Readings to Remember

Though it was several months ago that we read Liz Kelly's (1987) piece "The Continuum of Sexual Violence" and Kelly's/Radford's (1990) piece "Nothing Really Happened," I still find myself relating each of these readings back to my personal life and the lives of other women. As Kelly (1987) argues, the issue of sexualized violence is best understood not as a matter of "yes" or "no" (yes it was indeed sexualized violence or not it was not) but rather as a matter of degree. As she states, "Sexual violence exists in most women's lives, whilst the form it takes, how women define events, and its impact on them at the time and over time varies" (Kelly, 1987, p. 2). As we discussed, this however is not to suggest that those forms of sexualized violence that are less common or less violent are necessarily less important. This challenges the assumption (foolishly made by various political figures who I cannot remember off the top of my head) that sexualized violence, in its "real" form, only occurs when a nameless, psychotic man jumps out from the bushes and rapes a virginal, "innocent" woman. 

For me personally, this concept has many (discomforting) implications - among them realizing that I myself may have had experiences on what is generally considered the less severe side of the continuum. At the time, since I was not aware of the concept of a continuum, I, like many women, kept telling myself "Well, nothing really happened."

Of course, this forms the basis of Kelly and Radford's piece (1990) which examines the ways in which women are encouraged to invalidate, deligitmize, or otherwise gloss over their experiences of sexualized violence. In my reading, both Kelly's concept of the continuum and the response(s) of "Nothing really happened" formed the basis of Lynn Phillips film, Flirting with Danger: Power & Choice in Heterosexual Relationships (2006). I remember leaving the film showing feeling incredibly uncomfortable and even a bit anxious, because I saw myself and my own experiences through the characters in the film, who, like me, were encouraged to invalidate their experiences.

Kelly, Liz (1987) “The Continuum of Sexual Violence” In: Jarna Holmes and Mary Maynard (eds) Women, Violence and Social Control. Macmillan: pp. 46-60.

Kelly, Liz and Jill Radford (1990) “’Nothing Really Happened’: The invalidation of women’s experiences of sexual violence” Critical Social Policy 10 (30): pp. 39-53.

Flirting with Danger: Power & Choice in Heterosexual Relationships.

Jillian and I went to see the film Flirting with Danger: Power & Choice in Heterosexual Relationships. I was already quite skeptical of just the title, as the term ‘flirting’, in my mind, brought up a connection to slut-shaming, as almost placing some blame on the victim. I interpreted it as a way of saying the women in the film were knowing towing the line between safety and danger, like a game.

A very interesting revelation brought up in the interviews, was that all the interviewees were highly educated and aware of what defined rape and sexual assault, yet they were not likely to label their interactions as such when they met the criteria. They would say they weren’t victims, they were not like ‘those’ women. I think this brings up a very important issue surrounding the stigma of being a survivor of sexual assault.

I really enjoyed how Lynn Phillips dissected the way popular culture idealizes two contradictory roles for women, that they are apparently suppose to embody at the same time: the overtly sexualized women and the ‘good-girl’ persona. Phillips showed clips of music videos, television shows, advertisements and many more that displayed these contradictory depictions. One second a woman is suppose to be a ‘strong’ woman in charge of her sexuality, the next she is suppose to be virginal and delicate. I’m definitely not sure what the solution to this will be, but it was extremely rewarding to have it pointed out so blatantly, as it was shown in the film.    

--Erika