It’s a really obvious one, but…

… he’s been charged with rape, not with having sex. Rape charges, not sex charges please.

Some thoughts on language

I’m going to take off my self-righteously-angry-feminist hat (don’t worry, it’s only temporary) and put on my on my personal meditation one. The thing is, although I think there are some very obvious problems with reporting that the media could (and should) rectify right now, writing about these issues isn’t easy.

There have been many times, particularly writing this blog, that I have hesitated before continuing, not sure which words to use, or even if there are any words. Many people with much better arguments than I have have written about language from a feminist perspective, pointing out that language was predominantly developed by men and therefore there are not adequate words to describe many experiences predominantly experienced by women.

Of course, that’s an oversimplification; there are groups other than women (though probably mostly including women) who experience the same phenomenon.  And disadvantaged groups often do develop their own sets of words. Nevertheless, particularly for groups such as rape survivors who are frequently made to keep their experiences secret, there are huge gaps in the language, and particularly the language used in, say, government or the media.

One place I always hesitate is when I need to refer to someone who has been raped. I fully understand the problems with labelling someone a victim, and I know many people have found it greatly empowering to describe themselves as a survivor.  And I would not hesitate to call someone a survivor if they self describe as such.

But what if they don’t? What is a survivor, anyway? It can be anyone from someone who doesn’t die to someone who gets on with their life successfully as if nothing had happened – in practice it’s usually somewhere between the two, but there certainly isn’t a set definition.

I shall continue to use the term survivor in leaflets and such like, but it worries me that by doing so I might still be implying that those who have been raped should act and feel about themselves in a particular way. It’s a significantly less harmful way than many others, but to an extent it’s still a judgement.

It’s certainly not a bad word, but it’s not one I’m entirely comfortable with either.

And then there’s the term ’sexual assault’, which I’ve used in this blog but with great reluctance. I’ve already written many times about how I object to the use of the word ’sex’ to describe rape, and though it is mitigated somewhat by the use of the word ‘assault’ which emphasises that this is violence, I’m still uncomfortable with it. But the only real alternative I’ve come across is ‘intimate violence’, and to me ‘intimate’ implies (though I appreciate doesn’t mean) a genuine, caring relationship.

And then, what is classified as rape? Different countries use different legal definitions, and these may be the same or different to the commonly used definitions. In any case, the boundary between rape and other forms of sexual violence is pretty arbitrary and tends to take little account of women’s (and men’s) actual experiences and the effects on them.

I would also like to say this: I am white, university educated, a first language English speaker and do not come from a particularly deprived or disadvantaged background. And still I find that for every thing I write about on this blog, there are maybe three that I feel unable to write about. That may be because of the lack of suitable language available to me, or because I don’t feel comfortable or safe doing so. If even women in a relatively advantaged position feel somewhat silenced, then we need to look not only at what we are reading in the media, but also what we are not reading.

Alleged rape victim identified

Alleged rape victim identified

Well, you know what I’m going to say about that headline by now, don’t you?

After an emotional outburst in the Christchurch District Court as she gave evidence – and after the court was adjourned to give her time to compose herself – Jacqueline Howat told Judge Murray Abbott she wanted her name made public.

Complainants in sexual abuse cases have their names automatically suppressed.

However, after Howat’s unusual request, the judge made a special order allowing publication.

I think this was incredibly brave of her, particularly given the way the media frequently treats both rape survivors and sex workers, let alone those who are both.

She repeated her claim that she could identify the accused as the attacker, but agreed she had blocked out a lot of what happened on the night.

The “but” implies that these things are contradictory; they’re not. I think it was Maia who said to me recently that trials in such cases should include expert witness on how memory works during and after trauma. Suffice it to say that for her memory to work in this way is neither unusual nor illogical.

It’s still rape

There are a lot of good things about this article. I like the way it emphasises that rapists are not some strange subspecies that lives in dark alleyways but “fathers, brothers, husbands”. I am glad that they highlighted the abysmal rape conviction rate.

But then they spoiled it all by using the word ’sex’ in the headline and elsewhere. Sex with a woman who does not or cannot consent is rape. Sex with a woman who is being forced to do it by someone other than yourself is rape. Sex with a woman who you can reasonably suspect is not able to consent is still rape.

These men justify it by calling it anything other than rape. I wish the media would not allow them that comfort.

Not sex

Man, 46, jailed for sex with girl, 14

I repeat: sex is a consensual act. Even if a woman (or girl) is not kicking and screaming, if her age, a level of coercion or any other reason makes her unable to give true consent, then it is not sex.

The power of words

This post isn’t directly about the media, but the issues raised carry through into that domain.

From Slate:

Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Safi’s first trial resulted in a hung jury last November when jurors deadlocked 7-5. Responding to Cheuvront’s initial language ban—which will be in force again when Safi is retried in July—prosecutors upped the ante last month by seeking to have words like sex and intercourse barred from the courtroom as well. The judge denied that motion, evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they’ll just have to read the witnesses’ eyebrows to sort out the difference.

The article also highlights the different ways rape is thought about and handled compared to other crimes:

The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another “legal conclusion”—that the intercourse was consensual. And it’s hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had “intercourse” with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?

The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a jury than the word robbery? Yes, the question of the victim’s consent surely makes a rape trial more complicated than some other kinds of criminal trials. But the fact that the evidence may be more equivocal hardly makes the underlying word more likely to incite blind juror outrage.

‘Our’ language is often lacking in appropriate terms for rape survivors to describe their experience in, as it is for most groups who lack power or general acceptance. Likewise, ‘our’ legal system is a model that they must frequently adapt their experience and reactions to suit, rather than the other way round.

This case (which makes me very, very angry) is an obvious example of that, but I think it’s important we don’t ignore the instances which are so ingrained we don’t think to question them.