the problem. He was not sexually attracted
to me. At first he was very fond of me and we were great friends. We
had been physically affectionate prior to the marriage, but it would not
have occurred to us to have sexual relations before the marriage. One
didn't do this in those days. At least not if you had aspirations to be a
good church member. And I just assumed that it would all work out
fine. It just never occurred to me that it wouldn't.
Elinore thought that she was in love with Andrew, but it appears that she was
quite ambivalent about the prospects of being married. Marriage seemed to be
a requirement of her religious tradition. She stated, for example, “when
looking back I don’t think I can say I was in love in a way that I would now
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recognize as being in love.” Well for one thing, Andrew had problems with his
sexuality. True to her first instinct Elinore had some inclination that there was
a problem, however there was no way to test her theory because women and
men living within the religious tradition of her homeland did not have sexual
encounters before the wedding. She “ just assumed that it would all work out
fine.”
We came to America two weeks after the wedding. I returned home
while he stayed to visit with a male friend whom he had made love
with. And I now believe that he fell in love with that young man
although at the time I didn't quite have words to express what had
happened. We were separated for about three weeks or something like
that I don't know exactly. From then on there was repeated physical
violence between us. He told me that, if he had met this young man
prior to our wedding he would have never married me. At the time I
thought, this is impossible. Now I have much more of a picture of
what was happening. But at the time I didn't know what was going on.
I had no doubt at this point that Andrew was using the marriage to hide his
latent homosexuality. It was this hidden truth that became the driving force
several incidents of domestic violence.
There had been several violent incidences, where he would hit me,
throw things at me, attempt to knock me down the stairs. I was
bruised at least a couple of those occasions. There was a lot of tension
because I questioned his sexual orientation. Not just his orientation,
but why he was not attracted to me, and why he was rejecting me. I
was absolutely devastated. But his anger was not really over the
sexual tension. That was usually the background. The anger was
over, the fact that I had just slammed the door, I didn't bring the right
shopping home, I forgot something, I displeased him in some way, or
humiliated him in front of his friends.
Elinore’s questions about his sexual orientation, and lack of sexual interest in
her, angered him to the point of physical violence, which by design was used
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to frighten and humiliate her through physical control. This behavioral pattern
is consistent with the way many men use physical violence as a means of
obscuring latent feelings of hatred toward women in general.
For example Lily, a 26-year old Asian female, graduate student
specializing in Clinical Art Therapy, described similar characteristics of this
behavioral pattern manifesting in her brother, who harbored an extreme hate of
her success in academics, and just about everything else she accomplished.
I was having an argument with my younger brother who is one year
younger than me. He’s taller than me. He’s like 5’9” and I’m a small
person next to him. He has a temper. He is also illogical, and
extremely violent. My older brother would have arguments with my
father, but it would never occur to him to hit my father. But my
younger brother, if he got into it with my father, I don’t believe that he
would have any compunction about, or any guilt about hitting him
back. And so I always thought that my younger brother had a violent
personality. He doesn’t care who it is. If somebody hit him, he would
hit him back regardless if they were male or a female.
Physical coercion is a common aspect of this behavioral pattern. For example,
the individual with power uses his or her physical size and dexterity to force
the victim into a position where “fight or flight” is the only option (Gelles &
Cornwall 1990, Stout & McPhail 1998). The victim, if deciding to fight,
provides the rationale he needs to attack.
That day we were having an argument about something. I was fed up
and usually I would just go on verbally. And that’s when he’d start
cussing at me because he’s not talking sense any more. And he just
got up real close to my face and I had no more space. His body, his
check is right in my face. I was backed up against a closet or
something like a cabinet, and there was no where to move. I couldn’t
move back. It was either to the side or nothing. But his shoulders are
so big that he’s just like looming over me. I said, ‘get away from me.’
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I pushed him back like, you know, and that started it. Like me pushing
him back was all he was waiting for.
It appears, from the data, this is exactly the rationale that John was waiting for.
If anyone intervened he could claim that he felt threatened. The fight was her
fault because she hit him first. The strategy paid off when he got in her face.
His size, anger, and presence produced the threat he needed. Lily’s reaction
was reflexive meaning that she pushed him merely as a reaction to him
crowding her, however it was the reaction he desired.
It happened so quickly that I don’t remember everything. Like what
he did, and what I did . I know that I was clawing at him as much as
he was clawing at me. Except, he was hitting me and I couldn’t hit
him because my arms are shorter. He was pulling on my hair and my
stepmother came and said, ‘oh my God, what is this!’ And she got in
the middle. By that time he was grabbing me. Like he was trying to
tear me to pieces or something. His hand came out from behind her
and smacked me in the face. It’s like he appeared relieved or
something.
He quickly hit her several times, which is a striking revelation in itself since
Lily is all of 5’1”, 105 lbs. By contrast he is 5’9”, 1751bs., whereas the
difference in size contradicts any notion that he actually felt threatened.
Nevertheless the rationale provided a venue through which control was
gained and maintained as the event unfolded. In theory the situation should
have abated with parental intervention, however as both the father and
stepmother made attempts to establish control over the situation, John reached
around and smacked her in the face again. “This seemed to relax him,” she
said. And like Andrew, John had achieved his goal, which was designed to
humiliate her, to demonstrate his superiority over her, and to make her respect
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him. In the same way, Andrew fought on several levels to maintain control
during his marriage with Elinore.
We would have dinner parties and invite his friends to show off the
fact that he was now married, and wasn't it wonderful, and wasn't I
beautiful, and all the rest of it. And then I would do something, you
know, like spill the soup or whatever I don't know. He would feel
humiliated and you know he would grit his teeth for the rest of the
dinner party. I'm sure people must have realized that something was
wrong. But after they left we would have it out. He began to get drunk
and force me to have sex with him. When I threatened to inform our
priest about his behavior he would just laugh and accuse me of being
naive. He said that the priest didn’t have a clue what all of this was
about. Finally, on one occasion, when I went to the priest, he beat me
up and then demanded that I pack my things and leave and never come
back. He left the house while I did that. I went to the priest's house,
and there was a serious consequence for that. We argued and he beat
me up again; he then told me that if I was still there when he came
back later that evening, basically, I would be dead. And I'd better pack
and leave. So I packed.
I see several control mechanisms playing out within the context of this data set.
Particularly that Andrew exhibits behavior illustrating one of the most coercive
ways that sexual predators gain, and retain, control over wives within the
family environment.
For example, it is clear that Andrew used spousal rape as an additional
mechanism to maintain control over this faltering relationship. His behavior
reflects a form of person-to-person violence, rationalized and justified as
normal within the family and the institution of marriage in general. When
considering, as the research indicates, that marriage and family are sometimes
cast as social structures invested in power inequalities and ideologies of male
supremacy (Connell 1987), it clear, also, that Andrew is well aware of the
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disjunction between the doctrines codified in scripture pertaining to normative
relationships between men and women.
For example, he felt comfortable with his violence, use of alcoholism -
which as a drug give him an excuse for his behavior - and was certainly aware
that religious leaders - in this case a priest - were not realistically prepared to
deal with his psychotic behavior. He was in total control of the situation, and
engineered each event to perfection. Just like John, Lily’s brother, he wanted
to control her, to humiliate, to demonstrate his superiority over her, and to
make her respect him.
Beyond this, and what I find especially critical here, is that he was also
aware that Elinore’s preconceived notions of love, sexuality, and aspirations to
be a good church member, obscured her ability to recognize any inconsistency
in the doctrines, and danger this misconception would have on her true
position within the marriage.
In contrast, Lily was also surprised to learn that her family harbored
similar views pertaining to their preparation for her so-called marriage.
Specifically that the violence exhibited by her brother, while viewed as wrong
at the time, was a precursor for Lily’s submission to violence inflicted by her
fixture husband.
He must have hit me several times because I was dizzy. I had to sit on
the sofa. It took me an hour to clear my head. I was crying by then
because I was so pumped up with adrenaline. It took me a while to
figure, ‘oh my God. Why does my shirt have blood.’ And I didn’t
know I’d been bleeding and that I was hurt. In my heart I was hurt. I
couldn’t believe it. I cried because when I saw the blood coming out
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of my mouth I realized how hard he had been hitting me. It was hard
enough to give me a split lip. By now my dad comes in and says,
‘What’s going on here?’ He saw me on the chair reeling. Then my
grandmother came out of her room and says to my brother, ‘What are
you doing? Is she your wife?’ This statement broke me down. It just
broke me. At that point, I wasn’t hearing or seeing anybody. I was in
a lot of pain.
It is clear from the narrative, that her grandmother scolded John for beating
Lily. “What are you doing? Is she your wife?” Now at first, it appeared that
she was protecting Lily from future abuse. Yet it became clear that while it is
true that John had no right to beat Lily, the intervention had nothing to do with
the feet that the violence was wrong, but rather because Lily was not his wife.
Does this mean it would be proper if she was? Apparently yes.
I was hurting in my heart because all the faith that I have ever had that
my family protected me and loved me, was lost as they continued to
misrepresent the situation. This is not the kind of love that I want.
And for my grandmother to say what she did, and for my stepmother
and father agreeing with her, means someday they would condone
some man hitting me if I was his wife. I couldn’t believe it. Like,
here I am. I’m at home. I think I’m around people who would keep
me safe. That they are people I can trust. It’s ironic that this could
happen to me.
As an Asian/Chinese family, Lily’s grandmother holds to strict traditional ideals
regarding the role of women in the family. It’s okay for women to be beaten
within the tradition. It is normal, therefore her brother was wrong to damage
some other man’s potential property.
Elinore also expressed surprise in discovering that church leaders
identified with her husband's actions as the perpetrator, more than her need for
protection. "They came from the same religious framework as I did and they
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denied that it was happening." And by denying Elinore’s right to protection
and safety, both husband and priest simultaneously cast her need, and attempt
to report, within the context of an irrational abstraction. This means that the
violence and trauma she experienced did not happen. Every incident would
have been cast as a figment of her imagination.
It was relatively easy for Andrew to cast doubts in her mind, but there
are researchers who debunk this paradigm. “To be raped by someone you
know - someone who knows he is known and recognized - is not an irrational
abstraction or a figment of a woman’s imagination” (Allison and Wrightsmith
1993, p.61). Rape, and other forms of sexual violence happens’, and the fact
that the rapist is familiar to the victim or community, at large, makes it no less
real (1993). The consequences of these actions cannot be trivialized because
of prior experiences, or relationship with the victim (Allison & Wrightsmith
1993, White & Humphreys 1994). But Andrew is well aware of the game he is
playing with church doctrine. For example, he knew that the priest was naive
and unprepared to see beyond church doctrine prescribing women’s
subordinate status to man. If Elinore had reported, she would have sounded
like a typical hysterical woman who imagines things are happening to her. Her
allegations would have appeared false, despite obvious signs of physical abuse.
It is this blatant disavowal of her description of the facts that makes her
subjective experiences critical in her failure to file a police report. She made it
clear that she never considered reporting any of the incidents to the police.
