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Choices for Survivors of Sexual Assault:
A Critique of Individualism and Psychology

presented by

Angela YH Pok

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CHOICES FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT:
A CRITIQUE 0F INDIVIDUALISM AND PSYCHOLOGY

By

Angela YH Pok '

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Sociology

2001

ABSTRACT

CHOICES FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT:
A CRITIQUE 0F INDIVIDUALISM AND PSYCHOLOGY

By

Angela YH Pok

This project examines why survivors of sexual assault, particularly females, are so
apt to turn to psychology, especially therapy and self-help. At the center of the
discussion is the impact of capitalism and patriarchy in both promoting and maintaining
the way society views and deals with both sexual assault/abuse survivors and offenders. I
call for an integrated theory using critical sociological theory and socialist-feminism in
order to critically analyze the impact of individualism and psychology, on sexual assault
and abuse survivors. Furthermore, I argue that the integration of these two theories is
necessary in order to recognize sexual assault and abuse as a public issue rather than a
personal trouble. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with counselors
and therapists who work with survivors of sexual assault and abuse. A critical analysis of
self-help books is also included. Findings are numerous and varied. They indicate that
psychology (including self-help and therapy) views women as a homogenous group of
individuals who need to be treated within the ideology of psychology and individualism.
Indications such as this demonstrate that perhaps broader social forces limit the choices
and alternatives that survivors of sexual assault and abuse have, especially in the

consideration of structural change and transformative collective action.

Copyright by
ANGELA YH POK
2001

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is the combined efforts of many people. First and foremost, I must
thank the respondents who gave me so much of their time. The social workers,
therapists, and counselors I interviewed were more than happy to meet with me despite
their busy schedules and heavy workloads. On more than one occasion, respondents
squeezed in interviews between meetings, appointments, or even stayed after work. I was
truly amazed with their dedication to helping survivors of sexual assault and abuse. In
addition, their support and enthusiasm for my project helped me through the research and
writing process.

I am also greatly indebted to Steve Gold, the chair of my thesis committee. He
was especially helpful as I attempted to bring together previous quantitative research with
qualitative research about sexual assault and abuse. His course on qualitative
methodology was integral to this project. This thesis is a direct outcome of his course.
Furthermore, Dr. Gold was especially generous with this time and feedback. In
particular, the sources he recommended provide the foundation of my critiques of
individualism and psychology.

Maxine Baca Zinn and Janet Bokemeier, also committee members, were generous
with their time and feedback. I am especially grateful to Dr. Baca Zinn who alerted me
to important theoretical critiques. Her feedback was essential in strengthening my
theoretical arguments. I could not have asked for better committee members — they

provided invaluable support, feedback, and time.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 4
A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Individualism in the United States ........................................................................ 4
Psychology and Self-Help ..................................................................................... 4
Sexual Assault and Abuse Literature .................................................................... 4
Notions of Sexual Assault and Abuse Prevention .................................... 4
Eliminating Sexual Assault and Abuse ..................................................... 4
THEORETICAL CONCEPTUALIZATIONS
Rape Theories ....................................................................................................... 4
Social Disorganization Theory ................................................................. 4
Feminist Theories of Rape ........................................................................ 4
Evolutionary Theory ................................................................................. 4
Toward an Integrated, Structural Theory .............................................................. 4
Critical Theory .......................................................................................... 4
Socialist-Feminist Theory ......................................................................... 4
An Integrated Theory: Critical Theory
and Socialist-Feminism ............................................................................. 4

METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

The Extended Case Method .................................................................................. 4
In-Depth, Face-To-Face Interviews ...................................................................... 4
A Critical Analysis of Self-Help Books ................................................................ 4
The Catch-225 of Self-Help Books ........................................................... 4
The Popularity and Benefits of Self-Help Books ................................... 4
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Connecting Theory with Research ........................................................................ 4
Structural Inequalities: Who Reaps the Benefits? .................................... 4
Supporting Versus Challenging the System ............................................. 4
The Maintenance of the Ideologies of Individualism
and Psychology ......................................................................................... 4
The Role of Self-Help Books in Maintaining Ideology ............................ 4
Alternatives for Survivors of Sexual Assault and Abuse ...................................... 4
Future Research .................................................................................................... 4
APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................... 4
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 4

INTRODUCTION

In 1895, Durkheim wrote The Rules of the Sociological Method where he made
the argument that “every time a social phenomenon is directly explained by a
psychological phenomenon, we may rest assured that the explanation is false” (cited in
Lukes 1982: 129). Today we continue to see social problems and issues addressed by
psychology. More specifically, sexual assault and abuse in our society has been
psychologized, medicalized, and individualized. Clearly, evidence points to the fact that
sexual assault and abuse is a social problem. Indeed, sexual assault and abuse statistics
are alarming. In addition, it must be kept in mind that these statistics only give a partial
picture of the reality of sexual assault and abuse since they are often based on self-
reports. In determining the extent to which sexual assault and abuse is a structural, rather
than a psychological issue, it is useful to acknowledge the most current and most cited
statistics:

In the United States, the FBI estimates there is a rape every six minutes (Lorber 1994)

0 About a third of men say they would rape women if assured they would not be punished (Briere and
Malamuth 1983)

0 For the past ten years [1983-1993], according to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of
Justice Statistics. rape has been the only crime that has continuously increased and has been the fastest
growing violent crime in the country (increasing 48 percent in 1991 alone) (Funk 1993: 7)

0 The US. Department of Justice’s most recent report on sex offenses and offenders reported the
following (Greenfeld 1997):

0 Overall, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault were female. Nearly 99%
of the offenders they described in single-victim incidents were male

0 Per capita rates of rape/sexual assault were found to be highest among residents aged 16 to 19,
low-income residents, and urban residents

0 In 1994 and 1995, a third of the victims said that the rape/sexual assault victimization was
reported to a law enforcement agency.

Statistics, such as the ones above, have been useful in illustrating the realities of sexual

assault and abuse versus the ideology. For example, as discussed by Parrillo et al.:

A common image of rape is of assault by a stranger, acting
under cover of darkness, usually in the parks, parking lots, or
streets of a large city. The facts are these: although two-thirds
of all rapes do indeed take place between 6pm. and 6a.m.,
almost 60 percent take place in the victim’s home or at the
home of a friend, relative. or neighbor. In four out of five rape
cases, the victim and the offender know each other, and 53
percent of the incidents involve so-called date rape.

(1999: 135)

It is important to bring attention to the statistic that in four out of five rape cases, the
victim and the offender know each other because it challenges p0pular beliefs and myths
about sexual assault and abuse. Based on these statistics, one is compelled to ask: how
many women, children, and men have been affected by sexual assault and abuse?
Furthermore, what impact does the pervasiveness of sexual assault and abuse have at both
the individual and societal levels?

Despite the pervasiveness of sexual assault and abuse (of which statistics present
only a partial picture), many survivors and victims of sexual assault and abuse are treated
individually through the means of psychology, specifically therapy, counseling, and self-
help. As a result, society has turned what is a social problem into a private trouble or
issue for individuals. How has this happened and what are the consequences? I argue
that there are several interrelated forces that impact how sexual assault and-abuse is
viewed and treated in our society: American individualism and the ideology of
psychology and self-help. Furthermore, these forces. are embedded in the capitalistic and
paternalistic society in which we live. Indeed, these forces and their relationships to the
current social structure affect how sexual assault and abuse is viewed and subsequently,

the options available for victims and survivors.

In today’s society, survivors of sexual assault and abuse lack alternatives in dealing with
their common experience. The ideologies of psychology and medicine have worked
against the creation of large-scale social movements, particularly a social movement to
end abuse and exploitation, whether it be sexual assault and abuse, child abuse and
neglect, domestic violence, etc. As a result, self-help, psychotherapy, and counseling
have become the most popular and accessible mediums by which survivors understand,
react to, and deal with being sexually abused and/or assaulted.

This paper begins by reviewing the literature on individualism, psychology and
self-help as well as addressing current questions and issues in the sexual assault and
abuse literature. Following the literature review is a discussion of current rape theories.
In formulating an integrated, structural theory of sexual assault and abuse, critical
sociological theory and socialist-feminism are analyzed to see how they fit within a
critical theoretical model of sexual assault and abuse in our society. The last half of the
paper focuses on research findings, beginning with a discussion of the methodology. The
primary findings are based on in-depth interviews with counselors, therapists, and social
workers who have worked with sexual assault survivors. Additional findings, based on a
critical analysis of self-help books for sexual assault and abuse survivors, are included as

well.

A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

INDIVIDUALISM IN THE UNITED STATES

Although the origins of individualism is still debatedl, the type of individualism
that presently exists in the United States—modem day individualism—evolved from the
movement in Europe. According to Bellah, et al., “Modern individualism emerged out of
the struggle against monarchical and aristocratic authority that seemed arbitrary and
oppressive to citizens prepared to assert the right to govern themselves” (1996: 142).
With the development of capitalism in the United States, individualism grew to be the
dominant paradigm. Since that time, the United States continues to pride itself on notions
of self-reliance and individualism so much so that “The American Dream,” based on
notions of hard work and self-motivation, is still widely believed to be attainable despite
evidence to the contrary. For instance, according to Blau, upward mobility has declined
(1994, cited in Henslin 1999). So, what exactly is individualism? Miller gives us the

following definition:

Individualism is a theory which maintains that selves or
persons are the loci of human-value dignity and worth, and
that as individuals they constitute the source of new ideas
whose practical application is necessary for the growth of
society and for the emergence of new values. . .

(1967: 76)

 

' Arieli (1964) argues that the term and concept of individualism was introduced in I840. Miller (1967) asserts that the
theory of individualism emerged between the time of the Renaissance and the present, giving acknowledgement of
John Dewey and George Herbert Mead’s ideas as part of a paradigm of individualism. Lastly, Jansz ((1991) discusses
how the origins of individualism have been traced as far back as classical Greece, England in the 13'h century, or during
the Renaissance in the 15‘h century.

With a more critical perspective, Bellah, et a1. argue “some of our deepest
problems as both individuals and as a society are also closely linked to our individualism.
. . individualism has come to mean so many things and to contain such contradictions and
paradoxes that even to defend it requires that we analyze it critically. . (1996: 142).
Indeed, critics of individualism assert that it has become alienating and self—absorbing
despite its premise that it is based on individual dignity and sacredness. Sampsom argues
that “our culture emphasizes individuality, in particular a kind of individual self-
sufficiency that describes an extreme of the individualistic dimensions” (1977: 769).

Bellah, et al., in their bestselling book, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and
Commitment in American Life (1996), discuss a specific form of individualism—
bureaucratic individualismz—that, although not the dominant form of individualism, is
particularly relevant to life in the latter half of the twentieth century. This form of
individualism can best be seen in the roles of managers and therapists. In their discussion

of its impact, Bellah, et al., argue the following:

. .the ambiguities and contradictions of individualism are
frightenly revealed, as freedom to make private decisions is
bought at the cost of turning over most public decisions to
bureaucratic managers and experts. A bureaucratic
individualism in which the consent of the governed, the first
demand of the modern enlightened individualism, has been
abandoned in all but form, illustrates the tendency of
individualism to destroy its own conditions.

(1996: 150)

Therefore, paradoxically, individualism, in all its various forms, often leaves individuals
with limited choices. As nicely stated by Bellah, et al., “individualism alone does not
allow persons to understand certain basic realities of their lives, especially their

interdependence with others” (1996: ix). Indeed, individuals are not encouraged to act

collectively and publicly or to acknowledge their connections and commonalities with
others. Rather, people are encouraged to enact “individual responsibility” by, ironically,
handing over their ability to make decisions and act freely. Oftentimes when searching
for notions of self, autonomy, and meaning, other individuals (e.g., therapists and
counselors) are given the power and influence. Thus, within a paradigm of
individualism, it comes as no surprise that survivors of sexual assault and abuse are not
only held responsible for what happened to them but they are held responsible for
“dealing with it” on an individual level. That is, survivors of sexual assault and abuse are
relegated to therapy and counseling and are encouraged to read self-help books.

