Victims' Stories Can Build Compassion in Society (From America's Victims: Opposing Viewpoints, P 23-28, 1996, David Bender, Bruno Leone, et al, eds. -- See NCJ-165502)

• NCJ Number: 165504
• Author(s): M T McCluskey
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 6 pages
• Sale Source: Greenhaven Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Opposing Viewpoints Series

Annotation

Stories of victims can build empathy in American society by giving women and others a voice of authority in public debate, and women should use their stories to emphasize the need to balance individual rights and responsibilities.

Abstract

Violence against women tends to be invisible in the public eye, yet domestic violence, acquaintance rape, and sexual harassment casts women as inevitably damaged and vulnerable to male control. Instead of dismissing victim stories as individual whining that breeds division and cynicism or paternalistic protection, stories of the personal suffering of women can be used to build public empathy. Stories of women's sexual victimization can sometimes establish women as empowered and responsible individuals, particularly since the traditional stereotype of certain women as passive sexual victims is inseparable from the traditional stereotype about other women as sinister sexual agents. Critics of victim feminism argue that many women shrink from identifying with feminism because of the indignity of the victim role presented by feminists. Such critics, however, tend not to challenge the identification of victims of oppression as pathetic and impotent but instead aim to simply displace the traditional negative victim image. Victim stories alone are not transformative, just as they are not in themselves victimizing. Speaking out about personal pain should be viewed as an honorable way of asserting public power.