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And If I had filed a police report against him what were they going to
do? They weren’t going to put him in jail for beating me up. They
would not have even believe me, because he would of just blamed it
on me. They would say that I was hysterical, and he would have
explained it away. Oh it was just a misunderstanding. I saw him do
that with the priest, you know when the priest tried to sort it out. You
know, he got in there and persuaded the priest. It was all just a
misunderstanding. Things just got a bit out of hand. It was fine and
he loved me. And the priest basically released me back into his
custody. They sent me home and told me to forgive him and to get on
with it. If the police had been brought into it he would have been able
to just stand there and explain it away, and the police would have
sympathized with him
She felt that the criminal justice system was simply another version of
patriarchy at its finest. She was sure that her husband would have cast doubt
on her story and thwarted her attempt to report. And while the police, like the
clergy, are supposed to protect and serve victims of crime, Elinore’s
experiences tell us that some women feel that police officers are not always
prepared to deal with the reality of sex crimes, and violence against women.
Summary
In summary, this chapter examined how the subjective experience of
the sex crime affects a woman’s likelihood of reporting. The purpose here was
to provide a glimpse into a variety of crimes such as, sexual assault, sexual
harassment, stranger rape, date and acquaintance rape, domestic violence,
stalking, and spousal rape. I wanted the reader to see the extreme nature of
the violence inflicted by the perpetrators of these crimes, and the extent to
which their actions create levels of long-term social and psychological trauma.
It was seen that this type of trauma affected the way each woman perceived
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the events as they unfolded, and reduced the potential for reporting strategies
in the aftermath of the event.
The data revealed that the potential for reporting increased when
victim/survivors experienced anger, and intense rage during the event. For
example, Asha managed to file a police report because she got angry during the
encounter, and she wanted to remember this individual. It appears that the
anger, and rage she exhibited manifested as part of an ongoing cycle of anger
rage gained during childhood. Of all the women participating in the study,
Asha was the only case of stranger rape, and the only one who managed to
report with complete success. This is where police were called, and an arrest
was eventually accomplished.
The data also revealed that the potential for reporting decreased when
predators produced an extraordinary amount of fear. Yet it was also seen that
all responses, whether it be anger, rage, fear, or any combination thereof, is the
product of a fluid, contextual, range of social response merging anywhere
between simple dyads, i.e. victim/predator response patterns, to more complex
structures linked to our most valued social institutions. Here individual
perceptions, and definitions, of certain events, were obscured by what appear
as a series of contradicting messages that affectively thwarted any attempt to
report.
In this respect fear manifested out of a variety of situations, and as a
subjective experience, had to be examined as such. For example, UCR
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findings were validated since several participants failed to report out of a fear
of retaliation from the family and friends of the offender (2000). It was
obvious that some of the women feared being cut, hurt, or killed during the
event. In some cases, fear, anger, and rage, all manifested, singularly, or in any
combination, as part of a long-term series of social and emotional patterns that
created these responses on certain occasions. Fear was derived here, by the
institutions and ideological structures that rationalized and justified sex crimes,
in the home, for example, as normal behavior (Williams 1984, Reynolds 1984),
and where the dissemination of information pertaining to this behavior was
eschewed by very institution itself (Dworkin 1983). In this respect, fear
caused victim/survivors to question their own role and responsibility in the
attack rather than that of the perpetrator (Reynolds 1984).
For example, Alice (date and acquaintance rape), Amanda and Hope
(domestic violence), as well as Elinore and Lily (domestic violence and spousal
rape) all experienced a variety of long term cycles of emotional and physical
trauma inflicted by men with whom they desired love, relationships, and had
family ties with. Yet the control mechanisms, hatred for women, emotional
and physical abuse, misguided need to validate heterosexual standards of
normalcy, ideologies rationalizing and justifying power inequalities within the
family, all merged to obstruct the true nature of each event as they unfolded,
and ultimately created barriers to reporting.
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As in Asha’s case, facilitators emerged as a result of her own self
perception, which was shaped during childhood by ideological frameworks
providing clear indicators of the tme definition and meaning of sex crimes.
Although she was the victim of many of those crimes, the definitive structure
was maintained as part of the anger and rage she felt. By contrast, barriers
were raised as Alice, Amanda, Hope, Elinore, and Lily exhibited several
complex levels of fear, had problems perceiving themselves as victims, and/or
perceiving that a crime had occurred, and found themselves at odds with the
action, taking place and their own definition of the situation.
I continue this discussion in chapter five, which examines how
reporting strategies emerge when law enforcement officials, and others
working within institutions of social support, react, or fail to react, in the
aftermath of sex crimes. I focus mainly on the way the women fared after
filing police reports, but some attention is paid also to the response of family
members, friends, university officials, and social service agencies.
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Chapter Five
Social Support Networks
This chapter supports research conducted by Feldman-Summers and
Norris (1984) who identified several variables predicting whether or not rape
victims would report to law enforcement officials, and public agencies
organized to provide services to rape victims. The research indicates that the
characteristics of social support networks range in a continuum anywhere from
informal, small, even dyadic forms extended among families, friends, and
acquaintances, to large circles of social networks, to more institutionally
organized and funded agencies and organizations.
In my opinion, however, law enforcement is the most significant aspect
of the reporting strategy. Police officers are responsible for the location and
apprehension of sexual predators, and sworn to serve and protect all people
regardless of social status or social ascription. Yet the feet that reporting has
been traditionally problematic for women reporting among the rank and file of
police departments, suggests that a paradox exists within the ideological
structure of the organization, and thus requires an intense examination of
current practices particularly the standards pertaining to the law enforcement
response to sex crime victimization.
The data indicated, that facilitators to reporting increased as social
support networks manifest among family and friends, within law enforcement
agencies, and academic environments. The data indicates, also, that while an
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overwhelming majority of officers live up to the highest ideals of service,
protection, and law enforcement principles, barriers to reporting manifest when
officers ignore, or/and discourage, reporting. It appears that without this level
of support, victim/survivors are not only less likely to report to police, but will
fail to report within any variation of the support continuum. The research
concludes that women’s struggle for social support today, in essence, parallels
a history of struggle for women’s rights in general. A brief overview of that
history is provided in the following section.
Origins of Social Support Networks
One of the first social support organizations for women emerged in the
late 19t h century. In 1885, following in the wake of several victories gained in
the fight for women’s right’s in the family, the Protective Agency for Women
and Children established a separate department of the Chicago Woman’s Club
for the purpose of protection of women and children (Browne 1987, Pleck
1987).
This move was deemed necessary because in many instances the state
supported and sanctioned the beating and abuse of women. For example a
North Carolina court reinforced this system in 1864. Here the law permitted a
man to; choke his wife, to use such a degree of force as necessary to control an
unruly temper and make her behave herself; and unless some permanent injury
be inflicted, or there be an excess of violence, or such a degree of cruelty as
shows that it is inflicted to gratify his own bad passions, the law will not
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invade the domestic forum, or go behind the curtain (Pleck 1987).
The paradox presented during the introduction of this chapter, is seen
here as leaders in the criminal justice system preferred to “leave the parties to
themselves, as the best mode of inducing them to make the matter up and live
together as man and wife should” (Browne 1987). In essence the criminal
justice system, which is supposedly an institution dedicated by law to serve and
protect all citizens of the United States, develops a rather absurd and
contradictory stance regarding women’s safety within the home. Adding to
this humiliating indictment, the same court ruled; “the actions a husband can
legally take against his wife are amended, giving a man the right to beat his
wife with a stick as large as his finger but not larger than his thumb” (Cherlin
1999, p.337). This law, described as “the rule of thumb” (1999, p. 337) was
created as an example of compassionate reform, thus establishing a system of
state supported, and state sanctioned beatings and abuse of women.
In this respect, agents of the Protective Agency for Women were
empowered to listen to women’s complaints describing any number of sex
crimes, provide legal and personal assistance, monitor courtroom procedures
as a way of protecting clients rights, and also send homeless girls, or battered
women, to a shelter controlled by the Woman’s Club of Chicago.
Subsequently, the law changed with the express help of English suflragist
Frances Power Cobbe. The publication of her research on; Wife Torture in
England, shocks readers with her graphic descriptions of the violence women
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suffer at the hands of their husbands (The Contemporary View 1879). These
events, describing the women’s movement at the turn of the 20th century, mark
the beginning of the Progressive Era. During the period, several reforms were
instituted pertaining to the family, ideology constituting family, and domestic
violence courts, as a way to deal with rapidly growing incidents of family
violence. On the outside it appeared that these efforts were designed to
empower women, and transform lower class families into an image of the
middle class.
For better or worse the reform movement, which was to some extent
driven by middle-class women striving to emulate their upper-class
counterparts (Aries 1962, In: Empey & Stafford 1999), created an ideology
“encouraging wives to become subservient, compliant, and economically
dependent (Pleck 1987). The paradox emerged again here as cases of
domestic violence are ruled now more as a domestic dispute than as a crime.
According to Bernhard Rabbino, the first presiding judge of the New York
Domestic Relations Court; domestic trouble cases are not criminal in a legal
sense. Men who batter women and children are seen, within this context, as
individuals who really don’t intend to break the law, but that both the woman
and man are equally at fault in domestic abuse cases (1987).
It is obvious that, despite efforts put forth during the progressive
reform movement, all was not successful largely because the movement failed
to keep families together. The failure was fueled by the high cost of social
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services, and easy access to asylums and orphanages. Women were easily
committed to these institutions by their families, and of the women who
managed to separate from situations like this, most found life easier away from
their abusive mates (1987).
By the 1930’s Freudian psychoanalytic theory was influential in
defining and understanding family violence. For example Helene Deutsch, a
follower of Freud, put forth the following theory proposing that the female
masochistic predisposition explains why so many women stay in abusive
relationships (1930). In my opinion her theory represents one of the greatest
paradoxes of all time. How absurd and contradictory that women’s
experiences in unsafe environments are minimized by a female scholar and
educator, no less, within a paradigm depicting women as beings who find
sexual gratification through pain, self denial, and physical degradation inflicted
by a man. Nevertheless this ideological construct, which was popular during
the Depression, gave great comfort to men because it afforded them the
comfort of dominance and control over women at a time when their ability to
support their families was threatened (1930).
In public dispute of Deutsch, Karen Homey directed attention to
Freud’s faulty view of womanhood. Specifically speaking, Freud’s belief in
female masochism reinforced women’s subordination to men (1935). Homey
saw that the theory although misogynistic, flourished in academia, and
psychiatric circles, mainly because of women’s economic dependence on men,
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and exclusion from public life (1935). Homey’s challenge was unsuccessful
largely because there was no organization to provide public support. The
psychiatric community did little in support of her argument therefore Deutsch’s
paradigm remained the predominant psychiatric theory through the 1950’s.
This is a period where the battered woman was referred to as the doormat
wife, who refused to accept responsibility for participating in her own battering
(Pleck 1987).