Based on individualism, there is a traditional notion of rape prevention that is still
widely believed. That is, rape prevention is viewed to be the responsibility of individuals,
particularly women and children. In particular, women are purported to be able to
prevent rape by doing such things as carrying mace, not dressing provocatively, taking
self-defense classes, not walking alone, etc. The list of "Dos and Don'ts" for women and
children are endless. Whether it be a woman “asking for it,” or a man “who couldn’t
control himself,” the fundamental premise still remains: it is someone’s problem and
responsibility. Individualism in the United States has been extremely successful at
making sexual assault and abuse a personal problem. As a result, individualism negates a
critical analysis of the social structure and broader social forces. It becomes clear that
issues surrounding gender stereotypes and sexism (both inherent to patriarchy) are

intimately linked to the values and norms of a society that prides itself on individualism.

 

2 Macintyre, in his book After Virtue (1981), was the first to coin this term.

PSYCHOLOGY/SELF-HELP

Psychology and the self-help movement are deeply embedded in American
individualism. Cole argues, “The therapeutic ethos. . .is the way in which contemporary
Americans live out the tenets of modern individualism; for psychology is the only or
main form of reality” (1980: I37). Cole’s argument gives support to the relationship
between the growing impact of psychology and self-help and the dominance of

individualism in American society. Furthermore, Bellah, et a]. argue the following:

While we have no accurate statistics on the number of people
using psychotherapy in twentieth-century America, there is
reason to believe that there has been a steady increase,
particularly since World War II, with three times as many
Americans seeing “mental health professionals” now as did
twenty years ago. Young, urban, well-educated people from
professional backgrounds are the most likely to have actually
sought professional therapeutic help, but by 1976 all sectors of
society turned more frequently to professional care.

(1996: 121)

Some scholars argue that “this concern with one’s personal psychological reality has led
to a negli[g]ence of communitarean values, responsibilities, and goals” (Jansz 1991: 4).

For instance, Sampson asserts the following:

[Individualism] is the extreme of independence; the self-
contained individual needs nor wants no one. . .The price to be
paid for the ideal of self-containment is high, because it leads
to a conception of health in which the individual has to
possess personally all good and desirable qualities. This will
be hard to accomplish for the individual and it will, most
probably, result in alienation and isolation from the
community.

(1977: 769)

Through the model of psychology, it becomes evident that individualism’s paradoxical
nature propagates alienation and isolation. As a result, the detachment from what

Sampsom refers to as the community makes it difficult, if not impossible, to make broad

change within the dominant social, political, and economic structures. Cushman, in his
recent historical critique of psychotherapy, argues on similar lines as Sampsom.

According to Cushman,

The individual is portrayed as standing outside the communal,
sociopolitical world. One’s allegiance is to oneself in the
striving after individual health and revitalization. A liberation
is promised, but it is an entirely isolated, apolitical,
individuation liberation, which at bottom, of course, it is not

liberation at all.
(1995: 69)

Based on the fact that psychology is grounded in individualism, it is not surprising
to see the relationship between psychology and the medical model. Cushman (1995)
argues that psychology, in order to gain and maintain popularity, prestige, and status, is
forced to consider itself a medical technology3. That is, psychology allies itself with
what is given scientific validity. In order for psychology to consider itself a valid branch

of medicine,

[it] had to position mental processes as a proper object of
scientific study and operation; it had to reify the ego, make it
into a ‘thing’, something concrete, real. describable,
consistent. understandable, and fixable. . .the ego was
considered a worthy object of study in its own right, the key to
proper mental functioning and mental illness, and in fact the
most important element of the internal world of the self-

contained individual.
(Cushman 1995: 190)

Psychology is centered on healing and treatment. Like medicine, psychology’s focus is
not prevention but rather, curing individuals. For psychology, the ego has become an
organ in and of itself that can be diagnosed, treated, and cured. As an example, more and

more psychologists work in conjunction with psychiatrists and medical doctors in the

 

3 It is interesting to note that Cushman’s book. Constructing the Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of
Psychotherapy (1995) does not have listings under the regular Library of Congress Subject headings: rather. in order to
search for his book. one has to look under the subject heading. “Medical” (ms: rather than 5:).

regulation and distribution of drugs, especially anti—depressants. Furthermore,
oftentimes, the lines between medical doctor and psychologist are blurred. That is to say,
doctors freely give prescription drugs such as Prozac and Zanax while at the same time,
psychologists are often called upon to cure physical ailments and addictions such as
smoking. These examples illustrate how well psychology has been integrated into the
medical model, in the pursuit to gain legitimacy and prestige.

In critiquing the basic tenets of psychology, a more specific analysis is useful.
Psychology has an ideologically-specific language based on such things as symptoms,
identification as a victim, and the subconscious. Like medicine, psychology has its own
language which it uses to establish itself as scientific and valid. What is most
problematic about the language of psychology is that it becomes a trap for many
individuals who are or have been in therapy and/or counseling. That is, their lives
become completely defined and described in psychological terms. Everything becomes a
symptom and there is, invariably, a subconscious motive for every person’s behaviors.
Such high levels of self-consciousness can be problematic. Bellah, et al. say it best when
they assert that “the relentless insistence on consciousness and the endless scanning of
one’s own and others’ feelings while making moment-by-moment calculations of the
shifting cost/benefit balances is so ascetic in its demands as to be unendurable” (1996:
139). In addition, Bellah, et al. (1996) discuss how there is simply a lack of a non-
therapeutic vocabulary for discussing issues. The authors also cite a large-scale study by
Veroff, et al. whereby the authors analyzed the patterns of help—seeking from 1957 to

1976. Veroff, et al. argue the following:

Psychoanalysis (and psychiatry) is the only form of psychic
healing that attempts to cure people by detaching them from
society and relationships. . .Modem psychiatry isolates the
troubled individual from the currents of emotional
interdependence and deals with the trouble by distancing from
it and manipulating it through the intellectual/verbal
discussion, interpretation, and analysis.

(1981: 6-7 emphasis added)

To give further evidence to the power of the ideology of psychology, one needs
only to look at the self-help movement which is embedded in both the ideologies of
individualism and psychology. In recent decades, the self-help movement has gained in
popularity. One only needs to go to a bookstore and browse the shelves to see books
such as Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He ’11 Change
(1985), My Enemy, My Love: Man-hating and Ambivalence in Women ’s Lives (1992)
(with chapter titles such as: “The Seducer,” “The Slave,” “The Prick,” and “The Beast”),
The Wounded Women: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship (1982) (with chapters
such as, “Sacrifice of the Daughter,” and “Redeeming the Father”), and Women in
Therapy: Devaluation, Anger, Aggression, Depression, Self-sacrifice, Mother, Mother
Blaming, Self-betrayal, Sex-role Stereotypes, Dependency, Work and Success Inhibitions
(1988) by Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D. who also wrote The Dance of Anger (1985) and
The Dance of Intimacy (1989). One of the chapter titles in The Dance of Intimacy (1989)
is “Our Mother/Her Mother/Our-Seli”. And of course, there is Forward’s book, Men
Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them (1986) that has been given much
public attention. This particular author was recently interviewed on a major television
network to publicize her newest self-help book. Despite the absurdities of some of the

titles, books such as these can often be found on the New York Times’ Bestsellers List.

10

It is important to analyze why self-help books, which are based on a
psychological therapeutic model, are so popular at the present time. Crawford, in his
article, “Individual Responsibility and Health Politics,” (1990) provides a critical

discussion of the self-help movement:

The ideology of individual responsibility threatens to
incorporate and use the self-help movement for its own
purposes. Self-help initially developed as a political response
to the oppressive character of professional and male
domination in medicine. As such, the self-help movement
embodies some of the best strands of grassroots, autonomous
action, of people attempting at some level to regain control
over their lives, and a response to the overrnedicalization of
American life. However, because the movement has focused
on individual behavior and only rarely addressed the social
and physical environment, and because it has not built a
movement that goes beyond self-care to demanding the
medical and environmental prerequisites for maintaining
health, it lends itself to the purposes of victim-blaming. Just
as the language of helping obscured the unequal power
relationships of a growing therapeutic state (in other words,
masking political behavior by calling it therapeutic) the
language of self-help obscures the power relations underlying
the social causation of disease and the dominant expectations
of rights and entitlements for access to medical services.
(1990: 394)

Based on Crawford’s critique, it becomes apparent that the initial impetus for the self-
help movement and what has happened with this movement have widely diverged.
Today self-help is used to support conservative, individualized notions of responsibility.
Self-help books written specifically for survivors of sexual assault and abuse, like
self-help books in general, have gained popularity in recent decades. While it is
important to recognize the increased awareness and acceptance to publicly acknowledge
sexual assault and abuse, it is essential to examine what these books suggest and
recommend. Therefore, this project examines, through a critical analysis of self-help
books, how self-help is used to maintain the ideologies of psychology and individualism

in a way that limits choices for survivors of sexual assault. In many respects, the

11

academic literature on sexual assault and abuse has helped shaped the development of
self-help as it pertains to sexual assault and abuse survivors. Therefore, before presenting
a critical analysis of self-help books, it is important to discuss the sexual assault and
abuse literature. Following is a review of this literature with a focus on notions of sexual
assault and abuse prevention as well as conceptualizations about eliminating sexual

assault and abuse.

SEXUAL ASSAULT AND ABUSE LITERATURE

Much of the sexual assault and abuse literature has been written by psychologists
and social psychologists. Many academic articles and books focus on such topics as:
how survivors of sexual assault and abuse cope and adjust, the impact of sexual assault
and abuse on interpersonal relationships, the importance of disclosure, and why some
men rape and others do not (Reynolds 1974). While these are important issues, for this
particular paper, the concern is with scholarship that analyzes and discusses sexual
assault and abuse from a macro-structural perspective. Two related questions that are
raised again and again in the sexual assault and abuse literature are the following: 1) what
are notions of sexual assault and abuse prevention, and 2) how do we eliminate sexual
assault and abuse? Indeed, these are thought-provoking questions that have, generated a
tremendous amount of disagreement. In academic and scholarly articles and books that
examine sexual assault and abuse from a macro-level perspective, there is oftentimes an
underlying question: is sexual assault and abuse a man’s problem, a woman’s problem,

both or neither—in other words, whose responsibility is it to prevent and eliminate sexual

12

assault and abuse? Depending on the theoretical perspective and type of analysis,
theorists and researchers have drawn different conclusions.

What are scholars and other professionals saying about prevention and
elimination of sexual assault and abuse? Have views changed over time? How have
these views impacted those who work closest with survivors of sexual assault and
abuse—social workers, counselors, and therapists? These are all critical questions to
consider when thinking about such challenging concepts as sexual assault elimination and
prevention. Even when interviewing counselors, therapists, and social workers, the
question, “Can we eliminate sexual assault and abuse?” generated much contemplation,
uncertainty, and often a qualified response of “no.” Can we, as a society, eliminate and
prevent sexual assault and abuse? As stated by one respondent, “I don’t know. I wish
that we could but feasibly, I think it’s always going to go on.”4

When consulting the literature, it became evident that scholars saw sexual assault
and abuse prevention as different from discussions of elimination of sexual assault and
abuse. Those who took a structural analysis of sexual assault and abuse more often than
not raised the issue of prevention with most of the discussions centered on conservative
notions such as those discussed under the section “Individualism in the United States,”
That is, often they referred to what females should and should not do. The challenging
subject of eliminating sexual assault and abuse has been most often tackled by feminist
scholars. Therefore, the following literature review, which addresses the question of

whose responsibility is it to prevent and eliminate sexual assault and abuse is divided into

 

4 For a detailed analysis of findings from in-depth interviews with counselors, therapists. and social workers. please
refer to the section, “Findings: ln-depth, Face-to-Face interviews."

13

two sections, “notions of sexual assault and abuse prevention” and “eliminating sexual

assault and abuse.”

Notions of Sexual Assault and Abuse Prevention

Most writing about sexual assault and abuse prevention still focus on what
women should or should not be doing. Essentially, this means that women are still the
ones being blamed for not preventing sexual assault and abuse. In a recently published
book by a psychiatrist who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Rape:
Controversial Issues (1995), MacDonald discusses rape prevention by using a drug-
buying analogy. He argues:

If men or women go into high crime neighborhoods to buy
crack cocaine, they are involved in the commission of a crime
and should be prosecuted for their illegal activities. The thugs
who rob or sexually assault them should also be prosecuted.
Their victims do not have clean hands.

