Thinking back to her piece - and her visit in February - what do you make of this latest victim blaming in the U.S. mainstream media? Please post entries with your thoughts - drawing on Ann Jones' work or anything else we've read!
Monday, May 13, 2013
From the domestic to the international ... and back:
As the semester draws to a close, let us once again consider domestic politics & domestic violence. Earlier in the semester, we read Ann Jones' "Why doesn't she leave?" (in: Next Time She'll Be Dead. Boston: Beacon Press. 1994), and today, this:
Thinking back to her piece - and her visit in February - what do you make of this latest victim blaming in the U.S. mainstream media? Please post entries with your thoughts - drawing on Ann Jones' work or anything else we've read!
Thinking back to her piece - and her visit in February - what do you make of this latest victim blaming in the U.S. mainstream media? Please post entries with your thoughts - drawing on Ann Jones' work or anything else we've read!
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I completely agree with Christine White. I had hoped that the Stuebenville incident may have taught the media a thing or two about the implications of "framing" , but as coverage like this suggests, it apparently didn't. I'm sure that all Davie's scholars are intelligent enough to be familiar with the concept of framing (or as Prof. Wibben has reffered to it as "story-telling" or narrative). As scholars, we know that media representations of sexualized violence, though they may claim to be, are rarely ever objective, depoliticized, or "neutral". Yet, many consumers view media accounts as such - wherein such problematic questions such as "Why didn't they leave earlier?" become naturalized. As Christine points out, this is incredibly dangerous, as it perpetuates victim blaming.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, for me personally, I can absolutely relate to Christine's hesistations of preventing violence when she see's it, for the sake of not getting involved in "other people's business". At what point can one intervene? How can one be an ally if the victim of assault either does not want help or is denying that it is happening? I still do not have these answers.
White brings up fear as a reason for women not leaving and this is certainly a factor. However, I would like to add Jones' (1994) input where women are trying to escape and are unable to while being asked over and over again "why don't you just leave?" I think this ties into the failings of society to protect those that 1) Ask for it and 2) Clearly are in need of it. Jones shared the stories of women who had escaped their violent homes or captors, asked for help, continued asking for help, asked for help again, and never received it. Restraining orders made no difference, police refused to intervene until there was "an actual problem," and either the women were killed by their abusers or they killed their abusers...which is a whole other story. White has an excellent point, we should ask these women for forgiveness for the failure of our society to keep them safe, not asking why didn't they escape. I think the better question is, how do you manage to keep three people hostage in your home for three years without a single person noticing? And White's question of: how did the captor live with himself keeping this women in his house, consoling their mother's, pretending to be a concerned citizens, and then for a decade torturing them and depriving them of the life that they are entitled to as human beings?
ReplyDeleteAs Lisa and White point out, where do we get involved? I also don't know the line between staying out of other people's business and seeing the signs of someone in need. Is this a cultural thing we need to overcome? Is this something that we should be taught in schools, or by our parents? Or will it simply mean that parents having issues with their misbehaved children will have an even more difficult time managing them while they are out in the streets? These are my questions.
Reference
Jones, Ann. Next time, she'll be dead: battering & how to stop it. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Print.