By the 1960s, Child Abuse was finally recognized as a dangerous
problem inherent to traditional family stmctures. For example, the publication
of The Battered Child Syndrome, as well as an editorial in the Journal of the
American Medical Association (Kempe et. al. 1962), and other scholarly
research led to state and federal legislation establishing laws, policies, and
procedures regarding the maltreatment of children (1962). The problem of
violence against women, on the other hand, remained a non-issue. A 1964
study, for example, attempted advancement on the issue in an argument similar
to Deutsch (Snell, Rosenwald, & Ames 1964). The research, which examined
reports of women accusing husbands of assault, found women castrating,
aggressive, masculine, frigid, indecisive, passive, and masochistic. Even
though the women protest the abuse, it serves to fulfill their needs (1964).
Despite set backs of this type, significant advances occurred in the U.S.
due to the establishment of “women’s shelters” in England. Following the
Chiswick model, a London neighborhood center offering advice and shelter to
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women and children, women’s advocates in St. Paul opened a women’s shelter
for battered women based on a feminist collective model. The shelter began as
a legal aid collective in the early 70’s, and in February 1973 moved to a one-
bedroom apartment so that minimal shelter could be provided when necessary.
In April 1974, the group bought a house and the shelter program became,
Women’s House. Also in 1973, Nancy Kirk-Gormley, a survivor of a violent
ten-year marriage, established the first National Organization for Women
(NOW) task force on battered women. Members of the Pennsylvania Task
Force on Household Violence acted as advocates for battered women,
accompanying them to court and assisted in court cases against husbands
(1974).
With the success of the shelter movement, and influence of the National
Organization for Women, social support networks are reinforced in the U.S.
For example Rainbow Retreat, which opened in Phoenix, Arizona (November
1,1973), led to Haven House in Pasadena, California (1974), Women’s Center
South, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (April 1974), La Casa de las Madres, San
Francisco, and the Women’s Transitional Living Center, Fullerton, California
(1976) to name a few.
However gains made in the social support movement suffered severe
losses soon after Ronald Reagan took office as President of the United States
(January 1980). The Office for Domestic Violence, established under the
Carter administration in 1979, with an annual budget of $900,000 for research
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grants and dissemination of materials, for example, was closed with the Reagan
administration claiming the need for budget cuts. Although the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) questioned the fiscal aims of the new
administration, budget cuts of this type were a consistent feature of Reagan’s
ultra conservative administration.
The Family Protection Act (1981), for example, was a mean spirited
attempt by the Congress to: eliminate federal laws supporting equal education;
forbid intermingling of the sexes in any sport or other school-related activities;
require marriage and motherhood to be taught as the proper career for girls;
deny federal funding to any school using textbooks portraying women in
nontraditional roles; repeal all federal laws protecting battered wives from their
husbands; and ban federally funded legal aid for any woman seeking abortion
counseling or a divorce. Although the bill was defeated, in spite of strong
support by the Reagan administration, this form of gerrymandering with regard
to women’s issues set a dangerous precedent for years to come.
One can only guess what the status of women in America would be
today if proponents of such legislation persisted without significant counter
measures. For example, a Police Foundation study in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
funded by the National Institute of Justice, found through empirical research
that arrest was a more effective measure than non-arrest alternatives in
reducing the likelihood of repeat violence (1981).
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Subsequently in 1984, the U.S. Attorney General established a Task
Force on Family Violence where as many as 300 witnesses came forward and
provided testimony at public hearings in six cities. Findings led to four specific
guidelines for prosecutors regarding the proper adjudication of wife assault.
First, prosecutors must organize special units to process family violence cases.
Second, victims are not required to sign formal complaints before charges are
filed. Third, prosecutors will not require family violence victims to testify at
preliminary hearings. Fourth, a protective order must be issued if defendants
are released from custody. The final report established once and for all, over
the objections of the Reagan administration, that strong social support
networks are necessary for women targeted by sexual predators.
In this regard, The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act was
passed through grassroots lobbying efforts earmarking federal funding for
programs serving victims of domestic violence (1984). Today the momentum
continues, in spite of continued attempts by several political and religious
factions to halt any, and all, progress made by the women’s movement. While
there were 20 shelters in the United States by the end of 1976, the numbers
grew to 300 by 1982, and approximately 1,200 by 1994.
In feet the 1990’s ushered in a significant increase in the number, and
types, of social support networks related to family violence and sex crimes in
general. But paradoxes still abound within the ideological and organizational
indices shaping the institutions responsible for social support. In some cases,
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the absurd, and contradictory ideas, values, and beliefs of those individuals
who swore to serve and protect, keep safe from harm, love and appreciate, as
well as train and educate within the institution, would be laughable if the
reporting process was not so detrimental to so many women seeking justice
within what appears as houses built by smoke and mirrors.
For example, in 1988 police officers were given the ability to arrest
batterers without a formal report. All that was needed was a visual confirming
the abuse. In 1991 the American Medical Association (AMA) announced the
start of a campaign to combat family violence as a public health menace. In
1992 Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. issued the church’s first official
statement pertaining to spousal abuse, confirming that the Bible does not tell
women to submit to their husbands. In 1993, Defending Our Lives, a
documentary film depicting the horrors of battered women sentenced to prison
for killing their batterers, won the Academy Award for best documentary.
All of this - as well as the establishment of a plethora of rape hot lines,
women’s centers on college campuses, rape treatment facilities in hospitals,
sensitivity training for police officers and criminal justice officials,
psychologists and therapists specializing in the emotional trauma associated
with sex crime victimization - has produced stronger legislation in most states,
and much empirical research detailing a complex array of causal factors
associated with women’s need for adequate social support networks in the
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aftermath of any number of sexual assaults. The following discussion provides
several examples of this support continuum.
Facilitators
Asha’s continuing narrative reveals how social support emerged in the
aftermath of a rather violent stranger rape. Specifically that she had really
good friends who came to her aid in the immediate aftermath of the event.
They in turn facilitated a reporting strategy that included law enforcement
officers, thus validating the strength of the social support continuum where
informal, small, dyadic forms extended among, friends, and acquaintances,
manifest also within institutionally organized and funded agencies. At first she
didn’t want to report, knowing that she had little familial support, yet she was
able to do so with the help of her friends, representatives from a rape
counseling center, and law enforcement officials who were empathetic,
efficient, and interested in making an arrest. Here’s what happened.
I was in an utter state of panic. I was crying, but glad to be away from
him. I realized that I was near my girl friends house, so I thought “I’ve
got to go to her house.” I was also thinking that he might be following
me. So when I got to her house I parked down the street so he
wouldn’t see his car in front of her house, and because I didn’t want
anything to happen to her. So her husband answers the door, and
I’m sure he was quite surprised to see me standing there looking like
who knows what. I said where’s Val? Where is she? He said she’s in
the bedroom, so I go in there.
As described in chapter four, she went through an incredible ordeal, so it’s not
surprising that she experienced both panic, and relief, in the wake of her rather
daring escape.
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She immediately sought help at the home of a friend. This reporting
strategy, in my opinion, reduced the traumatic reaction to some degree, and
also delayed several socially oriented problems known to obfuscate decision
making in the aftermath of sexual victimization. For example, Asha was at first
afraid to tell her friend, mainly because she believed that she would be blamed
for her own rape. Unfortunately her beliefs were not without merit. Short of
being killed, no other crime outside of rape carries with it such an insult. “No
other crime looks upon the victim with the degree of suspicion and doubt that
the rape victim must face” (Allison & Wrightsman 1993, p. 105). To the
contrary, her friends’ reaction negated her fears.
I told her that I was raped, and she immediately told her husband to call
the police. That’s the reason why the police were called. It wasn’t
from me because I wasn’t going to tell because I knew they were going
to blame it on me. I had seen rape movies where they blame you.
Remember the one that Elizabeth Montgomery was in; “Cry Rape” or
something like that. She met this guy in college, and he raped her.
She told on him and they put her on trial. So I knew they were going
to do the same thing to me. I wasn’t going to tell, but they called
anyway.
Additional barriers may have manifested in her understanding of racial tension
between the police and African American communities.
She was afraid, for example, ofhow she might be treated by police
officers. She firmly believed that black women were seen as unlikely victims,
and therefore routinely ignored by law enforcement officials (Buchwald 1993).
She believed the same to be true when black women reported to social service
agencies or health care professionals.
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As previous studies indicate, racism is encountered here on a large
scale. Rarely are women of color greeted in emergency rooms, doctor’s
offices, or rape crisis centers by women of their own race or ethnic group, or at
minimum, by someone trained to be sensitive to their needs (Feldman-Summers
& Norris 1984). She was quite surprised to find that she was wrong in both
instances. For example, police response was the best anyone could expect in
this situation.
When the police came to the house there was a female, and male patrol
officer. Both of them were white, and he was very nice, the guy was.
He explained that I needed to go to the hospital to have an exam, and
that they needed to take a statement from me. My girl friend went with
me, to a hospital emergency room. I rode in the police car and she
drove her car. While we were on our way to the hospital the female
patrol officer says she going to call the alleged rape into different
agencies because he might be operating in more than one place. By the
time we got to the hospital a volunteer arrives from the Rosa Parks
Center. It was a woman, and I don’t even know her name. I remember
her face. She told me everything was going to be all right. My girl
friend was also in the room with me while I gave a statement to the
patrol officer. It was very difficult, going through the story, and they
wanted every detail about. I believed I was going to be blamed, but
they were very nice.
The data indicates that they not only took the report, and made sure that she
received professional support, but they also followed up with an immediate
investigation.
They sent a sheriffs deputy out to the address I saw on his drivers
license. But they found that he didn’t live there. It was an Asian family
there. They said they didn’t know him but they got mail for him. But
there was another address on his DMV record near where he picked me
up. They sent somebody over there and he wasn’t there either.
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And in a rather surprising series of events, another patrol officer encountered
the rapist who flagged him down with the intent of reporting a stolen car. Of
course this is the vehicle that Asha escaped in.
What happened was he went and flagged down a police officer. He
flagged down a L.A.P.D. Officer, and told the officer that a hitch hiker
he’d pickup up and had consensual sex with, robbed him, took his car
and wallet with $400.00 in it. The police officer was nice enough to
take him home and afterwards called in and found out that this guy was
probably involved in a rape. They knew then where he lived, so they
went back and arrested him. All of this happened before I even got out
of the hospital.
This series of events lends further testimony to the arrogance held by the men
who exhibit predatory behavior. Franklin actually believed that he controlled
every aspect of this situation. Beginning with the violent forcible rape, which
he perpetrated against Asha, to the present, he thought that he was above the
law. It is my guess that he was sure that his actions were covered, and that he
had terrorized and frightened her enough not to file a police report.
What he failed to consider, however, is the extent to which Asha’s
anger and rage sustained her throughout the rather horrifying ordeal, and that
she had access to a strong social support from her friends. Here the reporting
process gained momentum with the arrival of police officers, and a rape
counselor from the Rosa Parks Center ofL.A. Not only were the on-site
officers professional and responsive to her needs but additional officers
operating in the field continued to monitor the situation by radio.