(MacDonald 1995: I97)

Upon reading this, I was reminded of Paglia’s book, Sex, Art, and American Culture
(1992). whereby she uses the analogy that a woman who gets drunk at a fraternity party
and is raped should be held accountable just as a drunk driver is held accountable when
getting into an automobile accident. Anti-feminist views such as these only perpetuate
the extremes of the ideology of individualism whereby a critical analysis of structural
factors is completely ignored.

Hursch, author of The Trouble of Rape (1977), also presents suggestions for rape
prevention. Her list includes: drive with car doors locked: have your car keys read when
you approach your car; choose your living quarters with security in mind; refuse to work

alone in a deserted building; don’t use deserted enclosed stairways; and take a self-

14

defense course for women. Hursch’s suggestions and viewpoints on how to prevent rape
do not differ from traditional notions of rape prevention. What was striking to me as I
read her chapter, “Avoidance, Prevention, Escape” was her class and race biases in
assuming all women have access to do the above listed suggestions. Secondly, Hursch
(1977) does not provide a critical analysis of what sexual assault and abuse prevention
even means. For instance, if women do not do what she suggests, does that mean they
are to blame if they are sexually assaulted? Her notions fit nicely within the status quo of
putting the responsibility of sexual assault and abuse prevention onto women rather than
society.

Another scholar who wrote about rape prevention in the 19705, Brodsky (1976),
uses a psychological approach to discuss sexual assault prevention. He discusses
responses, techniques, attitudes, and traits of both victims/survivors and assailants that
influence prevention and what he calls deterrence. Brodsky (1976) even asked convicted
rapists what would have deterred or prevented the sexual assault. He uses the
information obtained by rapists to compile a list of suggestions for women on how to
prevent sexual assault and abuse. For example, Brodsky writes, “If the rapist approaches
with great verbal or suggested physical aggression or antagonism, then crying, signs of
weaknesses, protests about body difficulties, and open exhibition of great personal
distress may be useful” (1976: 88). Again, I find myself asking, if women do not react in
the manner(s) recommended by these authors, what does that mean? More broadly, how
do notions of rape prevention continue to be connected to blaming women for sexual

assault and abuse?

15

Ward and Inserto (1990) provide a more enlightened discussion of sexual assault
prevention. They, like most other authors on this topic, include a list of what they call
“precautions.” In their overview though they do give a critique that goes beyond
psychological and individual aspects of victims/survivors and perpetrators. Ward and
Inserto recommend changes in the social structure that promotes sexual equality which
include: implementation of laws to ensure equal opportunities and benefits for men and
women; non-sexist curricula in the schools; and elimination of sexism in the media
(1990, 135). Ward and Inserto should be commended for acknowledging socio-structural
influences and for giving specific suggestions for sexual assault prevention that do not
focus on individual responsibility. At the same time, their suggestions are not elaborated
upon; that is, they do not inform us how society eliminates the sexism in the media or
how a non-sexist curricula in schools is achieved.

While most scholars have been telling women what to do and what not to do,
Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1983) have taken a different approach. They
analyzed rape and its connections with economic and other forms of inequality. Thus,
Schwendinger and Schwendinger’s (1983) notions of rape prevention include social
policies “aimed at changing the conditions that generate higher incidences of direct
interpersonal violence among marginal members of the labor force as well as among men
whose livelihoods are at least partly based on illegal activities such as pimping and
robbery” (Swendinger and Swendinger 1983: 215). It is important to note that
Swendinger and Swendinger (1983) are not implying that sexual assault and abuse is a

problem only for “lower status men” (to use their terminology). Rather, they are calling

l6

for a variety of structural changes that decrease dependency, subordination, and
chauvinism. Of all the books and articles on sexual assault and abuse prevention,
Schwendinger and Schwedinger’s book was the most critical, structural, and specific.5

In similar regards, Reynolds advocates for a different kind of sexual assault and
abuse prevention. Based on her hypothesis that “rape is a means of social control aimed

at constraining the behavior of women. . (1974: 63), Reynolds calls for the following:

It is important, I believe, that women do not support and
advocate rape prevention tactics and measures that ultimately
limit the freedom of their fellow women. The ultimate
preventive measure would be for many women to express
themselves freely, to walk, drive, drink publicly, and meet
with men so that it becomes so usual to see women doing
these things that they cannot possibly be defined as unusual in
any way from all women.

(1974: 67)

Eliminating Sexual Assault and Abuse

There is a varied yet similar response when it comes to discussions about
eliminating sexual assault and abuse. There is, of course, a continuum of diverse
possibilities. As will be discussed under the subsection, “Evolutionary Theory,” there is
the belief that sexual assault and abuse (specifically rape) will always exist among
humans beings because it is part of evolutionary factors of natural selection (Ellis 1989).
Sociological and psychological analyses do not hold such a doomed view—much of the
scholarship speaks optimistically of an end to sexual assault and abuse (e.g., Brownmiller
1975, Connell and Wilson 1974, Gager and Schurr 1976, Funk 1993).

Yet even with the optimism among academics that sexual assault and abuse can

be eliminated, the discussions of how are often vague. Radical feminists recognize the

 

5 For further discussion of their analysis. refer to the section. “Socialist-feminist theory."

17

institutional sexism in our society yet, within this paradigm, there is a divergence in
where the responsibility of sexual assault and abuse lies. For instance, some radical
feminist scholars, such as Funk (1993), see sexual assault and abuse as a man’s problem
and therefore, men are the ones who need to take action. In his book, Stopping Rape: A

Challenge for Men (1993), Funk candidly calls for the following:

. . .the men who are raping the women in our lives are the men
in our lives. We [men] need to stop looking at ‘those’ men,
‘those sickos’, ‘those weirdos’ as the rapists and to take full
responsibility for rape. We need to begin looking at our own
selves—for it is us. Acknowledging that it is our friends and
maybe ourselves who sexually victimize women. . .

(1993: 23)

In Funk’s discussion of the year 2000 and beyond, he asks, “What will the world be like
when we are finally successful in our efforts to eliminate men’s violence?” (1993: 151).
He concludes by painting a picture of a world without gender roles, where men are
involved in day care and bake sales, people have respect, dignity, and integrity, and
children and people are put first. “We can create this kind of world—a world free of
rape! It’s up to you, it’s up to us. It’s time we began!” is Funk’s final hopeful refrain
(1993: 153). My question for Funk, after reading this particular chapter, is: how does this
happen? Throughout his book, he argues that it is men’s responsibility to eliminate rape,
but we are not told how men are to accomplish this goal.

On the other hand, there is a position within radical feminism that asserts that
women are the ones who need to take responsibility—that women cannot rely on men
since men are the ones in power. In their well-known book, Rape: The First Sourcebook
for Women (1974), the authors, who go by the title, New York Radical Feminists, make it
clear that it is women’s organization and action that will be responsible for combating

rape. As illustrative of this point, chapter five of their book is titled, “Feminist Action:

18

Women Must Begin Taking Responsibility at All Times for the Survival and Well-Being
of Other Women” (Connell and Wilson 1974). With regards to eliminating sexual

assault and abuse, the authors argue for the following:

What this means is that we must combat rape on many
different fronts. . .Each action taken by itself—whether it is
self-defense, changing emergency ward procedures, or starting
a rape crisis center—is an attempt to reform the system, but
when they are combined they are a series of demands for a
radical change, for ultimately we are not demanding better
treatment of rape victims or more protection, but an end to
rape and other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation.
(Connell and Wilson 1994: 176)

Yet, the authors, besides discussing specific forms of action (e.g., creating rape crisis
centers) are never specific in how radical change, to use their term, happens. Without a
doubt, the reforms they call for are important for various reasons, but it is unclear how
radical feminists envision moving beyond just better treatment for rape victims.

Gager and Schurr (1976) also ask, “An end to rape?” and their answer, like
Funk’s (1993) and the New York Radical Feminists’ (1994) is yes. Unfortunately, Gager
and Schurr do not go much further beyond answering the question affirrnatively. In their
chapter, “An End To Rape?: Toward A More Human Society,” they discuss what rights
victims should have. In addition, they talk about the need for education (e. g., pamphlets,
community resources, and free self-defense classes)—all which seems to address issues
related to “prevention” rather than eliminating it from society altogether. They assert that
it is important for women to speak out and be heard rather than being forced into silence
yet a scholarly discussion of sexual assault elimination is not provided.

Kelly’s oft-cited book, Surviving Sexual Violence (1988), based on in-depth
interviews with survivors of sexual assault and abuse, takes a feminist approach to

discussing psychological, political, and social aspects of sexual assault and abuse in our

19

society. Her chapter, “ ‘I’ll Challenge It Now Wherever I See It’: From Individual
Survival to Collective Resistance,” tackles the difficult topic of eliminating sexual assault
and abuse. Unlike most scholars, Kelly provides a specified analysis of what must be

done:

It has been the contention of a number of political theorists
that an oppositional consciousness and organized resistance
can develop out of oppressive social relations and conditions.
The precise way in which this process occurs has seldom been
specified but it involves at least three stages of understanding
and action. Individuals must see that the cause of their
personal experiences is oppressive social relations. This
understanding must be accompanied by a belief that social
change is both necessary and possible. Individuals must then
come together in some form of collective organization which
is directed towards achieving the necessary change.

(1988: 228)

Kelly (1988) clearly sees collective resistance as the way to eliminate sexual violence.

She continues:

By concentrating solely on the individual survival of abuse
women and children. . .we run the danger of losing sight of
our ultimate aim: ending sexual violence. No matter how
effective our services and support networks, no matter how
much change in policy and practice is achieved, without a
mass movement of women committed to resisting sexual
violence in all its forms. . .women’s and girls’ lives will
continue to be circumscribed by the reality of sexual violence.

(Kelly 1988: 238)

Kelly’s (1988) research findings hold importance for what they tell us about what
survivors think about collective resistance, the role of feminism in their lives, and notions
of sexual violence prevention. These three issues are especially important as they
provide the foundations for the theoretical framework for this paper which, coupled with
the research findings, helps establish the importance for collective resistance against
sexual assault and abuse. Now, the discussion will move to the theoretical

conceptualizations for this project.

20

THEORETICAL CON CEPTUALIZATIONS

There are numerous theoretical approaches in which to analyze any particular
topic or issue. Therefore, the following is a discussion of various rape theories used to
analyze rape and sexual assault. The following questions will be addressed: how have
scholars theorized rape and sexual assault; what paradigms have dominated the
theoretical discussions; and how are these theories inadequate? After discussing how
various theories conceptualize rape in our society, I call for an integration of two
theoretical approaches—critical sociological theory and socialist-feminist theory—that I
argue are necessary to critically analyze and understand how sexual assault and abuse is

embedded in our paternalistic and capitalist society.

RAPE THEORIES

As I reviewed the rape theory literature, it was clear that there was a great
variation in the types of theories used to analyze sexual assault and abuse. The more
antiquated theories, as discussed by Ellis, include those that “explain rape as due to
chronic unemployment and difficulty in finding sex or marriage partners, to inadequate
socialization and/or mental illness, or to being raised in a sexually violent subculture”
(1989: 9). In addition, there have been symbolic interactionist theories (critiqued by
Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983), numerous feminist theories of rape
(Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983, Baron and Straus, and Ellis 1989),

psychoanalytic theories of rape (critiqued by Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983 ),

21

and legitimate violence theories (Baron and Straus 1989), to list just a few. It became
clear that it would not be possible nor useful (at least, for this project) to discuss all the
theories of rape. Therefore, I chose to focus on macro-structural theories of rape. It is
important, then, to note that the following analysis of rape theories is only a partial one at

best.

Social Disorganization Theog

Although social disorganization theory has been widely criticized, it was one of
the first theories to take a structural level approach to social problems. This theory,

which was developed by the Chicago School, can be described as the following:

They [social disorganization theorists] sought to explain
differences in the rates of crime, alcoholism, vagrancy,
juvenile delinquency, suicide, and mental illness by changes in
the social organization of the city.

(Baron and Straus 1989: 125)

This theory is defined as “the idea that the erosion of institutional and informal forces of
social control undermines social constraints and frees individuals to engage in
conforming behavior” (Baron and Straus 1989: 145). This theory has been used to argue
that rape rates are higher in those areas with higher levels of social disorganization. More
specifically, as hypothesized within this particular theory, rape rates are often connected
with two specific indicators of social disorganization: higher rates of divorce and
disproportionate numbers of separated people (Baron and Straus 1989). It would be
interesting to know why divorce rates and number of separated people are considered
aspects of social disorganization. Frankly, such indicators seem to be based on

subjective, moral judgments of what is considered stable versus unstable. For instance,

22

are the authors contending that couples and parents who stay in abusive relationships are
more stable than those who divorce or separate? Moreover, since marriage, divorce, and
rates of separation, or living singly vary for a number of different groups, time periods,
etc., it is also interesting to contemplate the indirect causal connections Baron and Straus
are attempting to make.

