Surviving Woman-to-Woman Sexual Assault (pre-publication version (original) (raw)
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Guide to transcription of interviews vii Whilst 'breaking the silence' has become a feminist cliche in the past few years, it encapsulates an important fact. Feminism has provided a context in which many women, throughout the world, have been enabled to name their experiences of violence and abuse and to speak openly about them. This book was made possible by 60 women who chose to be part of this process. It is dedicated to them and all survivors of sexual violence.
Woman to Woman Sexual Violence
Women & Therapy, 2009
This article addresses woman to woman sexual violence, a topic that is seldom addressed in the therapy literature. A brief history of research and theory on sexual violence is presented followed by two case studies. Treatment issues are discussed and challenging questions are raised in an attempt to increase counselors' awareness of the issue of sexual violence between women with the goal of providing more comprehensive treatment to survivors of woman to woman sexual violence.
There is a growing literature on the narrative construction of rape as sexual violence. This is puzzling, since, in certain contexts, violence may stifle narrative production. Researchers of atrocities, for example, propose that the experience of recurring terror disrupts narrative cohesion in reporting lived trauma. Genocidal horror occurs in the context of communities and ethnic groups. Our rape survival data from women of three populations in the southwestern United States reflect traumas of sexual violence against women, experienced within everyday lives. From interviews with 62 female rape survivors, we (1) identify narrative conventions and linguistic devices to show how these women structure accounts of sexual assault that reflect their cultural background; (2) contrast scripts of coercion and consent; (3) examine how the way in which these women describe the coercive actions of the perpetrator(s) contradicts the assumptions of legal discourse; and (4) discuss the narrative production of several women in abusive relationships and compare it to Keith V. Bletzer has conducted fieldwork on HIV risk among farm workers in Michigan and the southeastern United States, commercial sex work in agricultural areas of Florida, and Native American strategies of health seeking in lower Central America. His interests include medical anthropology, field methods, and the critical ethnography of HIV=substance-use= violence. He was a recent recipient of a Koss is professor of public health, family and community medicine, and psychiatry and psychology, at the University of Arizona. She has worked in the field of women's issues and sexual assault for nearly 30 years.
GENDER, FREE WILL, AND WOMAN-TO-WOMAN SEXUAL ASSAULT IN SERVICE PROVIDER DISCOURSES 1
Though still less recognized than man-to-woman sexual assault, awareness of woman-to-woman sexual assault has grown sufficiently over the past three decades that we should no longer speak of its discursive emergence as the breaking of hitherto uninterrupted silence. This article begins the project of exploring and comparing discourses used to frame this phenomenon. Based on a Situational Analysis of interviews with service providers who had experience supporting survivors of woman-to-woman sexual assault, this text presents three discourses used to think about this form of violence: Feminizing Contextualization, Degendering Contextualization, and Compatibilist Contextualization. Each discourse is characterized by a specific relationship between sexual violence, free will/determinism, and gender, and by attendant rules for what can and cannot be said. As such, each communicates ideological commitments which reflect and sustain specific approaches to anti-sexual violence work. Each seeks to negotiate a socio-political context of gender-based oppression and sexuality-based oppression that includes the risks and realities of silencing and recuperation of survivor speech. The objective of this paper is to enable service provider reflection about the implications of diverse discourses used to frame woman-to-woman sexual assault, and to discourage naturalization of any given approach.
Sexual Minority Women's Experiences of Sexual Violence: A Phenomenological Inquiry
2012
Sexual minority women have been repeatedly overlooked in violence against women research. As a result, we know little about the experiences and needs of non-heterosexual or gender non-conforming survivors. Given the paucity of information available on this topic, this study was exploratory in nature and used a phenomenological approach. Open-ended, unstructured interviews focused on the lived experience of surviving sexual violence and the impact that this experience has had on the survivors’ same-sex sexuality. While a number of reoccurring themes generated from this project are well represented within the broad and well-developed canon of sexual violence research, participants also introduced features unique to LBQ and same-sex attracted women. Results from this project are intended to begin a long overdue dialogue about the needs of this understudied community of survivors.
Sexual Minority Women\u27s Experiences of Sexual Violence: A Phenomenological Inquiry
2012
Sexual minority women have been repeatedly overlooked in violence against women research. As a result, we know little about the experiences and needs of non-heterosexual or gender non-conforming survivors. Given the paucity of information available on this topic, this study was exploratory in nature and used a phenomenological approach. Open-ended, unstructured interviews focused on the lived experience of surviving sexual violence and the impact that this experience has had on the survivors’ same-sex sexuality. While a number of reoccurring themes generated from this project are well represented within the broad and well-developed canon of sexual violence research, participants also introduced features unique to LBQ and same-sex attracted women. Results from this project are intended to begin a long overdue dialogue about the needs of this understudied community of survivors
Gender, Free Will, and Woman-to-Woman Sexual Assault in Service Provider Discourses
Affilia
Although still less recognized than man-to-woman sexual assault, awareness of woman-to-woman sexual assault has grown sufficiently over the past three decades that we should no longer speak of its discursive emergence as the breaking of hitherto uninterrupted silence. This article begins the project of exploring and comparing discourses used to frame this phenomenon. Based on a situational analysis of interviews with service providers who had experience supporting survivors of woman-to-woman sexual assault, this text presents three discourses used to think about this form of violence: all violence is men’s violence, violence is a choice, and nonviolence is learned. Each discourse is characterized by a specific relationship between sexual violence, free will/determinism, and gender and by attendant rules for what can and cannot be said. As such, each communicates ideological commitments, which reflect and sustain specific approaches to antisexual violence work. Each seeks to negotiat...
Marital rape: hidden female narratives
Crítica Penal y Poder
This article presents an introductory study, whose main question is: how does gender affect or produce the marital rape narratives of women in Federal District who access the legal system to report domestic violence? To answer this question, the authors used gender as a decolonized category, making a historical exam of the control of female sexuality. To approach the question, the authors consider gender as a decolonial category, and conduct a study of the historical control of female sexuality. Using a qualitative approach, they then proceed to field research. The analysis of individual reports of women facing domestic violence, carried out by psychosocial teams of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Federal District and its territories (MPDFT), is combined with the results of questionnaires completed by those who carried out these reports. The findings suggest that marital rape is a kind of violence that stays invisible, under robust social control preventing its exposure to wom...