Consequently, Franklin was arrested before she was released from the hospital.
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Rose, who was introduced in previous chapters, also experienced
similar levels of social support after her ordeal with Rev. Bob, the youth
minister. I recall that her first attempt at reporting ended with a negative
experience after she informed his female counterpart.
I went and told one of the other youth leaders. I was crying. I was
totally hysterical and I told her that he made me feel uncomfortable.
I felt totally out of control and I didn’t know what to do. And she said
to me, “He loves you like a daughter. He would never do that, he
didn’t mean anything by it.”
And as seen here, this woman failed to provide the support she needed, and
further provided an atmosphere of fear and mistrust for religious authority.
Sometimes I was afraid he was going to kiss me. I would really be
afraid. And I didn’t know what to do. So I would leave and go home,
and I would be so confused. I would tell myself this is crazy. He’s my
youth pastor. He would never think about that. How could he think
about that? He prays in front of the whole church on Sunday mornings.
He has a wife.
The data indicates that the long-term trauma, which is an integral function of
fear, was offset by her early socialization, which taught her to believe in and
trust authority figures.
I believed in it. I trusted the system. I liked to believe that things were
good, that things were supposed to be good, and that police officers,
judges, and people like that were people that you were supposed to be
able to trust.
In addition, she had a positive role - model in her mother who reported several
incidents of domestic violence perpetuated by her father. In these instances,
police officers had responded properly and provide both service and protection
for her mother.
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My mom came home and she called the police. She kept telling him he
had to leave. They were separated. She had a restraining order, and he
had to leave the house. The police were really nice. They were really
accommodating. They came right over and they told him, you know,
sir, you have to leave. And my dad was pissed. He was swearing. He
was like this is my house, you can’t kick me out of my house. All of
that. And they said your wife has a restraining order, if you don’t leave
we’ll take you into jail. That was when I was 13, and that was really a
scary thing. I believed in them. I saw them do the right thing and
support my mom, and supported me because I was freaked out. I
would say it was good in that sense.
And surprisingly, despite his violent behavior towards his wife, her father
protected Rose from relatives whom he thought would abuse her without his
intervention.
The first thing I remember is being about 4 years old, and my uncle
came over to the house and I was hula-hooping in the front yard. And
he came up to me and told me that if I keep that up I would make a
good wife someday. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about.
And then my dad got really piSsed at him and kind of took him aside,
and was yelling at him. Even though they didn’t say anything to me, I
knew when my dad was mad that he meant sex.
In essence these social strategies manifested eventually as a form of survival
motivated techniques, which not only sustained her through earlier episodes of
physical and emotional abuse, but also shaped facilitators in the aftermath of
current events. Asha, for example, relied on her anger and rage in her
reporting strategy, while Rose relied on the protective strategies, positive
female role - modeling, and trust in ideologies of service and protection in law
enforcement agencies, to help her file a police report. Yet evidence of other
potential barriers, which might have had a negative impact on the reporting
process, emerged in the following narrative.
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I was really really scared. And I was really afraid that since this
situation wasn’t like a blatant, you know, like he raped me or
something, that he wouldn’t take me seriously and it wouldn’t be
considered sexual abuse even though it completely was. You know, it
was a mind thing. And so I was really scared that he wasn’t going to
take me seriously, that he wasn’t going to listen to me, that he was
going to say you know think this is a call...you know that kind of
attitude. And so, I had to go by myself.
It appears that she was also affected by one concern that many women have
when attempting to file police reports in this manner. Many women fear that
the police won’t take them seriously, and that they will inevitably be blamed for
their own victimization (Allison & Wrightsman 1993).
This focus is not without merit since researchers have found that some
police officers respond to the crime by blaming the victim (Feldman- Summers
& Ashworth 1981, Feldman-Summers & Norris 1984). In addition to this
possibility, the statute of limitation had run out on the crimes perpetuated by
Rev. Bob. She went through this ordeal between ages 14 to 16, and the
reporting scenario did not occur until her first year in college. In this regard,
she feared that officers wouldn’t want to waste time filing a sex crime report
when their was no legal bearing at the time of the report. To her surprise,
detectives took her case seriously and expressed great concern for her cause.
I didn’t know what to expect. I went into his office and he introduced
himself and shook my hand and he said that he really appreciated me
coming down. He said, we need to ask you some questions. I told him
pretty much everything I told you. He said ok I have to ask you some
specific questions. Did he ever touch your genitals? Did he ever touch
your breasts? I told him no, and so he went into the law book with me.
He went over what they can prosecute, and read the whole definition to
me. He said you know this is something I definitely want to do. I wish
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I could go get this guy right now because he sounds like a real jerk. If
my daughter was in that church you can bet that I would have
something to say about it.
From the narrative, it is clear that the response from this detective validates the
paradox of service and protection presented earlier in the chapter. While much
research indicates that reporting has been traditionally problematic for women
reporting sex crimes among the rank and file of police departments (Feldman-
Summers & Ashworth 1981, Feldman-Summers & Norris 1984), the data
reveals that many officers live up to the highest ideals of service, protection,
and law enforcement values.
He was the first person that really took me seriously. He said if I
would have reported it right away, like after me senior year, they could
have done something called illegal touching. But since he never did
anything legally that would be considered sexual abuse under the law
then they couldn’t do anything about it. The statute of limitations on
illegal touching is a year. So it had been over a year since anything like
that had happened. He said he would be in touch with me. He was just
really nice. I couldn’t have asked for anyone nicer.
In fact the ideas, values, and beliefs held by the officers handling this case
appear to manifest out of what one officer called; “our oath to the job.”
The chief, or the head of the investigative department or whatever,
both personally apologized that they couldn’t do anything about it and
that they felt really bad. They would keep it on file just in case, and if
they could get enough girls you know, they would try to do something
about it. But unfortunately, you know, he goes, we would like to go
down there and just use our power and shake him up and let him know
this is going on, but we also have our oaths to our job to be a good
police officer and that wouldn’t be doing that you know. That’s
stepping over the bounds, but if we could we could, that’s what we
would like to do. And we’re just really sorry that this happened.
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So although the statute of limitations had expired on the crime, the fact that
she found support among these officers did much to allay the fear and
emotional trauma she carried for so many years.
I feel really good about the people that I dealt with personally in the
justice system. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. So I
definitely would not make a blanket statement and say oh yeah, the
system is great for sex crimes. No not at all. I don’t believe that
one bit. But in my situation, I had a good experience with the police
officers.
I now turn the discussion in the opposite direction. While the officers handling
Rose’s case lived up to the highest ideals of service, protection, and
professionalism in law enforcement, the data indicates that there are those who
ignore, or discourage, reports made by female victims of sex crimes.
Police officers working within the institution ofU.S. law enforcement,
and criminal justice system, are not only sworn to protect citizens from a
variety of potential crimes, but also to serve victim/survivors in the aftermath
of the sex crimes. Nowhere does this ideal give room for officers to ignore,
and/or discourage, women who wish to report themselves as victims of sex
crimes. Yet here the support continuum waverd, as police officers themselves
become human barriers in the reporting process.
Barriers
Alice, for example, failed to report several instances of date rape, and
attempted rape, committed by men whom she thought were her friends.
For years she lived with the emotional trauma that usually occurs in the
aftermath of these events. In some ways, her value as a woman was
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diminished by the manner in which these men abused her out of a simple need
to prove their own male heterosexual value and status. And it was the
juxtaposition between this formidable structure; that is where women’s
decreased value is necessary to maintain the status quo, that she experienced a
loss of power and control over her own mind and body. We pick up her story
at age 25, where as an adult, single, mother, she began to question her lack of
agency and self-determination.
The data indicates that some of this soul searching manifested as part of
a newly attained sense of empowerment. For example, she found the courage
to report the following series of events with the help of family members.
When I was twenty-five I was in a barber’s shop, and the barber was
talking to me. I told him I don't have time for anything. I had a boy
friend I wouldn't have time for him. And he was like, oh yeah. I
thought he was joking. I thought the guy was gay. We were joking
around. And he said, I'll call you up at four o'clock in the morning.
He was saying little things, and he asked me if I was gay. I said no I
am not gay. So he finished cutting my hair and he had put a texturizer
into my hair. And he took me into the back where I laid back in the
seat and he rinsed my hair out. I had an apron on top on me.
The behavioral pattern exhibited by the barber, whom I call Sheldon, like
Asha’s assailant Franklin, at first appears benign, and gives no cause for undue
alarm. For example, Franklin came off like a nice guy also, he was the same
race as Asha, and she didn’t feel threatened during the early encounter. As a
result of this miscalculation, she became the victim of a rather violent sexual
assault, which could have very easily cost her life. What I see here is a similar
pattern that could have been as detrimental in Alice’s case. For example,
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Sheldon’s words sounded a bit provocative, but, like Asha, she didn’t feel
threatened during this phase of the encounter. However the danger emerged,
and escalated, as his predatory behavior led to a miscalculation that could have
been detrimental in the long run.
For example, the narrative continued with a description of Sheldon’s
advances, and the way the pattern escalated from benign playfulness, into a
pattern of sexual battery; the touching of intimate body parts (sex organs, anus,
groin, breasts, etc.) without her consent (WRSH 1990).
So once he walked over to me and he lifted the apron up. I said what
are you doing. Oh I’m just looking. The second time he came back
and he lifted it up again, and I said what are you doing. Oh, just
looking, and I said don't do that. And the third time he came and he
threw the apron to the side and grabbed my vagina. And I said look
that is something private to me. He said Ok. He turned around walked
away and came back. He lifted the apron up and grabbed my vagina
again. And I said look I don' know you that well for you to be
touching me. He finished washing my hair, finished cutting my hair,
and I paid him, I left.
Notice in the narrative how he took advantage of the situation. She was in a
somewhat vulnerable position as she leaned back into a sink so that he could
rinse her hair.
While this position may not appear dangerous, any woman who has had
this treatment at a beauty shop can attest to the fact that your senses are
somewhat distorted while the beautician, or stylist, conducts the wash and
rinse. For the most part, you are leaning way back with your head over a sink.
Your eyes are probably closed and your senses, and perception, might not be
as clear as during your normal mental status. So Sheldon took advantage of
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her vulnerable position and committed several acts of sexual battery, a crime
punishable under California Penal Code S 243.4 (WRSH 1990).
As in chapter four, I questioned what appears to be Alice’s typical
response in these situations. I discovered that Alice continued to see this guy
Ronny who attempted to rape her on a previous date, so I questioned why she
would agree to go out with him in the wake of previous events? I argued, in
her defense, that her ability to block out uncomfortable situations not only
manifested as a barrier to reporting, but that the blocking mechanism worked
to obscure her definition of the situation.
So, with this analysis in mind, I wondered why she would allow this
guy, Sheldon, to continue this series of physical assaults without mounting a
more serious objection? Yes the chair, and rinse procedure, put her in an
awkward position, but couldn’t she just leave, or make a more vigorous
demand that he cease and desist from such behavior? I gather from her
seemingly blase way of responding to this current situation, that a response of
the type I just described, was simply not possible at this juncture ofher life.