Today, social disorganization theory is not widely used, especially in theorizing
sexual assault and abuse. For one, this theory does not address gender inequality within
the social structure. Since sexual assault and abuse is so gendered, then how can a theory
of sexual assault and abuse based on social disorganization not have an analysis of gender
inequality? Furthermore, there is no historical context for this theory. As utilized by
Baron and Straus, this theory was used to correlate high rates of violent crime, including
rape, with unstable societies. Finally, this theory ignores the fact that the vast majority of

sexual assault and abuse is not violent nor committed by strangers.

Mt Theories of Ram

Radical feminists have been well-known for specifically addressing sexual assault
and abuse. Most notably, Brownmiller’s analysis of rape has been extremely influential
in shaping how sexual assault has been discussed and analyzed by radical feminists. Her
book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975) is cited frequently in the sexual
assault literature (both positively and negatively). Brownmiller’s overall thesis is that
rape is a mechanism of social control—all men keep all women in a state of fear (1975:
15). The author provides a history of how rape has been used by men in various time

periods and the impact it has had on women. Furthermore, Brownmiller played an

23

important role in popularizing the phrase, “the personal is political.” Yet, in the twenty
three years since her book was first published, scholars have developed important
critiques of Brownrniller’s book.

In general, radical feminist theories of rape, while acknowledging sexual assault
and abuse as a social problem, have often been too narrowly focused. For instance, one
particular radical feminist theory of rape—opportunity structure theory—focuses on
notions of property. According to Schwendinger and Schwendinger, this theory is based
on the following:

Men regard women as owners of salable sexual properties. .
.Female sexuality is allegedly bought and sold in an open
market. However, the market is dominated by male
conceptions of property and therefore the best bargain a
woman can achieve is still restrictive. Furthermore, when
bargaining for sex, men reportedly use various forms of
coercion. . .They may harass women or threaten them with
physical harm.

(1983: 78)

Clark and Lewis (1977), who have written about this particular theory, have given the
following interpretation:

The tactic of coercion which a man uses will depend on the
personal assets which he has at hand. Men who have money
and other resources can drive a bargain in their own interests
easily. Other men—who are ugly, perhaps, but certainly if
they are poor—will take sexuality from women by force,
because they have no other means of driving a bargain.

(cited in Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983: 78)

Based on this interpretation rendered by Clark and Lewis, Schwendinger and
Schwendinger consider this theory to be classist, among other things.

Let us critique what Clark and Lewis put forth. While the notion that “ugly” men
are more likely to use force and rape women in order to “drive a bargain,” is subjective

and unfounded, let us consider it for a moment. As Schwendinger and Schwendinger

24

(1983) question, does that mean that “good-looking” men do not use force and rape
women? Who decides what “ugly” and “good-looking” are—are we to assume there are
universal criteria? Lastly, it is unclear what men are bargaining for and why. If power
and having resources is an outcome of raping women, how did non-ugly men who are not
poor, gain their power? Did they rape women to get to their positions of power? And if
so, would they be considered rapists?

Schwendinger and Schwendinger (1983) recognize that most feminist theories of
sexual assault and abuse have been too narrow despite the progress they have made in

debunking what they consider to be androcentric theories. They argue:

The feminist movement has broken sharply with the
androcentric tradition in theories of rape by emphasizing the
connections between this crime and sexual inequality.
However, more influential feminist writings have not fully
exploited the implications of these connections, because they
view rape laws merely as property laws and they adopt
psychoanalytic, opportunity structure, and naturalistic
premises.

(Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983: 88)

Indeed, they make a valid point. Feminist theories have been inadequate in creating a
macro-structural theory of sexual assault and abuse whereby such exploitation is seen as
part of a larger picture of inequality. Radical feminist scholars readily acknowledge
patriarchy yet do not recognize how patriarchy and capitalism are connected. Most other
feminist theories focus on micro-level analyses such as interpersonal relationships and
attitudes and beliefs. In the section, “How Best to Theorize Sexual Assault and Abuse:
An Integrated Theory,” I outline the integration of critical sociological theory and
socialist-feminism as a way to move beyond the inadequacies of past and current

feminist theories of sexual assault and abuse.

25

Evolutionagy Theogy

At a time when Hermstein and Murray’s book, The Bell Curve (1994) and other
books trying to link all types of things to genetics and biology are gaining popularity, it is
important to consider why the evolutionary theory of rape is being discussed as
contemporary, to use Ellis's assertion (1989). Thus, this section is a critique of Ellis’s
argument that the evolutionary theory of rape is sustainable. According to Ellis, “the
evolutionary theory of rape considers rape to be an act emanating from natural selection
pressure for males to be more eager than females for copulatory experiences with a wide
variety of sex partners, and their use of forceful tactics to satiate their sexual desires”
(1989: 16).

Despite both the obvious and not so obvious reasons why this theory is flawed,
Ellis attempts to give empirical evidence to support his hypotheses. While it is not within
the scope of this paper to argue each hypothesis, a few examples of the problems with
this theory should be discussed. In hypothesis two (forced copulations should impregnate
victims, at least enough to offset whatever risks rapists have of being punished for their
offenses), Ellis does not consider why males rape other males. That is, if impregnation is
the goal, then why are boys and men sexually assaulted? Moreover, then why are the
rates of males being sexually assaulted as high as they are? For example, in the first
national survey of sexual abuse among men and women, a childhood sexual victimization
rate of sixteen percent for men was reported (Finkelhor 1990). For this particular
hypothesis, Ellis (1989) attempts to support this theory by using studies in Denver,

Colorado, Washington, DC, and even research compiled by Brownmiller (1975) to

26

argue that pregnancy is a primary motive for rapists. While it is impossible to get
extremely reliable data on pregnancies resulting from rape (mainly because so many
people do not report being sexually assaulted), the data Ellis uses reports rates of two
percent and three percent of all rapes result in pregnancies (1989: 47). Is this statistically
significant? We do not know because Ellis does not discuss statistical significance or any
other statistically-relevant information—he merely presents the numbers from other
studies with no corresponding analysis. Lastly, Ellis proposes that if rapists have both
voluntary and involuntary sexual intercourse, their reproductive success increases
compared to those who do not rape (1989: 47).

Put simply, Ellis (1989) provides weak support for hypotheses to support a theory
that has no scientific basis. While this is not so uncommon, it is problematic considering
the current climate. The Bell Curve (1994), with its racism and classism, was on the New
York Times’ Bestsellers List for quite some time. Theories such as the evolutionary
theory of rape follow in step with the ideas held by Hermstein and Murray (1994). When
Ellis makes the argument, for instance, that predatory rapists lack control over resources,
the racism and classism emanating from his arguments are blatant. Related to Ellis’s

’9

assertions, Amir, in an article entitled, “Patterns of Forcible Rape “concludes that rape is
an expression of a lower-class subculture of violence and aggression” (as critiqued in

Reynolds 1974: 66). It is clear that theories such as the ones forwarded by Ellis (1989)

and Amir (1971) help maintain dominant ideology.

27

TOWARD AN INTEGRATED, STRUCTURAL THEORY

The majority of sexual assault and abuse theories has been inadequate in
analyzing the most fundamental questions related to sexual assault and abuse: why does it
happen, why is it gendered, and how do we get rid of it. The theories discussed above are
inadequate in addressing these key questions because they do not take a critical feminist
approach to analyzing sexual assault and abuse as a social problem—as embedded within
capitalism and patriarchy.

While radical feminist theories have been the most successful at analyzing the
impact of patriarchy, these theories have been inadequate. Therefore, I call for an
integrated theory of sexual assault and abuse that combines the best of critical
sociological theory and socialist-feminism. While both these theories have shortcomings,
combined, they are useful for analyzing sexual assault and abuse. Following is a
discussion of what I am borrowing from each theory. Included in this discussion are
critiques of each theory as well as a discussion of why an integrated theory is necessary

in order to adequately theorize sexual assault and abuse.

Critical Theory

Most theories on rape and sexual assault/abuse come from a deviance perspective
(e.g. social disorganization theory). That is, many rape theories view sexual offenders
and perpetrators as deviant in some way. Whether deviance is perceived to be biological,
learned, or a result of socialization, rape and sexual assault is perceived as happening

when something or someone has “gone wrong.” Yet, if one looks at critical sociological

28

 

theory, one is able to theorize sexual assault and abuse from the opposite perspective—
that it does not occur due to deviance but rather, it is part of what is considered a
“rational society.” Put simply, sexual assault and abuse is a rational element in a
capitalistic and patriarchal society. Critical sociological theorists such as Marcuse, Mills,
and Habermas have taken on the topic of rationality as well as made important critiques
of psychology.
What role do the ideologies of psychology and individualism have in defining
social problems as individuals' troubles? Mills, well-known in sociology as one of the j
foremost critical sociology theorists, critiques how social structure is often ignored by
what he calls ‘psychologism.’ In his book, The Sociological Imagination, Mills defines it

as:

. . .the attempt to explain social phenomena in terms of facts
and theories about the make-up of individuals. Historically, as
a doctrine, it rests upon an explicitly metaphysical denial of
the reality of social structure.

(1959: 67)

While Mills goes on to discuss psychologism as a direct critique of research policies of
the social sciences, it is still appropriate and extremely worthwhile to broaden the
application of Mills’s term. Has the label of “individual” been placed over what in
actuality is “social structure?” This is an especially pertinent question when considering
the issue of sexual assault and abuse. It can be argued that because of the interrelated
ideologies of individualism and psychology and self-help, sexual assault and abuse has
been psychologized in such a way as to limit alternatives for survivors as well as to

impede the development of large-scale social change.

29

Furthermore, in his well-known discussion of personal troubles and public issues,
Mills (1959) addresses how structural issues are transformed into psychological ones. By

using unemployment as an example, Mills argues the following:

But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men
[sic] are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to
find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any
one individual. The very structure of opportunities has
collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the
range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic
and political institutions of the society, and not merely the
personal situation and character of the scatter of individuals.
(1959: 9)

Clearly, based on sexual assault and abuse statistics (again, which only give a partial
picture of reality) sexual assault and abuse is widespread enough to be considered a social
issue rather than solely a personal trouble. Moreover, Mills considers social issues to
involve “a crisis in institutional arrangements as well as what Marxists call
‘contradictions’ or ‘antagonisms’” (1959: 9).

Marcuse, although he did not address the specific topic of sexual assault and
abuse, put aggression within a structural analysis of advanced industrial society. His
thesis is the following: “the strains and stresses suffered by the individual in the affluent
society are grounded in the normal functioning on this society (and that of the
individual!) rather than its disturbances and diseases” (Marcuse 1968: 249). Most
research and writing about sexual assault and abuse support the notion that it is a myth to
think that only “loonies” commit what society deems to be deviant acts. In other words,
the vast majority of perpetrators of sexual assault arid abuse did not just escape from the
local mental hospital. For instance, in Victims of Sexual Assault, Ward and Inserto state,
. .it is clear from victims’ descriptions of their assailants that the offenders are not

psychotic, mentally deteriorated or deranged and that in many ways they are

30

 

unremarkable, coming from all ethnic, educational and occupational backgrounds” (1990:
133). Brodsky, in his article, “Sexual Assault: Perspectives on Prevention and

Assailants” also addresses this myth:

Sexual assault is assumed to be the product of individual,
deviant assailants, inappropriately driven by overwhelming
lust and aggression. Such assailants acquire labels of
‘criminal sexual psychopath’ or ‘character disorder’. . .Picture
in your mind what it would be like to sit in a room full of
convicted rapists. A mental picture is probably evokes of
brutal, aggressive, angry, and physically imposing men. In
actuality such a group is composed of quite different
individuals. . .A search for a single psychological type of
assailant is futile. . .

(1979: 3-5)

Other writers and researchers have also given recognition to the fact that the majority of
those who commit sexual assault and abuse are not mentally ill or incompetent (see
Reynolds 1974, Brownmiller 1975, Schwendinger and Schwedinger 1983, The London
Rape Crisis Center 1984, Porter 1986, Kelly 1988, Funk 1993).

