This is part of my response, on the topic of victim blaming, to an essay question for a job application.

Within the context of sexual assault, the abuser rationalizes his violent behavior by blaming the victim for “causing” him to behave that way, though triggers for violent behavior are defined, quite arbitrarily, by the abuser. The inequitable power dynamic at work in such a situation speaks not only to the way men are taught to enact their masculinity, but it also clearly exposes the way women are taught to behave toward men.

Because of the way gender roles are constructed in our society, many women are made to believe–either implicitly or explicitly throughout their lives—that it is their duty to make men happy. This is reflected in and reinforced by the media, pop culture, politics, religion, and other details relating to the familial and societal structures of the dominant culture. Therefore, when an abuser is violent, the victim is made to feel guilty; she is made to feel that she is not adequately fulfilling her role some how.

In this way, victim blaming takes the emphasis off the source of violence and places it upon the victim of that violence. Therefore, the emphasis is on the victim to change her behavior within an inherently and fundamentally violent context. As long as the victim is fixated on her behavior, violent masculinity and the institutional patriarchal power structure that informs violent masculinity goes unexamined. In this way, victim blaming serves as a way to detract any meaningful thought that attempts to get at the root problems of violence in our communities and within the dominant culture.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm and is filed under feminist issues, identity. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.