She had come to the point that she was used to these things happening.
When considering the number of sexual violations Alice has endured
from childhood to the present, this long-term reaction to sexual assault might
exist as part of a cycle of emotional trauma some women adhere too as a way
of surviving (Abarbanal & Richman 1987). The potential is high here that
during these events, and over the course of a lifetime, Alice experienced such
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a loss of power and control over her own mind and body, that the number of
assaults cycled in patterns affecting her confidence level. Her “person-hood”
was severely injured, so she got used to it (Allison & Wrightsmith 1993). But
as the following narrative indicates, she started to get angry. As seen in Asha’s
case, anger manifested as a powerful mechanism for social action.
I was on my way to school and it bothered me. I was mad, I didn't
understand. I kept thinking was what did I do to make him do that to
me. I kept thinking, did I say something? Is it my fault? And when I
got home later that day after school around four, I called him and I
said Chuck I really didn't appreciate what you did to me today. And
he said, um, was is reply. And I said it has been on my mind all day
and I thought that I should call and let you know how I felt. He said
oh, I apoligize. I said, did I do anything to lead you on? Or say
anything to make you think that was OK? He said no. And I said, I
really didn't appreciate what you did. And he just sat there and I said
ok. He hung up.
I am convinced that Alice came away from this particular encounter with a new
sense of purpose. She finally questioned her own perception of the events
shaping this current dilemma. But she was afraid to tell anybody because she
believed that she would be blamed for this sexual misadventure. She realized,
as her anger mounted, that she needed an individual, or group, interested in her
survival. So she turned to her family as a final resort.
I called my father and told him what happened. And he said you know
I want to go up there and slap this guy around, mess up his shop a little
bit. No I don't want anybody going to jail. He said don't tell nobody if
you ain't going to call the police or do anything about it. Call Angie
and tell her about it. So I called and she said you need to call the
police. My father's girl friend. So she said what if you never report
this and never say anything about it and your daughter goes to him and
goes to get her hair cut and he does that to her. OK, you know what
I'll call the police.
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It is rather interesting to find that her father was an arbitrator of social support
here considering that he is one of the people responsible for her current
dilemma. For example, chapter three illustrated that the father was the first
male in the family to make a sexual overture at Alice.
I was approached by my father. I was the only one home. Everybody
was gone. I was in the ninth grade, and I was just watching TV. I was
lying on the bed in my room. My father came in and he said you are
pretty, you should let me try you out.
Alice’s explanation that he was “high,” at the time of the incident, validated studies
on drugs, alcohol, and the affects either has on the mental and physical capacity of
an individual (Goode 1997, Thio 1998).
Nevertheless, I got the feeling that his reverse in attitude reveals another
way that social support emerges within the family. People can, and do change, as
seen here, sometimes on the spot. Maybe her father realized his mistake, and
rather than deny his daughter the freedom she deserved as a child, he immediately
found ways to admit his culpability in this situation, and protect her from future
events. As it turned out, his girlfriend helped Alice develop a more enforceable
reporting strategy, and with her help, she called the police.
I called the police, and the next day I went in and filed a report. They
told me it was sexual battery, a misdemeanor. They would have to file
it under sexual crimes. I went down and filed the report. Sheldon
went down and filed a report, also. He told the police that all he did
was reach for my thigh and I pushed his hand away. So the detective
called me and told me well it sounds kind of funny. It seems like you
were saying it was okay for him to touch you. The detective told me
well I am not going to contact him. If you have anymore to add to this
statement I will send this to the DA. The DA rejected the case, saying
that they didn’ t have enough evidence. He didn't incriminate himself.
So they dropped the case.
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The outcome? She received little, or no, support from the police, nor District
Attorneys Office, where the report eventually ended. What happened?
This should have been a routine report, and follow up by sex crime
investigators. Instead the report ended in a status where the criminal justice
system, which I have argued is the most significant venue of social support in
these situations, failed to carry out it’s “oath” of service and protection. It
appears that these officials; gave little validation to her report, served as human
barriers in the reporting process, and, as the following narrative indicates, set
the stage for further victimization as Alice struggled to deal with her loss of
agency.
At first I wasn't going to report it. When I first found out, it pissed me
off. Because I said you know they want you to report things to the
police and don't take things into your own hands. But when I go to the
police nothing is done about it. They just let it go. To me I felt that
they would tell him it is okay if you do it, just watch out who you do it
to. Don't get caught. It pissed me off. What are you suppose to do?
You know, it is like women are powerless in this society. What do you
do? I don't know what to do. Anther reason I reported this is because
I am tired of always being a passive person. Oh, I don't want to cause
problems in anybody's life, I will just let it go. Well I am tired of going
through that because they are just going to keep running over me and
taking advantage of me. It seemed like if I would of stood up, and said
something years ago, maybe I wouldn't be going through this today.
Although Alice was afraid to file the report, she did so because her.
Her father’s girlfriend assured her it was the right thing to do. Yet it is
striking, that police officers proved to be a greater source of support to
Sheldon, than Alice.
For example, a paradigm ofheterosexism is pervasive to the ideology
officers might used when confronting this man. The data in the previous
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narrative is clear on this since the officer told Alice; “it sounds kind of funny.
It seems like you were saying it was okay for him to touch you. The detective
told me well I am not going to contact him.” It appears, also, that Sheldon
made a preemptive strike against her report, by filing a counter argument,
which served to obscure the situation. It obviously worked, and officers sided
with him.
Alice found herself in a situation many women experience when
attempted to find justice in the aftermath of sex crime victimization. One thing
in particular, is that survivors are further victimized as they transcend through
the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system and law enforcement
environments in general often exacerbate the right of women to report with
empowerment (MacKinnon 1982, Vachss 1993, Ferraro 1993). Yet as
children we are generally taught to believe in the ideals of American society,
which dictate that law enforcement agencies and the criminal justice system are
organizations designed to serve and protect the innocent.
In many instances, these ideals have proved detrimental to female
victims of sex crimes. For example, according to Alice Vachss, former
prosecutor and chief of the Special Victims Bureau - Queens district attorney’s
office of New York City: “Perpetrators are not the only enemy” (1993, p. 30).
The criminal justice system is weighted against victims. Police officers,
lawyers, and judges are all part of a patriarchal fraternity interested only in
their own political futures.
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Once confronted with this knowledge, Alice became angry and felt a
sense of hopelessness. “It pissed me off. What are you suppose to do? You
know, it is like women are powerless in this society. What do you do? I don't
know what to do.” Yet she came away aware that she had, at least, confronted
her problem for the first time, which seemed to bolster her self-esteem Alice
had experienced a lifetime of sexual assaults, and failures to report, but this
time she refused to adhere to her normal pattern of blocking these incidents
from her mind.
Well I am tired of going through that because they are just going to
keep running over me and taking advantage of me. It seemed like if I
would of stood up, and said something years ago, maybe I wouldn't be
going through this today.
Instead of getting used to it, she realized that she had to confront the past in
order to resolve the future.
Up to this point, Alice was affected by something researchers call
“blaming the victim” (Coller & Resick 1984, Bachman 1993, White &
Humphreys 1994). By blaming the victim, i.e., obscuring the reality of the
situation, the men involved here were introducing several social and
psychological barriers in place, so that social support was exacerbated on
several levels. Many women question their own role and responsibility in the
crime, especially when attacked by someone with whom they are socially
engaged Reporting is veritably impossible, in this respect, particularly if the
thought arises that authorities will blame them for their own victimization
(Bohmer & Parrot 1993).
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For example, sexual assault is relatively common in university
environments yet, until recently, few incidents were reported to campus
authorities (Bohmer & Parrot 1993). Young women victimized in this
environment tend to believe that campus authorities, like police officers, rarely
give serious consideration to sex crimes. Reporting is veritably impossible in
this venue because the potential for authorities to deny anything happened, and
blame them for their own victimization, is high. Reporting is not worth the
trauma of going through a quasi-judicial proceeding, especially when the
chances are high that nothing will happen to the offender. The following
discussion examines this perspective, as we look into the way structural
failures of this type affected the level of social support received as one
individual attempted to report an incident of date rape to university officials
and the police.
Christine, a 20 year old, female Caucasian, college student, provided a
clearer example of the way structural failures occur in the aftermath of sex
crimes. In her case, support networks broke down on two institutional levels
as she attempted to report an incident of date rape; first to campus authorities,
and later to law enforcement officials. Her story is quite similar to Rose’s
because she was raised by her mother who, as a single parent provided several
elements of positive female role - modeling and added protection against
unwanted sexual predators. But this is where the similarity ends. Christine
was given a hard-core evaluation of men during her youth, and was taught to
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distrust police officers and anyone working in the capacity of law enforcement.
Unlike Rose, Christine has a natural distrust of the police. Despite all of this
the dating script, I spoke of in chapter four, seemed to have an overriding
effect on her ability to define several events leading up to the event at hand.
I was aware that we were going to mess around, but I wasn’t going
in there with an intention to do a specific act. I mean I know at this
point, but at that point I was relatively new to the whole thing, you
know? I didn’t automatically expect to have sex every time I messed
around with somebody. I thought I was in control, I thought we were
going to go in there an make out, fool around, and be silly. And I
didn’t think we were going to get into the shower. I thought that if I
wanted him to stop that he would stop. I already knew that a lot of
my friends were more experienced then I was, you know? And I‘ve
kind of wanted to catch up or something like that. But I always felt
like, if I didn’t want something to go in a certain situation, I never
thought it would get out of control like that, you know?
This narrative certainly suggests that her perception of the boundary lines
separating “actual sex” and “messing around” are really quite blurred. So I
inquired, if her own perception of the date had a later impact on her
understanding of the situation.
She replied, “Oh yeah. Partly because of inexperience, partly of
naivete, and partly because I was drunk.” It appears, in this sense, that while
the dating script was in affect to some extent, alcohol consumption had more
affect on her ability to perceive his true intentions, which was to take
advantage of her. She was drunk and confused, and while she assumed that
she was in control of the situation, this young man, whom I’ll call Ted,
exercised his own need for power and control. In fact, his behavior is
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reminiscent of Ronny and his cohort. He was motivated, Christine was drunk
so he had a target, and no one was around to warn her ofhis true intentions.
We came home and we were really drunk. He told me to go into the
bathroom so I just followed him in there. He took off my clothes, and
we got into the shower. He said it would sober me up. He tried to
mess around. I was really uncomfortable, and we got out, and we
toweled off. And then he told me to get down on the floor, and I went,
and he told me to put my hands and knees on the floor, and he got
behind me. He had put on a condom by this time, and he got behind
me, and he started penetrating me and I was really out of it. I didn’t
really do anything. Then we got up, he told me to standup, and so he
helped me up off the floor, and he told me to go over and bend over the
sink, because he liked doing it doggie style, in that position, because he
could go deeper. So anyway he helped me up and he put me up on the
sink. Put my hands on the sink, and then he penetrated me. It hurt,
and after about ten seconds I told him to stop. I complained that it was
hurting, and I remember wiggling my hips a little bit trying to make it
more comfortable. It was hurting, and I tried to wiggle away so that he
wouldn’t be inside me, but he put his hand on my shoulders and forced
me down on my heels. All I could remember after that was just a really
sharp pain. I could feel it throughout my body, it was totally piercing.