In addition, Marcuse’s discussion of the “sick society” can be applied to sexual
assault and abuse. To fully understand the connection, it is first necessary to define
Marcuse’s term. He asserts that a society is sick “when its basic institutions and
relations, its structure, are such that they do not permit the use of the available material
and intellectual resources for the optimal development and satisfaction of individual
needs” (Marcuse 1968: 251). Based on this definition, we can see that sexual assault and
abuse is part of a “sick society” because it does not permit females, children, and some
men to fully develop themselves, whether, as stated by Marcuse, it be by use of material
or intellectual resources. Put simply, as referenced in much of the sexual assault and
abuse literature, females in our society are limited and constrained by the fear and threat

of sexual assault and abuse.

31

 

Related, Marcuse critiques the role psychology and therapy play in advanced
industrial society. As a result of living in a “sick society,” it comes as no surprise that the
release of aggression is an outcome of what Marcuse (1968) refers to as individual
repression and the containment of potential individual and social freedom—a mutilated
human being. While psychology and therapy is often used to deal with such releases of

aggression, Marcuse contends that:

this situation cannot be solved within the framework of
individual psychology and therapy, nor within the framework
of any psychology—a solution can be envisaged only on the
political level: in the struggle against society. To be sure,
therapy could demonstrate this situation and prepare the
mental ground for such a struggle—but then psychiatry would
be a subversive undertaking.

(1968: 254)

Here Marcuse makes an important point about the true goals and objectives of
psychology and therapy. Indeed, it is true that the model of psychology is inconsistent
with a movement toward structural change since psychology is so firmly embedded in the
status quo of advanced industrial society. And of course, the struggle against society that
Marcuse refers to will not come easily since, according to Marcuse, “containment of
social change is perhaps the most singular achievement of advanced industrial society”
(1964: xii). With this in mind, we can see how sexual assault and abuse survivors truly
lack alternatives outside of psychdlogy and self-help. Advanced industrial society is set
up in such a way that those who do not reap its benefits are constrained and limited both

in living within the structure and moving beyond it.

32

 

Socialist-feminist theogy

While sexual assault and abuse has been recognized as being the domain of
radical feminism, socialist-feminists have always acknowledged that women’s sexuality
has been and continues to be restricted and controlled by men in patriarchal societies
(e.g., Eisenstein 1979, Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1983, Hartmann 1989, and
Ehrenreich 1990). Furthermore, within a socialist-feminist framework, the impact of the
interconnectedness of capitalism and patriarchy and how such a relationship impacts
women’s oppression, is given critical analysis. Within the framework of socialist-
ferninism, there has always been a call for fundamental change in the social structure
including the economic, political, and social institutions that currently exist. With this in
mind, this section will begin by giving socialist-feminist critiques of radical feminism.
The second half of the discussion will focus on establishing arguments for why a
socialist-feminist framework, combined with critical theory, is necessary in order to build
an integrated, structural theory of sexual assault and abuse in our society.

Socialist-feminists have provided important critiques of radical feminism. One of
the most well—known socialist-feminists, Eisenstein (1979), argues that radical feminists

have separated power into different, non-related forms. Eisenstein contends:

It is impossible to develop an analysis of woman’s oppression
which has a clear political purpose and strategy unless we deal
with reality as it exists. The problem with radical feminism is
that it has tried to do this by abstracting sex from other
relations of power in society. . .Class and race struggles are
necessary for the understanding of patriarchal history; they
are not separate histories in practice, although history is often
written as if they were. Unless these relations are taken into
account, male supremacy is viewed as a disconnected thing,
not a process or power relation.

(1979b: 42-43)

33

 

By not acknowledging structural relationships and processes—such as the
interconnectedness of racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism—radical feminists
have become so focused on issues of sexuality that they have not been able to see the
larger picture. The goals of transforming the social structure become narrowly focused if
sexuality becomes the center of all struggle.

Related, radical feminists put forth the position that sexual assault and abuse
benefits individual men. For example, Schwendinger and Schwendinger, in their critique
of radical feminist theories of sexual assault and abuse, assert, “most of the widely
circulated and book-length explanations of rape identified with the women’s movements
assume that men subjugate women simply to serve their own interests” (1983: 77).

While socialist-feminists would not disagree that sexual exploitation benefits individual
men, they would further the argument by contending that sexual exploitation of women
also benefit the goals of capital. Ehrenreich, in her article, “Life Without Father:

Reconsidering Socialist-Feminist Theory” argues the following:

In theory this work [domestic labor] included everything
women do in the home, from cooking and cleaning to reading
bedtime stories and having sex. Radical feminists were quick
to point out how women’s efforts, whether serving coffee in a
movement office or polishing the coffee table in a suburban
home, served the interests of individual men. Socialist
feminists, coming along a few years later, asserted that
women’s domestic work served not only men but capital.
(1990: 270)

To illustrate Ehrenreich’s argument that sexual exploitation serves the interest of
capital, women as consumers is an ideal example. Because women are both told to fear
and in reality, do fear the real threat of sexual assault and abuse, they become consumers
of all sorts of “safety” products whether it be pepper sprays, cellular telephones, security

systems in the home, special whistles, etc. The market for such products seems to be

34

 

increasing every year as a whole slew of new products is introduced to the public. What
is especially interesting and ironic about the connection between sexual exploitation and
how it benefits capital is the falsity of its premise. That is, most “safety” products are
ineffective against sexual assault and abuse for a variety of reasons. First, as stated
repeatedly throughout this paper, most sexual assault and abuse is committed by
acquaintances in private domains. Does one have pepper spray in hand while she/he is at
home, watching TV or enjoying a meal with a date or loved one? Should women wear

special whistles around their neck when they are at a party or putting the kids to bed?

A .hfi

Secondly, research has shown that “self-defense” products are often used against
victims/survivors by the perpetrators. Finally, it needs to be recognized that the market
of “safety” products also benefits capitalism in general because it supports the idea that
all women have to do is buy these products in order to be protected. Related to this is the
idea of assumed control—another fallacy—that women believe they have once they
purchases these products. Such advocated consumerism goes against the recognition that
broad-based structural change is necessary in order to prevent and eliminate sexual
assault and abuse.

The consumer market of safety products is an ideal example of how consumption
create false needs whereby “goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil
and fear” Marcuse (1964: 8). Related, the consequence of establishing such false needs
is what Marcuse (1968) terms the “psychological habituation of war.” Marcuse’s concept

is explained as the following, using the Vietnam War as an example:

35

The people are conditioned to live ‘with the hazards, the
brutalities, and the mounting casualties of the war in Vietnam,
just as one learns gradually to live with the everyday hazards
and casualties of smoking, of smog, or of traffic’. The photos
which appear in the daily newspapers and in magazines with
mass circulation. . .show rows of prisoners laid out or stood up
for ‘interrogation’. . .They are nothing new (‘such things
happen in a war’) but it is the setting that makes the
difference: their appearance in the regular program, in
togetherness with the commercials, sports, local politics, and
reports on the social set.

(1968: 259-260)

Marcuse’s concept of the “psychological habituation of war” is useful when thinking

about how safety products geared toward women help sustain control over women’s lives

 

in that people, particularly women get used to daily expectations of brutality. Society
turns “images” of danger into the everyday experience.

Yet, at the same time that capitalism benefits from selling safety to women,there
are clearly ways in which capitalism suffers from women’s oppression and lack of safety.
For instance, according to Eisenstein (1979a), women are essentially viewed by the
bourgeois as instruments of production. If women are restricted in everyday behaviors,
due to both perceived and real fears related to sexual assault and abuse, the ability to use
women as instruments of production is reduced in that capitalism cannot fully utilize
women whether it be for their labor or otherwise. Therefore, it can be argued that
women’s oppression and lack of safety has both consequences and benefits for
capitalism. Considering the needs and contradictions of capitalism, it is clear to see that
capitalism both profits and is hindered by the sexual exploitation of women.

With the connection between sexual exploitation and capitalism established, it is

important to discuss why and how socialist-feminists connect capitalism with patriarchy.

36

Eisenstein, in the beginning of her well-known book, Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case

for Socialist Feminism, states the following:

I choose this phrase, capitalist patriarchy, to emphasize the
mutually reinforcing dialectical relationship between capitalist
class structure and hierarchical sexual structuring. . .Although
patriarchy (as male supremacy) existed before capitalism, and
continues in postcapitalist societies, it is their present
relationship that must be understood if the structure of
oppression is to be changed.

(1979a: 5)

Hartmann gives a more detailed discussion of this relationship:

The material base upon which patriarchy rests lies most
fundamentally in men’s control over women’s labor power.
Men maintain this control by excluding women from access to "
some essential productive resources (in capitalist societies, for
example, jobs that pay living wages) and by restricting
women’s sexuality. Monogamous heterosexual marriage is
one relatively recent and efficient from that seems to allow
men to control both these areas. Controlling women’s access
to resources and their sexuality, in turn, allows men to control
women’s labor power, both for the purpose of serving men in
many personal and sexual ways and for the purpose of rearing
children.

(1979: 318)

How socialist-feminists have conceptualized patriarchy and its role in a capitalist society
is integral to an analysis of sexual assault and abuse. If we recognize that most sexual
assaults are committed by an acquaintance in combination with the fact that more and
more women are reporting marital rape (an issue that just a decade or so ago was not
discussed or acknowledged), we can establish a relationship between patriarchy, sexual
assault, and capitalism. We cannot ignore the relationship between the most common
types of sexual assault and abuse and women’s subordination in both the home and
workplace. Furthermore, women’s subordination is part of the larger picture of

exploitation and oppression based on class, race, and sexual orientation.

37

In addition, the sexual exploitation of women is connected to the economic basis
of capitalism because, as articulated by Hartmann, . .control is maintained by excluding
women from access to necessary economically productive resources and by restricting
women’s sexuality” (1979: 321). Schwedinger and Schwendinger (1983) also discuss
how economic dependency within capitalism impacts sexual assault survivors and
victims. They contend that “the reduction of female dependency at home and in the labor
market is extremely important because it provides individual women with the power to
dictate the basic terms on which men must relate to them” (Schwendinger and

Schwendinger 1983: 217). They cite findings from research that reported the following:

. .wives who were primary breadwinners when their
husbands first raped them were more likely to take effective
action. . .[The] study further showed that 100 percent of the
wives who were providing the total family income when they
were first raped were no longer married to their rapist
husband. Economic independence and workplace experiences
give wives greater strength to assert their own rights against

abusive men.
(Russell 1982: 329)
(cited in Schwedinger and Schwendinger 1983: 217)

With this in mind, it is difficult to ignore the connection between economic conditions
and sexual assault and abuse. Yet, the relationship is not as clear cut as Russell’s research
indicates (i.e. if a woman is the primary breadwinner of her household and she is raped
by her husband, she will just get divorced). Hartmann (1979) makes the point that even
with the increase in the labor force participation of women in combination with the
increased feasibility of divorce, incentives for women to divorce are quite limited.
Furthermore, sexual exploitation, inherent within the structure of patriarchy, has
helped reproduce capitalism. That is, socialist-feminists have argued, “in the absence of

patriarchy, a unified working class might have confronted capitalism, but patriarchal

38

social relations divided the working class, allowing one part (men) to be bought off at the
expense of the other (women)” (Hartmann 1979: 324). Furthermore, Eisenstein adds that
“capitalist patriarchy as an hierarchical, exploitative, oppressive system requires racial
oppression alongside sexual and class oppression” (1979b: 49).

Based on how socialist-feminist conceptualize the relationships between
capitalism and patriarchy, what do they call for in the way of social change? Hartsock, in
her article, “Feminist Theory and the Development of Revolutionary Strategy” (1979)

addresses this issue with specific strategies. I quote her at length:

First, we must ask how our work will educate ourselves and
others politically, how it will help us to see the connections
between social institutions. Second, we must ask how a
particular strategy materially affects our daily lives. This
involves asking: How does it improve our conditions of
existence? How will it affect our sense of ourselves and our
own power to change the world? How will a particular
strategy politicize people, make people aware of problems
beyond individual ones? Third, we must ask how our
strategies work to build organizations—to build a collective
individual which will increase our power to transform social
relations as a whole. Fourth, we must ask how our strategies
weaken the institutions which control our lives—patriarchy,
white supremacy, and capitalism. Our strategies must work
not simply to weaken each of these institutions separately but
must attack them on the basis of an understanding of the
totality of which they form parts.