I was out of it, and then after a while I came back. It was like I was
daydreaming, you know? I was looking into the mirror watching a
movie. Something I was not aware of. I couldn’t feel it or anything like
that it wasn’t my body. So any ways, after a while he stopped, and I
don’t know if he ejaculated or not cause he was wearing a condom. We
didn’t say anything. He was mad at me, but I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t
know what I had done. I felt like I had just been punished. Like I had
done something wrong.
Her narrative, describing the assault, is consistent with research showing the
intersection between sexual assault on college campus, drinking at a party
(especially a fraternity party), and playing drinking games (Bohmer & Parrot
1993).
For example, at least 75 percent of sexual assaults reported to campus
authorities involved the consumption of alcohol by the victim, the attacker, or
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both (Koss 1987). During the reporting process, victim/survivors often feel as
if it is their behavior that is on trial, and blame themselves for doing something
to cause their own rape, such as drinking too much” (Bohmer & Parrot 1993).
In this respect, as previously suggested, alcohol played a role in obscuring her
expectations of the events leading up to the assault.
For one thing she believed that she was having a relationship with Ted,
and her expectations of the relationship, despite the hardcore socialization, was
still based on traditional ideals of love shaped by popular culture (Sheffield
1987). She didn’t want to believe that Ted, the man she loved, would rape
her. But as seen in the narrative, Ted dismissed her after finishing the act, and
his display of anger almost shifted her perspective of the events leading up to
the rape, and subsequent events occurring in the aftermath.
For example, some women may define the sexual assault as their own
fault rather than believe that their boyfriends are rapist (Bohmer & Parrot
1993). More often than not, women will use some type of rational justifying
his behavior, rather than define the situation correctly. “I got him so excited
that he couldn’t stop himself,” is a common response, for example (1993).
So for a moment after the event, she blamed herself because she was
unsure why he was angry with her. After all she was the one who had just
been forced to have sex against her will. The key here is that she asked him to
stop, and since Ted refiised to comply, the activity shifted, in my opinion, to
the realm of non-consensual sex. The word “stop,” regardless of the way
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events proceeded to that point, constituted a definite end to the sexual activity.
Any activity beyond that constitutes; a sex crime and warrants the victim file a
report with the police.
At this point, it was interesting to see a repeat of two facilitators that
made it possible for Asha to report. Both anger and friendship manifested as
facilitators in Christine’s reporting strategy. Typically these characteristics of
social support continuum should have brought forth a successful outcome.
First of all, I had a growing anger towards him. I was starting to
realize that the guy had problems, in the way that he was treating me.
And other people didn’t treat me the same way. I realized that I
deserved more. Plus, he was also talking to a friend of mine. I found
out that knew he had assaulted another girl. She asked what happened,
and I told her all the details. She said, you know Christine, that’s rape.
And just hearing someone else, say it made me except that my
suspicions were right. It validated my feeling. I went to the campus
women’s center. They were really good! We were very, very close! If
I was having a bad day, or if something had happened, I could call them
up. There were times I would be sobbing at my sorority house, at like 3
o’clock in the morning ‘cause I woke up from a dream, and I would
call her in the middle of the night, and she would sit on the phone with
me for like 2 hours, so I found her to be really caring, and really
compassionate.
The care given by, her friends, and university women’s center advocates, at
first, seemed to help her gain the confidence to file a report with both campus
authorities and later to police.
However, she found the process exacerbating once her case moved up
the administrative ladder. For example, this particular campus houses The
Women’s Center, which is known to provide a first rate reporting venue for all
women on campus, including faculty and staff. From here, in lieu of cases
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brought forth by the women needing services, the case is referred to the Office
of The Vice President for Student Affairs, which also contains the Office for
Student Conduct. Options to bring in the police are available at any time
during the process, however student offenders are first brought into a campus
judicial process and tried, per se, by a council of peers, staff and
administrators. Parents may, or may not, be notified depending on the age of
students involved. All decisions are final pending approval by the Director of
Student Conduct. Several options are available for the proper adjudication of
student offenders.
If found guilty students can be expelled permanently or for a prescribed
period of time, ordered to campus counseling and, or AA if necessary, ordered
to attend sensitivity training classes and write reaction papers, taken into
custody by police if the evidence is complicated by special circumstances such
as threats of physical injury and aggravated assault (sexual assault with
weapon), or if the victim wishes to file formal charges. While the adjudication
process varies significantly from campus to campus, it is interesting that with
all the judicial procedures established, on this particular campus, to protect
young women from sexual assault, Ted was found not guilty despite some
pretty clear evidence of his behavior, past and present, as well as a number of
witnesses to the event. Now the barriers, i.e., structural failures, intersect to
destroy any attempts to report outside of the campus environment. According
to Christine:
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I think that for two reasons he was found not guilty, or not responsible.
Number one, there was no physical evidence. Even the morning after,
if they had looked all they would have found was just that. I don’t
remember bleeding, but they wouldn’t have found anything incredible
outside of the ordinary. There were no scratches, or anything like that.
I could understand that the burden of proof wasn’t really there. But I
also think that there were standards in the Student Conduct Book a lot
lower than in an actual legal court of law. With all the evidence. With
all the witnesses that came in. With all the girls that he had done
certain things to. I feel that they should have used all of that to find
him guilty. But because this wasn’t an actual court, they were not
keeping him out of school, or disciplining him. I was really upset
about that because I feel that the director of Student Conduct on
campus, had influenced things. I felt she was against me from the very
beginning. She was totally insensitive to what I was going through.
There were times when I was sitting there shaking, and crying. I
didn’t expect her to come over and hug me or anything, but the lady
was completely insensitive to any emotional concerns. She was
basically telling me; I just don’t think there’s any point in continuing
with this charade, which just discouraged us. She was putting us down
for coming forward. I know that sounds very subjective, but that’s the
way I felt. I had a few friends that had been on student conduct panels
and had actually broken their contracts with student conduct, cause
they felt that Dorothy was basically making the decisions herself, and
she was telling them what to judge on. Not only that, she was making
the wrong decisions. When they thought somebody should be found
guilty she would say not guilty. A lot of times it depended upon who
they were and what position they held at school. If they were high
profile, if there were athletes, if they were fraternity members, if they
were children of alumni. Certain alumni were very active in school and
the university and gave money. If they were big donors, their kids
would not be in trouble, and get away with it.
It appears that the socioeconomic status of students may have some affect on
the way women are allowed to report sex crimes in campus environments. In
this case the young man accused of date rape was a member of a popular
fraternity, and although Christine was also a member of a sorority her
socioeconomic status was not equal to his.
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And while there is no real evidence here that social status affects
administrative networks on college campuses at large, empirical studies do
confirm that campus administrators are more often than not influenced by the
economic status of students (Sanday 1991). “Fraternities have great wealth
and influence. At many universities, most trustees are fraternity men, and the
wealthiest alumni are loyal to their fraternities” (Sullivan, In: Buchwald 1993,
p.25). Many universities shrug off responsibility on the grounds that
fraternities and clubs are private organizations over which they have no
control. They do of course, have control over the students who could be
expelled or suspended (Sanday 1991). In Christine’s case, university
administrators had the wherewithal to expel, or at least suspend, the young
man who abused her. Yet it appears that social class, socioeconomic status,
male privilege, and Christine’s absence of power, on this high profile
university, affected their ability to offer support.
Feeling rejected by campus administrators, Christine proceeded to
prosecute her assailant in the criminal justice system. Here again, filing a
police report should have been easy. Especially since the interviews were
arranged by advocates of the women’s center on campus. Through the years
these women had established excellent rapport with a police squad trained
specifically to deal with sex crimes.
It was surprising then to find that the officers assigned to her case were
not from this unit. In fact, it appears that the officers were completely
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unprepared to deal with the intricate issues of date rape. In the first place
interviews were set up with both campus and city police, but when she
requested that both departments send female officers, both sent males. She felt
that neither department adequately responded to her complaint.
At the time it was a very uncomfortable situation for me because I felt
the minute they walked in the room they were walking on egg shells
around me. I felt stigmatized by the way they were treating me. I felt
that a lot of the questions were completely insensitive.
Secondly not only were the officers insensitive, and ignored the fact that she
was the victim, one officer in particular became a human barrier by bringing his
own ideological standards into the interview.
I sat down in a room alone with an Hispanic officer. First of all he
didn’t really seem like he wanted to make the report, and so I had to
sit around for a long time. He had to go find the right pencil, and get it
sharpened and everything. I felt he was trying to make me leave. So
anyway finally he sat down, and it took 2 or 2 1/2 hours to do the
whole thing. He was going over every single detail. Wording it in
certain ways, and asking me how to spell things like simple words,
and then he started launching in the middle of it that I should not have
had premarital sex, and that this is what happens to girls that have
premarital sex. I was asking for it by being drunk, and things like that.
A lot of it was coming because he knew I had gone to Christian
school. It was like he was drawing out of my background and
evidently he had the same fundamentalist background that like saying
you should know as a girl that grew up in this environment that you’re
not suppose to be doing these things. He basically reprimanded me, in
the middle of the interview.
The fact that the officer introduced a continuum of patriarchal ideals, sexism,
and religion into the interview shows how, as Elinore suggested, the paradox
of patriarchal privilege affects the reporting process.
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While he was there, at least in theory, to serve and protect Christine in
her time of need, his lack of objectivity played into the long-term trauma, and
stages of re-victimization, most women experience when filing reports in
patriarchal enclaves (Arbarbanel & Richman 1990). She was not only the
victim of date rape, and student conduct hearings, but in a move similar to the
officers handling Alice’s case, this officer cast her experiences within the
context of an irrational abstraction. In essence, the trauma and violence
experienced was merely a figment of her imagination (Allison & Wrightsmith
1993). Even when she made contact with a female officer, as a follow-up to
the original report, a similar response was forthcoming. Just as the female
Director of Student Conduct appeared insensitive to her needs, this female
detective displayed a similar degree of apathy.
And then the fact that a few months later I called, and they couldn’t
even find the record of the report, definitely not, I mean I had to file a
second one. It took her a long time, and a lot of playing phone tag for
her to find out there was none, which I was surprised. I would think
they could just look it up on computer. I felt I had to keep pursuing it,
she’s very nice over the phone, but I also had to keep pursuing her.
Finally she told me that there was none, and basically just told me go
to somebody else at another department.