(1979: 72-73)

Furthermore, feminist theory can work to bridge the gap between theory and practice in
order to accomplish the goals as just outlined (Hartsock 1979). Based on Hartsock’s
analysis, what does it mean to fundamentally transform the social structure and social
relations? While there is no blueprint, there is the recognition that certain, fundamental
objectives, through revolution, must be met. As discussed by Hartsock (1979), we must
develop consciousness, we must become political, and we must be committed to forging

knowledge with action.

39

An Integrated Theory: Critical Theogy and Socialist-Feminism

Now that the main premises and critiques of each theory have been discussed, it is
important to bridge these theories. By applying critical theory and socialist-feminism
theory with research, some gaps in sociology and in feminist sociology can be filled.
That is, each theory helps challenge the myths and stigmas still held about sexual assault
and abuse that have been supported through much of the academic literature. For
instance, by challenging what is “normal” and rational, we can go beyond an individual
analysis of sexual and abuse to a macro-structural one. Furthermore, by using a gendered
analysis of sexual assault and abuse, we can begin tackling fundamental questions about
sexual assault and abuse.

While neither Mills nor Marcuse (or other critical sociology theorists, for that
matter) take on the specific topic of sexual assault and abuse, their analyses of social
problems and social structure have important contributions to make in creating an
integrated, macro-level theory of sexual assault and abuse in our society. By providing
necessary critiques of advanced, industrial society, Mills and Marcuse help establish the
foundation for critiquing any social problem because they put it within a historical and
structural context. Yet, it is necessary to recognize that critical theory does not
adequately focus on race/ethnicity and gender as macro-structural forms of inequality.
Therefore, it is necessary to combine critical theory with socialist-feminism in order to

help fill some of these gaps.

4O

Socialist-feminism, unlike critical theory, uses a gendered analysis that critically
examines sexual exploitation within our capitalist and patriarchal society. This theory
puts gender as a social construct at the center of its analysis. Moreover, socialist
feminism understands that gender is part of systems of inequality that provides
advantages to people as well as to the structure as a whole. By doing putting gender as
the center of its analysis, socialist-feminism, unlike critical theory, can better analyze
issues such as sexual assault and abuse within the larger picture of inequality.

Most importantly, socialist-feminism calls for social change and action that are
necessary in order to work toward eliminating and preventing sexual assault and abuse.
One of socialist-feminism’s strongest aspects is its call for social action. As already
discussed above, within a socialist-feminist framework, ending sexual exploitation (as
well as other types of oppression and exploitation) can only happen with the radical
transformation of the social structure and social relations. In this regard, socialist-
feminism is especially useful when conceptualizing social change.

Yet, despite socialist-feminism’s call for social action and change, it has its
inadequacies. Like critical theory, socialist-feminism does not adequately address issues
of racial oppression/exploitation. That is, although socialist-feminism acknowledges the
presence of racial inequality within capitalism, when addressing issues related to sexual
exploitation, there is little discussion of race as a form of macro-structural inequality.
There is a clear distinction between recognizing racial inequality versus employing this as
an analytical construct in which to theorize about sexual assault and abuse. Within the
US. context, race and the system of meanings and ideologies which accompany is, is a

fundamental organizing principle of social relations (Omi and Winant 1994, as cited in

41

Baca Zinn and Dill 1996: 324). Unfortunately, socialist-feminism does not adequately
acknowledge this. That is, while socialist-feminism acknowledges how racial inequality
is an integral part of capitalist-patriarchy, it fails to acknowledge how different racial
groups are differentially situated.

Although socialist-feminism has been an important contribution to feminist
theory, it is clear that is has shortcomings. These shortcomings are now being addressed
by new theoretical frameworks, specifically multiracial feminism. As discussed by Baca
Zinn and Dill, multiracial feminism acknowledges “how race both shapes and is shaped
by a variety of other social relations” (1996: 325). The distinguishing features of
multiracial feminism, as discussed by Baca Zinn and Dill, in their article, “Theorizing
Difference from Multiracial Feminism” address the shortcomings of socialist-feminism.
Specifically, socialist-feminism has been inadequate in explaining how “peOple
experience race, class, gender, and sexuality differently depending upon their social
location in the structure of race, class, gender, and sexuality” (1996: 326-327). In
addition, socialist-feminism does not analyze how “women’s differences are connected in
systematic ways” [emphasis in original] (Glenn 1992, as cited in Baca Zinn and Dill
1996: 327). -

Socialist-feminism is most often critiqued for its analysis of genderrand the
economic structure. For instance, according to Lorber (1998), the political solutions put
into practice based on socialist—feminism in former communist and democratic welfare
states have fallen short of true gender equality. “[T]he Marxist and socialist feminist
solution to women’s economic inequality—full-time jobs and state-provided maternal

and child welfare benefits—does not change women’s status as primarily wives and

42

mothers and men’s status as the primary breadwinners. The gendered social order has
been reformed but not significantly changed” (Lorber 1998: 43). Other feminist scholars
such as Baca Zinn and Dill discuss the influence of socialist-feminism in their
scholarship but also acknowledge its limitations. Specifically, “socialist feminism’s
concept of capitalist patriarchy, with its focus on women’s unpaid (reproductive) labor in
the home failed to address racial differences in the organization of reproductive labor. As
feminists of color have argued, ‘reproductive labor has divided along racial as well as
gender lines, and the specific characteristics have varied regionally and changed over
time as capitalism has reorganized’” (Baca Zinn and Dill 1996: 325). Therefore, it is
important to recognize that while socialist-feminism has helped fill gaps left by other
theories, there are still gaps to be filled with future research and theory.

In order to bridge theory with research, the remaining part of this paper will focus
on the data I collected through interviews with social workers, counselors, and therapists.
Going out into the field, so to speak, helped strengthen the theoretical foundation for this
paper. By interviewing mental healthcare practitioners, I was able to further analyze and
address the role of psychology and individualism in limiting the choices of survivors of

sexual assault and abuse.

43

METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS

THE EXTENDED CASE METHOD

The extended case method is not as widely recognized nor used as other
qualitative fieldwork methods yet it is of particular importance because it integrates
qualitative methodology with critical frameworks (in this case, critical sociological
theory and socialist-feminist theory). Burawoy (1991), based on his experiences in the
field, has written on the extended case method as a necessary method for social scientists
to utilize in order to reconstruct theories of advanced capitalism. According to him, this
method allows for the reconstruction of existing macro-based theories by analyzing their
influence on qualitatively-analyzed and derived micro situations (Burawoy 1991). Thus,
the extended case method lends itself well to the critique of such things as individualism
and psychology and their impact on sexual assault and abuse as a social problem.

In my analysis of why sexual assault survivors are relegated to psychology and
self-help, it is essential to critique the dominant power structures. Thus, Burawoy’s
extend case method is ideal. For example, Burawoy states, “. . .significance of a case
related to what it tells us about the world in which it is embedded; here significance
refers to societal significance [emphasis in original]” (1991: 281). A focal point of my
project is precisely that: the social significance and ir'npact of individualism and
psychology and self-help. Why is it that these are so popular and widespread in our

society today?

The extended case method also holds importance because it is one of the few
research methods that views social change coming from social movements. As nicely

stated by Burawoy:

. .—from capitulation to the creation of alternative
organizations, from negotiation within limits to the negotiation
of limits, from anarchic outbursts to self-conscious collective
protests—demonstrates the varied interplay between system
and lifeworld, showing that the lifeworld is not an inert body
but a source of continual contestation. But the struggle is an
unequal one. We should not overestimate or romanticize the
capacity of the lifeworld to fight back. The forms of
resistance are constrained and continually challenged by news
and more effective forms of domination. Still, resistance there
is. We have tried to document its diverse forms, its sources,
and its limitations.

(1991: 287)

In the current academic environment, qualitative methodology has often been
criticized for not meeting the same “standar ” as quantitative analysis. The qualitative
vs. quantitative debate is still very much alive in the academy and oftentimes,
quantitative research is seen as being superior. For example, qualitative research is
viewed as not being generalizeable to the broader population. In response to this critique,
it is important to turn, again, to Burawoy’s discussion of the extended case method. He
asserts:

The extended case method looks for specific macro
determination in the micro world, but how does it measure up
to the criticism of generalizability? It seeks generalization
through reconstructing existing generalizations, that is, the
reconstruction of existing theory.

(Burawoy 1991: 279)

The example Burawoy uses to illustrate his point is that of Van Velsen’s research of
deviant marriage patterns among the Tonga in Nyasaland. While it was widely believed
that, among the Tonda, primordial ties were primary to return migration, Van Velsen’s

qualitative research showed that “migration was shaped by the policies and institutions of

45

the colonial administration and the South African mining industry” (Burawoy 1991: 279).
Based on his research, Van Velsen was able to develop a post-structuralist theory of
kinship whereby he was able to generalize from his single case study (Burawoy 1991).
Indeed, Burawoy makes important arguments for the importance of qualitative
research methodology, specifically the extended case method. Without a doubt, this
method is an important tool for social scientists, particularly sociologists, to bridge the

gap between what Burawoy (1991) calls, “technique and theory.”

IN-DEPTH, FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEWS

For this project, I interviewed a variety of professionals who help survivors of
sexual assault and abuse. The interviews took place between the Fall of 1995 and the
Winter of 1998. The respondents self-identified themselves as counselors, therapists,
social workers, and crisis workers. The twenty, in-depth, face-to-face interviews took
place at various organizations, agencies, and universities from Mid-Michigan and
Southeastern Michigan. The majority of the respondents are White, straight women, who
self-identified as being part of the middle-class. Most of the women have advanced
degrees, including Master of Social Work and Master of Arts. In addition, most of the
respondents work for the government in some manner (usually at the county level).

In selecting respondents, I went through a variety of avenues. I began by looking-
up sexual assault and abuse crisis centers in phonebooks. Once I had gained a few
contacts, I used a snowball-type sampling procedure whereby I asked respondents for

referrals or for information about other people who might be interested in participating.

46

At certain locations I had personal contacts that helped facilitate me in finding
respondents.

All the respondents were enthusiastic about being interviewed and enjoyed talking
about their experiences. A typical interview began with me asking some general
questions such as how the respondent identified with her/his social class and
race/ethnicity. I then asked about professional experience, some general background
questions (e. g. education and family), motivations for becoming a
therapist/counselor/social worker/volunteer. The next set of questions was about therapy
and counseling in general. The last set of questions was specific to sexual assault and
abuse and focused on structural issues. Interviews usually lasted an hour, were tape-
recorded, and usually held at the respondent’s place of work.

While I did not have any research money for this particular project, I did a variety
of things to show my appreciation. On most occasions, I gave a small gift as a token of
my appreciation. On several occasions, I gave money or gift certificates to respondents
as well as made donations to particular organizations. Because the sample size was
relatively small, it was within my means to do so. I felt that it was important to give back
to both the respondents and various organizations since they had given me their valuable
and oftentimes, limited time.

After interviewing the respondents, I went through a process of what I have
termed, “respondent-friendly and respondent-involved” qualitative research. This was a
multi-step process that involved the following: (1) I transcribed the interview, verbatim,
(2) I edited the initial copy, (3) I gave a c0py to the respondent to make changes,

additions, answer additional questions, etc., (4) made changes, (5) returned second copy

47

 

to respondent. This process involved multiple contacts, multiple visits, and continued
discussion of interview content. I found this method to be particularly satisfying as I felt
that it allowed me to establish a relationship based on professionalism which helped me
gain validity of both my research and my position as a doctoral student with the people I
interviewed. In addition, I did not want the respondents to feel that the interview itself
was the only medium in which to express their views—that it was not an “all or nothing”
situation. Furthermore, this process created a feeling of working together rather than the
feeling that the researcher and participants had completely different and separate roles.
In analyzing the impact of the related ideologies of psychology, self-help, and
individualism, it would have been useful (perhaps ideal) to talk with survivors of sexual
assault an abuse. For a variety of reasons, I chose not to interview survivors. First and
foremost, unfortunately, it is still difficult for both society and individuals to openly
discuss sexual assault and abuse. As already discussed, the ideology of individualism has
pushed survivors into therapists’ offices or kept them at home, with self-help books.
Thus, it is difficult to ask survivors to talk openly with researchers/academics.
Furthermore, because trust has often been violated, it is not likely that survivors of sexual
assault and abuse will readily talk to a researcher. It is much easier, for a variety of
obvious reasons, to solicit survivors of sexual assault and abuse when conducting
anonymous and confidential survey research whether it be by paper questionnaire or
telephone interview. Another concern for me—a much more personal concem—was
whether or not I could handle the emotionality connected to candidly discussing the topic
of sexual assault and abuse with those who have or continue to experience these abuses.

From my familiarity with the sexual assault and abuse literature as well as my previous

48

 

research experience as an honors student, survivors, without a doubt, have the right to be
angry, self-blaming, emotional, etc. I had to decide whether I was able to respond
effectively to those I interviewed.

With much contemplation and advice, I chose to interview counselors, therapists,
psychologists, and social workers. Interviewing these professionals was not necessarily a
second choice for me though. As my project became more focused, it became clear that

with my critical analysis of psychology, self-help, and individualism, it would be useful

1

to examine how those directly involved in helping survivors viewed issues related to

sexual assault and abuse. What impact do they believe they, as helping professionals,
have on sexual assault and abuse survivors; how is psychology (i.e., the therapeutic
model) both useful and harmful; how are individuals’ experiences tied to the broader
social structure—these are just a few of the many complex questions I asked those I
interviewed (refer to Appendix A to see a copy of the most frequently asked questions).
Respondents discussed issues and topics ranging from their own motivations for
joining their particular profession, psychology and self-help, structural issues, gender and
power, etc. Because it is not possible to include and discuss all the findings from these
in-depth interviews, specific topics will be discussed. They include the following: who
uses therapy; critiques of psychology/therapy/counseling/social work; sexual assault and
abuse prevention; eliminating sexual assault and abuse; and why survivors turn to
psychology (e. g. therapy and counseling). Discussion about self-help, generated from the

interviews, are included in the section, “A Critical Analysis of Self-Help Books.”

49

When asking about who is more likely to use therapy and the like, respondents
noted a variety of differences related to who is most or more likely to use therapy and
counseling. All the respondents reported that women were more likely to use therapy and
counseling than men. For instance, Renee6 said, “I think women. . .Sometimes I have
women come in and say, ‘I want you to do marital counseling but my husband won’t
come’.” Respondents cited a variety of reasons for why women are more apt to use

counseling and therapy. Most of the explanations related to gender socialization.

Claudia, a social worker, gave the following analysis:

I think probably socialization. I think women—I think there’s 9
much more of an emphasis on inter-relatedness and talking
and. . .I don’t know that it’s always so natural for men to think
of talking to a stranger but certainly they do, certainly I have
male patients. I think males sometimes, if they’re married,
rely on their wife for, you know, support. Often men come in
when their marriages are ending or they’re having some kind
of loss in that way. They’re not as connected socially with
intimate relationships that they can turn to where women, it’s
kind of ironic, women tend to have more of a network of
intimate relationships but are also more inclined to seek
psychotherapy so I don’t know exactly what that’s about.

Karen also talked about socialization being a primary factor in why women use therapy
and counseling more. She told me, “I feel like probably the women are more. . . you
know, the whole socialization thing where women are more apt to talk about how they’re
feeling. We have had a few men go through our short-term counseling program but it's. .
.it’s usually much harder for them to get going.”

Several social workers also discussed how cultural differences impacted who was
more likely to use their services. One social worker, in her thirties, discussed her

experiences working in a community with a large Hmong and Cambodian population:

 

6 For confidentiality purposes. all respondents have been given pseudonyms.

50

That particular population was very unlikely to use
counseling. In fact, sometimes when there. . .it was a small
enough community that if a doctor, for example, a medical
doctor had a client who came in who the doctor thought really
needed mental health treatment, sometimes we would go to
the doctor’s office because there was such a huge resistance to
coming to the mental health center. So, I think it’s a real
cultural issue and I also think it has to do with immigration.
These were recent immigrants from places where mental
health treatment was provided by physical therapists and
practitioners. So, I mean, there are certain community groups
who are less likely.

Cynthia, a social worker who self-identifies as White and upper-middle class, also
discussed how certain Asian populations may also be less likely to utilize therapy and

counseling.

Now, 1 just met a woman about, actually about two weeks ago
who is the only Japanese-speaking psychologist in the area.
And I don’t have any experience with this, but what she. . .told
me is that in her experiences, Asian people do not come to
treatment unless they are in severe trouble, not just in crisis,
but in severe trouble of if they have a severe diagnosis. . .the
reason why this came up is because she is just over-whelmed
with all of the referrals she’s getting because she’s the only
Japanese-speaking. . I can tell you that when I was on the
adolescent service, and I was on that for five years, I don’t
even remember one Asian family. We had some American
Indian families, we had African-American families, some
Jewish. . .I don’t remember any Asian families.

Cynthia also talked about why she think Blacks are less likely to use therapy and
counseling. When I asked her, “you said Blacks are more likely to use therapy in more of
a crisis situation. Is that opposed to Whites and why do you think that is?”, Cynthia had

the following to say:

51

I think because therapy is. . .is kind of part of the
establishment. It’s like. . .I don’t know how to say it any
better than that. It’s like, if the system works for you, if the
system, if the political system works for you, you’re going to
tend to reach out for therapy because it’s a kind of a system. .
.it’s almost a social system thing. And I think for some ethnic
groups, the social system doesn’t work for people and so I
think therapy is kind of lumped into that. . .I will say that
Black patients do tend to want to go to Black therapists. . .it’s
uncommon for a Black patient to see a White therapist unless
they were kind of put together with that person in a crisis. I
don’t think they seek out White therapists very often.

Other social workers, therapists, and counselors I interviewed also discussed how Blacks

 

are less likely to use their services.

Throughout the interviewing process, it became clear that some of the respondents
had thought critically about psychology and therapy. At the same time they recognize
that they are part of a profession dedicated to helping others, they are also keenly aware

of the profession’s limitations, as illustrated by Jeanette's comment:

I have a lot of ambivalence about the counseling profession or
the therapy profession because I feel like it’s. . . we’re taught
to help people to adapt to bad situations instead of looking at
the structural issues that create those bad situations so I really
preach. . .that we need to look at people’s strengths and issues
of agency so that we aren’t assuming that they’re all victims
and assuming that they need to just put up and shut up.

Jeanette, who is pursuing an advanced degree in social work, also discussed how the true

mission of social work has been overlooked:

[A colleague of mine] was saying that one of her students said,
“I want to be a social worker but I don’t deal with poverty.”
Well, okay, that’s the kind of people we deal with, people who
are poor and disadvantaged because of those situations. So,
there is a lot of people who don’t understand what I think is
the true mission of social work. . .I think there are ways to
work with individuals in that setting but there are ways to look
at the structural issues like community organizing and things
like that are big pieces of social work history that are typically
overlooked today because a lot of people just want to do the
individual one-on-one work and help that person instead of,
you know, changing the structure.

52

Erin, a social work counselor, spoke about the debates going on among students and
professors within the discipline of social work that question the role of social work in
society. In our discussion about who uses therapy and counseling, Erin made reference to
the fact that women often come into therapy and counseling with issues that are
societally-based. From this discussion, we began talking more broadly about psychology
and social work. I asked, “So, you’re saying that maybe psychology and social work help
maintain the status quo?” Erin replied:

To a degree. . .which is sad. In one of our classes, we were
just talking about that. I mean, we perpetuate the system the
way it is. If we didn’t have people who come to see us, we
would be out of business, which is hard to think about.

Furthermore, Renee, a social worker who is pursuing an advanced degree,
discussed how psychotherapy is not accessible or desirable for a lot of people. According
to Renee, the “psychotherapy model is very, you know, very much based on the White,
middle-class verbal model.” Similarly, Claudia said that “there’s a certain way where
psychotherapy isn’t consistent with all cultures in terms of what that means to talk to a
stranger about your problems, leave your family to do that. . .” These critiques are
important in considering, as in the above discussion, who does and does not use therapy
and for what reasons. Most of the respondents agreed that there is not equal access to
counseling and therapy and where there is access, it is often affected by differential
allocation of resources.

When I asked Cynthia, who talked about how certain. groups are less likely to use
therapy because it is part of the establishment (refer to above discussion), to elaborate on
her thoughts about this topic, she discussed the complexities involved. I asked, “you said

before that therapy is part of the establishment. So, in that sense, if we’re thinking along

53

 

those lines, what do you think the goals of therapy are? Cynthia replied, “To basically
makes people law-abiding citizens and be nice and polite.” When I queried, “Is that

good?”, Cynthia had the following to say:

Well, yea. I mean, the reason I have trouble answering these
questions is the same reason I love therapy—is that, nothing is
ever as black and white as it seems on the surface. So, is that
good, that’s a yes or no [question] but you can’t answer yes or
now to that kind of thing. I mean, is it good, I mean, if
****** and ****** are starving and I need to steal food, is
that bad? Well, no but yes—it depends on how you look at it.

Clearly, there is ambivalence on the part of those involved in “helping” professions. As 4‘!
with most occupations, there is the bad, the good, and everything in between. Cynthia’s 14.,

discussion of the complexities in questioning the goals of therapy is indicative of the self-
questioning and debates going on within social work as it pursues to help individuals who
have been negatively impacted by the larger social structure.

The issue of prevention has various facets to it as well. When I asked how to
prevent sexual assault and abuse in our society, the responses were paralleled with
discussions of prevention in the sexual assault and abuse literature. For instance, almost
every interviewee indicated that education was the best tool in preventing sexual assault.
Karen felt that broad-rangin g education for everyone was important. She said, “I feel like
it’s an education thing. I think it’s. . .back to the whole control issue which is a
socialization thing which is a social problem thing so I think trying to educate men and
women, not just survivors.” Claudia and Carol emphasized the need to educate children
at a young age. For instance, Carol, who is a social work counselor, gave some examples

of how to educate young children:

54

Teaching them about sexual harassment—that young. Bra-
snapping, pinching, grabbing, that type of thing. Teaching
them about language, teaching them about roles. What are the
roles that you see going on in your family? Why do you think
that is? How about society, how about the idea that women
should be able to be anything they want to be? You know, we
teach our kids, “you can be anything you want to be,” but
really sitting down and exploring that idea—well, do you
know any women in your life who are such and such and that
type of education.

Other respondents saw prevention as related to behavioral and attitudinal changes for
both men and women. Jennifer made an analogy between washing one’s hands after
going to the bathroom and sexual assault prevention. She also discussed the importance

of debunking sexual assault and abuse myths and focusing on awareness and choices:

I think my attitude about prevention is, I’m a realist and
we’re taking a look at having an impact on behavioral change
and attitudinal change. . .I think there may be some sort of
correlation between the public health kind of prevention
thing—if you wash your hands after you go to the bedroom,
you’re not going to spread germs, but it’s more sort of
education and increased awareness as a way to lead to
prevention. I think being able to give information. . .be able
to give choices, not just preach sort of the gloom and doom. .
.to dispel some of the myths about why people deserve to be
assaulted so hopefully with the presentation there’s going to
be some information and some changing of attitudes or
beliefs that may exist out there about why sexual assault
happens in the first place. . .

Both Lisa (a social work practitioner for over twenty years) and Jeanette discussed how
sexual assault prevention can be looked at from various angles. Lisa said that we need to
“look at the community and the society and what does the society need to do in order to
increase safety for women.” She also pointed to education in schools whereby “we need
to teach boys and girls what behaviors are good behaviors to have, what kind of
communication to make sure your needs are clearly stated. . . ” Jeanette also spoke about

the various ways to address prevention:

55

. . .you could look at prevention issues around that by
looking at lighting, not traveling alone at night and things
like that—locking your doors, locking your windows. You
can look at prevention issues that way. You can also look at
prevention issues in terms of education like when you’re out
on a date and if you don’t want to have sex with the person
you are on a date with and how you prevent that and how do
you stand up for your rights and things like that.