This narrative proves conclusively that there are instances where police officers
themselves become human barriers in the reporting process. As seen in the
way both male, and female, officers handled this case, it is clear that some
officers actively seek to obstruct the reporting process. In addition, the
emphasis on structural failures is quite clear here as well. All the women
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presented in the second half of this chapter had some contact with law
enforcement officials, after experiencing some degree of disenchantment within
other venues of social support. In Christine’s case, the male officer, it appears
by design, had no problem using ideological doctrines that justified and
rationalized his inability to deal with sex crimes, and women’s role within
them. Working in the same pattern, the female officer dismissed the case
without a glance, insisting that Christine forget about it.
Summary
In summary, this chapter examined how women respond when law
enforcement officials, and other individuals professing support for women
victimized by sexual predators, react, or fail to react, in the aftermath of sex
crimes. The data indicated that the likelihood of reporting increases as social
support networks manifested among family and friends, within law
enforcement agencies, and academic environments. It appears that these
institutions formed organizational structures, projecting ideologies of support.
Without this support, the women were not only less likely to report to police,
but wouldn’t report within any other context as well.
For example, Asha had really good friends who came to her aid in the
immediate aftermath of an incident of stranger rape. They helped facilitate a
reporting strategy that included law enforcement officers. At first she didn’t
want to report, knowing that she had little familial support, yet she was able to
do so with the help of her friends, representatives from a rape counseling
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center, and law enforcement officials who were empathetic, efficient, and
interested in making an arrest. In fact, police response was the best anyone
could expect in this situation. They not only took the report, and made sure
that she received professional support, but they also followed up with an
immediate investigation. The outcome? An arrest was made before she was
released from the hospital. By contrast, Rose didn’t have as successful an
outcome because of the statute of limitations, which had run out on the case,
however the police who responded to her late inquiry where just as
professional and responsive to her needs. For example, while Rose relied on
the protective strategies, positive female role - modeling, and trust in
ideologies of service and protection in law enforcement agencies, all of which
played a strong role in helping her develop a strategy for filing a police report,
the strategy would have inevitably failed without valuable social support
among law enforcement personnel.
Findings also revealed that barriers to reporting emerged when social
support was weak within any variation of the support networks suggested. As
previously thought, several contradictions emerged within the ideological
structures constituting these institutions, and had a significant affect on the
women who failed to report, or reported without success. All, while grounded
in traditional ideas, values, and beliefs aimed at helping individuals, appeared at
times to thwart attempts by women to find support in the aftermath of a variety
of sex crimes. The data revealed several instances where officer themselves
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became human barriers, and where structural banders combined to exacerbate
the reporting process in the long run.
For example, Alice at first refused to report several Instances of date
rape, and attempted rape, committed by men whom she thought were her
friends. But after years of these experiences, she found a new sense of
personal empowerment and agency, which gave her the strength to finally take
charge of her life and reported a more recent incident of sexual assault. This
shift in perspective, along with positive support and advice from her father and
his girlfriend, Alice developed, what should have been, an enforceable
reporting strategy.
The data indicated that she received little, or no, support from the
police, nor District Attorneys Office, where the report eventually ended. And
what should have been a routine report, and follow up by sex crime
investigators, ended in a scenario where the police failed to carry out its basic
oath of service and protection. It appears that these officials gave little
validation to her report, served as human barriers in the reporting process, and
set the stage for further victimization.
Christine provided a clearer view of this characteristic of the support
continuum. She was the victim of a campus date rape, but with the help of a
friend, she tried to report the situation to university officials, and later the
police. The care given by, her friends, and university women’s center
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advocates, at first seemed to help her gain the confidence needed to file
reports. As in previous cases, she found the process exacerbating particularly
once her case moved up the administrative ladder.
It appears that the socioeconomic status of some privileged students
had some affect on the way female students are allowed to report within the
campus environment. Again what should have been a routine report, and
follow up by sex crime investigators, ended in a scenario validating how some
officers deflect the basic oath of service and protection. As seen in Alice’s
case, these officers gave little validation to Christine’s report. As a result they
became human barriers in the reporting process, established a framework for
further victimization, and thus set the stage for structural failures to follow in
the aftermath of future cases as well.
The following chapter brings the dissertation to a close, as I discuss
several issues pertaining to: 1) the epistemology of victimization, 2) advances
on previous research and contribution to sociology, 3) the strengths and
limitations of this study, and 4) ways in which the research should affect public
policy.
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Chapter Six
Discussion of the Research and Conclusion
This chapter brings the dissertation to a close. And in doing so, I want
to thank the twenty women who agreed to interview for the project. While I
struggled to find a voice to which detailing and analyzing your experiences is
heard, I discovered that the strongest voice was yours all along. You are
indeed brave women, and your stories, and narratives, which you have so
willingly shared, will provide decades of knowledge, which I shall use to help
others survive sex crime victimization.
In this regard, the following discussion centers around several issues
pertaining to my experiences with these women: 1) the epistemology of
victimization, 2) advances on previous research, and contributions to
sociology, 3) the strengths and limitations of the study, and 4) ways in which
the research should affect public policy.
Epistemology of Victimization
A couple of years ago, I came across an article written by Vanessa
Veselka pointing out an infuriating defect in my earlier conceptualization of the
project. Writing in her article, The Collapsible Woman: Cultural Response to
Rape and Sexual Abuse: she drew attention to the fact that the “collapsible
woman” - which I take to describe a woman who mentally falls apart and
collapses in light of any arbitrary event in her life - “is one model of mental
health used to define any unaccountable number of individuals.” She wrote:
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One in three. One in four. One in ten. That’s how many women will
be raped in their lifetime, depending on which statistic you believe.
Statistics, however, are irrelevant; one of us is too many. As disturbing
as the numbers are, almost equally disturbing is the fact that, while each
woman is unique, we seem to accept only one response from a rape
or abuse victim: total collapse.
The individuals she speaks of here are female rape victims (1998, pp.32-37).
She goes on to say that these women are “too weak to hear debate, too soft to
speak openly about their experience, and too fragile to expect much from”
(p.33). By and large, this definition, which paints women as “humorless, and
diluted, and bears an uncanny resemblance to the sickly Victorian ‘angel of the
house” represents, what I call, an epistemology of victimization.
This epistemology manifests out of several additional statements,
whereas whenever her proposed “model of total fragility is held aloft as
virtue,” she argues that “women live up to the image out of a lack of
alternatives” (p.33). This in contrast to the many women who have
transcended the knowledge bases shaping the model particularly in lieu of their
academic and occupational success. Henceforth, the former are stigmatized
within several themes describing “the collapsible woman” (p.32)
Media sources, for example, citing the cathartic process of “survival
renewal,” constantly write headlines reminding us that women will be “forever
scarred.” This debate is generally stated by way of support for violated women
on one hand, or as an argument supporting victim culture on the other. In
Veselka’s view, “Neither stance offers us much worth striving for. There has
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to be something better than the toaster prize of being called a survivor, an
alternative to the pain-haunted neurotic” (p.33). Furthermore:
How have we come to portray the ideal o f‘recovering’ woman as
someone who can’t go to the grocery store without having her ‘issues’
triggered? We definitely need to “hold up more than a skinless
existence as an endpoint. For as long as we cling to the concept of
rape or abuse as theft, we are ultimately led back to the belief that a
woman’s worth and sense of self lie in her sexual purity. And to imply
that deep within every woman is something essential that can be seen or
touched, a vessel containing the real her that can be stolen by someone
else, is an absolute objectification of women.
At first I found it difficult to accept the basic premise put forth in her rather
passionate argument, although she clearly points to a potential defect in my
study.
For example, after several years of interviewing women who were both
physically and emotionally scarred by sex crimes, I clearly accepted the term
“victimization” as a valid outcome of their experiences. Yet after several
interviews, I soon realized that my earlier conceptualization of the problem of
sex crimes and reporting did not come close to accounting for the “grit and
character” of the women participating in this project. It is true. Not everyone
with experiences of sex crime victimization likes to think of themselves as
victims. In this respect, Veselka’s argument is valid in the sense that she is
pressing to advance the epistemology of victimization past its current emphasis
(1998).
However I still have a serious problem with the argument where it
pertains to the reality of sex crimes, and the real emotional effect on the
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individual forced to experience such an event. For example, the term
‘survivor’ makes clear the seriousness of rape as, often, a life-threatening
attack. So despite her objections, we have to realize that rape is serious. Any
attempt to dismiss the term ‘victimization,’ ignores the fact that the act does
not occur without serious ramification. Rather women are often targeted for
victimization by sexual predators. Regardless of who these people are, or the
extent to which they are known and accepted socially, they are dangerous
individuals. They are criminals. Therefore any woman raped, or sexually
abused, by this predator, and comes away to tell of the experience, has indeed
survived the ordeal.
Yet public perceptions are shaped by terminology so the word ‘victim’
has connotations of passivity, even of helplessness. So while I concede that
the term ‘victim’ skews public perception of the individual experiencing the
long-term trauma associated with sex crime victimization, the fact that many
women have no choice but to live through the emotional and physical scars left
in the aftermath of such events, directs attention to the obvious.
Many women do feel victimized, and survival is often difficult despite
the positive spin on the terminology. Therefore, transforming the word from -
victim, to survivor, to recovering woman - without transforming the way we
view the potential for the event to occur, and the mechanisms causing trauma,
which occurs as a result of the event, provides no basis for total empowerment.
Sexual predators emerge within every fabric of American life, and until this
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fact is recognized and eradicated all women remain in danger of being
victimized by these monsters. Therefore, I have used the terms victim, or
victim/survivors, throughout much of the dissertation as a validation of the
unique perspective forced upon them not only by sexual predators, but also as
a validation of the courage and ability of these women to transcend their
experiences. This paradigm shift is significant in terms of the way we
conceptualize the problem of sex crimes and reporting, and the way
researchers utilize the qualitative interview method to collect data for analysis.
For example, I came to realize over the course of four years that the
epistemology shaping a methodology of this type had to expand to accept the
“recovering woman” format, while at the same considering that the trauma
many women are forced to live with is not far from the surface. Here the
collapsable woman, the one who lives a skinless existence in her total and
absolute objectification (Veselka 1998), transcends the paradigm of passivity
and helplessness (Williams 1999). The women, in essence, transformed the
epistemology shaping this line of thought, which in turn shifts our strategies for
interviewing victim/survivors of any variety of sex crimes.
Contribution to Sociology
For example, the current study advanced the concept that sex crimes
such as date and acquaintance rape, domestic violence and spousal rape, incest,
and stalking, for example, all need inclusion in the Index I Category of Violent
Offenses in The Uniform Crime Report. As previously stated in chapter one,
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the UCR is the central criminal data resource in the U.S. We have to consider,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the predatory nature of the men,
committing these acts of violent intent against women, reflects the same, or
similar, conduct of those individuals committing acts of forcible rape. It is no
different, and women still suffer the same. Since the data reveals such a
variation in the types of sex crimes they experienced, and reporting outcomes,
it is obvious that researchers should continue with an eye toward expanding the
venue through which research on sex crimes and reporting was first
established.
Yet in recent years not much attention has been given to advancing
studies of reporting within the social sciences. I do believe that much of the
inattention is arguably the result of numerous advances made in social policy
and legislation, law enforcement procedures, and general education on the
issue of rape, and domestic violence, which gives the illusion of the problem
being solved. Yet the fact that the paradox still exist, specifically that the high
numbers of women reporting acts of forcible rape continue to be outweighed
by higher numbers who refuse to report, validates my thinking that we must
advance into a more realistic stance on the issue of sex crimes and reporting in
general.
What I tried to accomplish here was to provide a more definitive
examination of the paradox shaping the research question. This new approach
contributes to sociology, and the research on reporting in several ways. For
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one thing, I was able to show that sex crime victims are complex people,
motivated, or discouraged, to report by not only what happened to them, but
by their own personal and social formations as children, youth, teenagers, and
later women. Furthermore I believe that the transformation in research design
has produced some advancement as well. But as much as I have learned to
appreciate the Grounded Theory Method (Charmaz 1983), I have also found
that there are some limitations pertaining to the validity and reliability of the
methodology.
Limitations of The Study
First, the sample is not random therefore I am not able, nor prepared,
to make generalizations about an entire population in lieu of the small sample
size. Second, since the data is gathered from interviews the value and use of
the narratives will always be questionable. And third, there are some
limitations regarding the subjects themselves.
Well the first limitation speaks for itself. There is nothing to be done
here except to treat the information provided by the participants in terms of it’s
scientific value. I believe that proper transcription, coding, and analysis of the
data, make this data reliable. I don’t think the second limitation is problematic
either since the field of sociology has seen a sharp increase in the number,
scope and value of qualitative reports in recent years. I expect that this study
will stand among them in terms of the honesty and objectiveness in which the
information is presented. And third, as stated in the chapter on Methodology,
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I realize that the risk of bias in developing this sample was high. Particularly
that exclusive use of this homogeneous population of women made it difficult
to study the reporting process in a heterogeneous population of women. While
most college campuses reflect several characteristics of the social structure in
general, the facilitators and barriers affecting the reporting practices of women
in the academic setting may not reflect the experiences of women at large.
Excluding this population presented a major concern. To offset the risk, I
asked some of the first participant’s to recommend others with similar
experiences.
Advancements in Public Policy
It is my belief, then, that these findings, and subsequent analysis, can be
used to influence public policy, thus revealing the need to educate both women
and men about the complexities of the human mind, and how certain
ideological strategies give rise to dominant/subordinate systems of thinking.
These are systems that inadvertently give rise to a rationalization and
justification of female victimization through existing ideological doctrines
heralding the systematic use of violence against women as a mechanism for
extreme social control. We have to be very clear about this, for the future of
the women who participated in the study, their children, grandchildren, and
women the world over, are at stake. As Burgess stated, “rape is an everyday
reality for women” (1983).
164
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We can’t just sit back and ignore, or deny, the fact that there are family
structures where incest, domestic violence, spousal rape, and where any
number of abusive situations, exist. We can’t ignore, or deny, the fact that
many women and men are socialized into states of consciousness that give rise
to predatory behavior and victim responses. We can’t ignore, or deny, the fact
that many women have nowhere to turn in the aftermath of sex crime
victimization. And if even she did, without proper education, and awareness
of the reporting indices available to her, without knowledge of criminal laws
pertaining to her own objectification, and without structural forces up to the
task of enforcing these laws, she still might not report.
In this respect, we have to recognize that there are indeed certain
characteristics of a gendered socialization that prepares young women to take
responsibility for their own victimization. Here the insidious nature of the
relationship, while couched within normative frameworks, would make it
difficult to report acts of incest, domestic violence, sexual battering, and a
variety of sexual offenses omitted by much of criminological research. It’s not
just the fact that sex crimes occur within certain environments harboring such
relationships, but that victims are influenced a-priori through a process that
ensures self-blame, self-deprecation, and self-abasement.
Barriers to reporting emerge here in lieu of a social structure that views
the behavior of the offender, and the unequal relationship women have with
them, as normal. In this respect, socialization theory, when used as an
1 6 5
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epistemological basis for shaping a new conceptual development of research on
sex crimes and reporting, constitutes a major theoretical advancement.
Researchers can now make the link between sex crimes, reporting, and the way
the long-term social and psychological characteristics of this relationship are
affected, to some degree, by prior socialization.
For example when we consider that many victim/survivors of a variety
of sex crimes experience anger, rage, and fear, as part of the subjective
experience of the crime itself, we now realize that any combination of these
response patterns, are influenced by the life experiences of women, and the
institutional and ideological structures shaping their unique vision of the world.
This includes the way individual women define sex crimes, and/or perceive the
events, situations, and circumstances that create the crime. The possibility is
high here that individual perceptions, and definitions, of certain events, are
obscured by many social factors that send mixed messages to women
victimized within the context of a variety of sex crimes.
Anger, rage, and fear, all manifest as part of the ideology that bring
these messages to life, and are seen within the long term cycles of emotional
and physical trauma inflicted by men with whom many women desire love,
relationships, and family ties with. How do you report incidents of sexual
violence within the home, for example, while adhering to long established
ideological standards that rationalize these incidents as normal (Williams 1984,
Reynolds 1984), and where the public dissemination of this behavior is
166
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eschewed by whomever holds the mechanisms for social controls in, and
outside of, the family (Dworkin 1983)?
In this respect, the control mechanisms of hatred for women,
emotional and physical abuse, misguided need to validate heterosexual
standards of normalcy, ideologies rationalizing and justifying power
inequalities within the family, all merge to obstruct the true nature of each
event as it unfolds. In many instances like this, women question their own role
and responsibility in the attack rather than the role of the perpetrator. Who can
the victim/survivor report too if all reporting venues are ruled by individuals
who identify more with the criminal, rather than victims need for service and
protection (Vachss 1993, Koss et. al. 1994)?
And finally, while I have shown that the characteristics of social
support networks range in a continuum anywhere from informal, small, even
dyadic forms extended among families, friends, and acquaintances, to large
circles of social networks, to more institutionally organized and funded
agencies and organizations, I suggest that we continue to focus mainly on the
way the women fared when filing police reports. I remain convinced that law
enforcement agencies are the most significant venue in the reporting strategy.
On one hand police officers are responsible for the location and apprehension
of sexual predators, but on the other they are also sworn to serve and protect
all people regardless of social status or social ascription.
167
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Yet the fact that reporting is still problematic for women, especially
when reporting among the rank and file of police departments, suggests that
the paradox existing within the ideological structure of the organization must
be eliminated. The contradictory nature of this characteristic of policing
requires an intense examination of current practices particularly the standards
pertaining to the law enforcement response to sex crime victimization.
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Appendix
Demographic Illustration of the Sample
Name Rep AgeOcc Inc Edu Race Rel Mar Off SO
Rose Y 20 Stu 10 BA White Christian M 0 H
Christine Y 20 Stu 10 2 Col White None Si 0 B
Carol
Linde
Y 24 Stu 12 3 Col Fil/AA Catholic Si 0 H
Asha Y 36 Lib 36 3 Col Afr/Amer Fem/Spiri Si 2 H
Elinore N 41 Adm 50 MA White Christian Se 0 B
Caroline N 38 Adm 40 MA European Episcopa D 0 B
Jennifer N 27 Stu 12 BA/JD White None M 0 B
Florence N 19 Stu 5 HS White Presby S 0 H
Lily N 26 Stu 12 BA/MA Asian Catholic S 0 H
Lisa N 24 Stu 15 3 Col Asian Christian S 0 H
Alice N 25 Stu 6 3 Col Afr/Amer None S 1 H
Amanda N 23 Stu P 3 Col Asian None S 0 H
Maria N 21 Stu 5 3 Coll Mexican Catholic S 0 H
Emma N 40 Adm 20 PH.D. White None D 0 L
Bernadette N 46 Hwife20 1 Col White None M 2 H
Helen N 59 Stu 10 2 Col White Christian D 2 H
Shereda N 43 Stu 10 2 Col Afr/Amer Jeho/Witn D 0 H
Hope N 25 Stu 12 3 Col White Christian S 1 H
Saretta N 21 Sec 15 HS Mexican Catholic S 0 H
Karen N 24 Stu 12 BA/MA White None S 0
t
H
As stated in chapter two, and as the graph indicates, Ages of
participants ranged between 19 and 59 years. Although the mean age
registered at 32, twelve of the women were 19 to 27 years old. This sample
was not intentional. Ages reflect the word of mouth inquiry used to develop
the sample overall. Despite attempts to develop a heterogeneous sample,
fourteen of the women reported their Occupation as College Student (2
graduate, 12 undergraduate), three as Administrator, one Library Analyst, a
Secretary, and one Housewife. Incomes ranged between $5,000, and $50,000
with the mean income registered at $15,650. Educational Status ranged
between tenth grade, high school diploma, one to three years of college,
Bachelors and Masters degree’s, as well as Juris Doctorate candidate, and
Ph.D. This range reflects a high degree of high educational attainment in the
sample, however the educational status of 12 of the women ranged between
one to three years of college.
The Race and Ethnic Status of the sample varied to some degree. Ten
of the women were White, one European/ White, three African American, one
Filipino/African American, two Mexican, and three Asians. Religious
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Orientation varied as well. Five identified as Christian, three Roman Catholic,
one Episcopalian, one Presbyterian, one Jehovah Witness, one Feminist
Spiritualist, and six claimed to profess no religious beliefs of any kind. In lieu
of Marital Status, and Offspring only four of the women are married, one is
separated from her husband, four are divorced, and eleven remain single. Two
children are bom to one single women, and two single women have one child
each. Two children are bom to one married woman, and one married woman
has one child only. Two children are bom, also, to one of the divorced
women. The Sexual Orientation of the sample was overwhelmingly
heterosexual. For example, fifteen women claimed heterosexual sexual
orientation, four bisexual, and one lesbian.
Of the sample overall, four of these women Reported to police, campus
administrators ministers and priest, family members and friends, or social
service agencies -while 16 filed No Report. This does not imply that the latter
group never attempted to report, but that the barriers to formal reporting were
insurmountable. Finally, Sex Crimes ranged on a scale ranging from Sexual
Harassment to Rape. Participants reported: 1 case of Sexual Harassment, 7
cases of Domestic Violence, 18 cases of Sexual Assault, 2 cases of Stalking, 3
cases of Incest, 5 cases of Sexual Terrorism, 4 cases of Sexual Molestation as
children, 3 cases of Forcible Rape, 2 cases of Stranger Rape, and 4 cases of
Acquaintance Rape. This variation in sex crimes reflect my emphasis in chapter
one where forcible rape is not the only sex crime of empirical importance.
Rather, there is a complex pattern of overlapping sex crimes that many women
experience during the course of a lifetime.
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Creator Tolbert, Tracy Faye (author)

Core Title Exploring the facilitators and barriers affecting the way women report sex crimes

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Sociology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, criminology and penology,women's studies

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee chair), Grant, Judith (committee member), Kaplan, Elaine Bell (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-544725

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