When I raised the issue of whether it is possible to eliminate sexual assault and
abuse from our society, much discussion was generated indicating the enormity of such a
question. Paralleled with how this topic is addressed in the sexual assault literature, this
was a difficult question for respondents to discuss. Even when the answer was “yes, we
can eliminate it,” the discussions often focused on education (therefore, the discussions of
prevention and elimination were often the same). And although many respondents talked
about patriarchy, sexual inequality, and power issues, a critical analysis of the social
structure was often left out in the discussions of how to eliminate sexual assault. An
exception was Renee, who said her involvement with the Women’s Movement influenced
her decision to become a social worker. When I asked her if we could eliminate sexual

assault and abuse and if so, how, Renee argued for the following:

I believe feminism is the answer to this problem. Gender
inequality is the root of sexual assault/abuse. While we need
to continue to offer compassionate services to survivors of
sexual assault, the real solution is to push for universal human
rights. Gender discrimination occurs on individual and
institutional levels. Sexual assault will continue as long as the
condition exists. Why not start with the economic and
political system? Socialist-feminists have been telling us for a
long time that capitalist-patriarchy is killing us. Maybe that’s
the answer. Frankly, I believe some of the liberal feminist
actions are quietly making the biggest changes right now. The
Family Leave Act is very important to the stability of
women’s (especially working-class) self-support. Even
though these sorts of changes seem to have little to do with
sexual assault, they are connected because they reduce the
power differential between men and “non-men.” (emphasis
added)

56

Indeed, Renee’s discussion reminds us of what socialist-feminists argue is necessary in
order to eliminate social problems such as sexual assault. Renee suggests looking toward
the economic and political systems, addressing broad issues of inequality that will have
their impact on a whole range of issues, and looking at the impact of capitalist-patriarchy.
Based on Renee’s comments, in order to eliminate sexual assault we must turn theory
into action in a way that the entire social structure is affected.

Related to the issue of eliminating sexual assault and abuse is the analysis of
sexual assault as a social problem. Every respondent said that sexual assault is a social
problem. In discussing this issue, most of the interviewees made reference to living in a
rape culture that permits sexual assault and abuse. Carol, Jennifer, Erin, Karen, and
others talked about how music and the media perpetuate the objectification of women.

For instance, Jennifer said the following:

When I do presentations with schools, I kind of go off onto a
whole tangent about rape culture, about the kind of tolerance
of violence towards women in society. And we see it
everywhere—we see it in movies, we see it in songs. . that
kind of MTV stuff and that’s sort of our reality that gets
projected up there. . .That’s not a message that’s a good
message to give. It takes away from the whole element about
choice, it takes away the whole element about communication
because it works on a lot of assumptions and part of the big
thing about communication is to get people to talk about each
other and recognize. . not telling men you have to be more like
women, but people being able to recognize what the
differences are. . .let’s talk about communication, let’s talk
about consent and what that means.

Lisa also talked about the relationship between violence and sexual assault as a social

problem. She said the following:

57

It’s a social problem in that it doesn’t just affect the person
who was affected. It affects the community, family members
and friends—-a ripple effect. If we live in a society that fosters
violence and fosters a person. . .the abuse of someone or the
identification of someone as vulnerable and as a non-person,
then we definitely have a problem in our society. If we glorify
violence, if we glorify. . .yea, we can get in the. . you know,
glorify violence, glorify war, glorify physical contact. . .
glorify football and lots of stuff where violence is condoned. .
.so I think it’s a social problem.

It became clear that although these professionals are dedicated to helping people on an

'5

individual level, they are aware of how sexual assault and abuse is embedded within the

{first

social structure. Some respondents discussed how it is necessary to make connections
between the individuals who come see them with what is going on in society with regards
to sexual inequality, oppression, exploitation, and violence. For example, Joan spoke

about her approach:

My practice approach is what I would call an integrated
approach which is looking at things both kind of across the
board from a micro to a macro level. I don’t think you can
just institute change on a personal or micro level. I think that
for. . .I think it is like. . .treating symptoms. You can get
somebody great. . . but is constantly battling social barriers—
that’s really difficult so I think intervention has to occur on a
multi-tiered level.

So, if sexual assault and abuse is widely acknowledged as a social problem, then
why do survivors turn to psychology and individualized mediums of help? This was a
question I asked all the respondents. Simply put, most agreed that there are no
alternatives for survivors. In addition, some discussed the secrecy that still stigmatizes
those who have been sexually assaulted and/or abused. Jeanette had the following

comments:

58

Well, I think there’s mixed messages in our society that there
must be something wrong with you if you were sexually
assaulted so I think that’s one reason that when people have a
problem, they look at individual issues rather as opposed to
looking at some societal issues. I think another reason that
people may go to psychology when a person is sexually
assaulted is that there are some real personal issues they have
to deal with, feelings about themselves or you know, feelings,
things like that. So, there are some reasons to work on an
individual level. But, that’s not the only thing you could work
on.

Susan, who has been a therapist for fourteen years, also talked about the personal aspects

of sexual assault and abuse:

First of all, again, any type of trauma whether it be child abuse
or sexual abuse, is deeply personal, so it really lends itself to
the sort of one-on-one kind of conversation or group therapy,
the self-helps books. It really matters that you work with
someone who believes you. So, psychology, social workers,
and therapists in general have developed this model of
treatment. And I think that there’s something very comforting
to people. I don’t think there is the same, deep-level of
resolution and comfort in taking social action, so I don’t think
taking social action, creating a clinic—that’s a different kind
of healing. And the very same person can do well with that
but I don’t think that’s enough, that it’s satisfying enough
because it is such a deeply personal issue, I think people need
to process, talk about it, to say it in the many different ways
they need to express it.

Joan discussed the multitude of interrelated reasons why sexual assault and abuse is

treated as an individual issue:

Well, I think there are a couple of reasons. One, we have, at
least in this culture, we have a long standing history of being
pretty quiet about things of a sexual nature—that’s one. So,
we don’t talk about sex and we don’t talk about what’s
appropriate sex, bad sex, whatever and everything is sex. So,
if it has anything to do with the genitals. . .you know, we
don’t even talk about appropriate health care, I mean, it’s
only been recent that we’ve encouraged women to get their
annual pap and pelvic and mammograms because you didn’t
talk about those things—so, that’s one. Two, who’s in
power? Realistically, power is held by a certain percentage
of people, it’s a small minority of people and it’s generally
White male. There’s been some inclusion of women, people

59

of color, and different religious and cultural backgrounds but
the bottom line is that the people [in power] in this country
are White men and who gets assaulted—women, women of
color, children, and people who. . .who somehow have lower
status because their skin color or religion isn’t appropriate or
isn’t considered acceptable and who made that decision—-
White men in this country. . . it’s historical, I think it’s
become accepted because it’s been around for so long that we
don’t. . .it’s not part of our daily consciousness. To change
that would require changing the power structure.

It was interesting to talk to respondents about changing the power structure. All

agreed, for a variety of reasons, that change could only really happen by working within

the system. After Joan mentioned changing the power structure, I asked her if she
thought we could move beyond the current structure of capitalist-patriarchy. Her

response was the following:

Oh, that would make sense to me. I think capitalism basically
allows a few people to make a lot of money, a few people who
buy into it in order to keep, you know, a certain standard and a
lot of worker drones who struggle and make everyone else
rich and pay too much money for rent and never get two steps
ahead. . . from my understanding, things like medical care,
childcare, other countries obviously have been able to
incorporate those as part of their social structure and they
haven’t totally fallen apart, so, to assume that would break us,
I don’t buy that. I think we could probably spend. . .I think if
we can blow up the world five times, we can afford a new
daycare center. I figure once you blow it up once, that’s all
that’s necessary [laughs]. I think that a lot of how we get
there is that women have to take more active stands and
women also have to figure out ways to make connections and
coalitions with men because it’s impossible. . .you can’t just
put it on one portion of the society particularly if you’re
looking at. . . like, I think there’s a lot of issues around men. . .
oppressors of women are male. . .that was male generated but
women also feed into that. Women are the ones raising the
men in our society. . .there has to be a meeting which means
that women. . .men look for women to help in the struggle,
women look for men to do that—who knows whether I’ll see
it in my lifetime, although it is better, not great, but better than
it was twenty years ago. I have a lot more opportunity now
than I did twenty years ago but I think it’s going to be a long
struggle, until we get over the idea of, “if I’m going to have,
someone else has to go with less,”. . .that’s pretty entrenched
within our society.

Along the same lines, Erin said that it would take a revolution in order to really change
the status quo. When I asked her if this was possible, she responded, “It could happen. . .
I don’t see it happening in my lifetime and if it did, I would be really shocked—very
surprised and very happy, but I would be shocked.” Cynthia said that while theoretically
it is an interesting idea, capitalism is “too successful in this country. There’s too many
people that would. . .that couldn’t. . .that wouldn’t take the risk of changing.”

As with most qualitative research, there is always so much rich information
provided by respondents that cannot be included in the final paper. This project is no
exception. Therapists, counselors, and social workers spoke at-length and in-depth about
all sorts of issues related to sexual assault and abuse, women, and broader society. Their

insights were integral in my exploration of these issues.

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SELF -HELP BOOKS

Self-helps books have grown to be so popular that bookstores have whole sections
on self-help. Since self-helps books are focused on the individual (more specifically,
individual symptoms and solutions), it is important to know if they are used to perpetuate
the ideologies of psychology and individualism and if so, how. The following discussion
is based on a critical analysis of five self-help books for survivors of sexual assault/abuse.
» They include: The Courage to Heal: A Guide For Women Survivors of Child Sexual
Abuse (Bass and Davis 1992), The Healing Way: Adult Recovery from Childhood Sexual
Abuse (Kunzman 1990), Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereflects in
Women (Blurne 1990.), Recovery: How to Survive Sexual Assault for Women, Men,

Teenagers, and Their Families (Benedict 1994), and Surviving Child Sexual Abuse: A

61

Handbook for Helping Women Challenge Their Past (Hall and Lloyd 1989). These
books were chosen randomly and represent a small selection of the many self-help books
for survivors and victims of sexual assault and abuse.

Since self-help books are used by an increasing number of survivors of sexual
assault and abuse7, it is valuable and necessary to see what they have to say. Ideally, it
would be useful to answer the following questions: 1) How influential have they been in
impacting decisions made by survivors, and 2) Are they trusted and seen as legitimate?
Unfortunately these questions are difficult to answer unless one has access to those who
use them—sexual assault and abuse survivors. As discussed earlier, there are important
considerations to be made in deciding the practical and emotional costs involved in
interviewing sexual assault and abuse survivors. Therefore, it is not within the scope of
this particular project to analyze the above questions. What is an important aspect of this
particular paper is to see what self-help books have to say, how they say it, and most
importantly, to analyze whether these books tow the status quo of the ideology of
psychology and if so, to what extent.

Without a doubt, it was interesting to critically analyze self-help books. These
books provide general information about the specified topic. More specifically, self-help
books for pe0ple who have been sexually assaulted and/or abused often include a variety
of lists and tables that are suppose to help individuals determine whether they (or others
such as family members and loved ones) have or have not been sexually abused and if so,
what stages they are at or what they can expect. Often these lists are created in such a

way though that it can seem that everyone has been sexually abused and/or that any

62

.: =1

behavior (or lack of behavior) is a symptom, indication, or result of being sexually
abused. Furthermore, the information provided in self-help books are often not informed
by research therefore the advice is questionable. Yet, many individuals, including those I
interviewed, have many positive things to say about self-help books. Thus, this section is
going to discuss the following: (a) problems with self-help books, with a focus on their
connection to the ideology of psychology and (b) why self-help books are popular and

what are their benefits.

The Catch-22s of Self-help Books

As discussed in the literature review, there is incorporated in the ideology of
psychology a specific language whereby everything and anything can be symptoms or
indications of any given psychological issue. This is particularly evident in self-help
books. In these books, the all-inclusiveness of symptoms is common. For example, in E.
Sue Blume’s well-known checklist, “The Incest Survivors’ Aftereffects Checklist,”
(1989) the list is so comprehensive that anyone, whether she/he has been sexually abused
or not, could check off most of the indicators of being sexually abused. Blume
introduces the list by asserting the following, “Do you find many characteristics of
yourself on this list? If so, you could be a survivor of incest” (1989, no page number).
Most of the list’s characteristics are framed as either/or categories that begin at the
extremes and include everything in between. As an example, one set of characteristics is

the following: “Trust issues; inability to trust (trust is not safe); total trust; trusting

 

7 This is inferred by not only the mass production and sales of these books but also, the fact that these books can be
found at almost any bookstore. No longer do survivors have to go to “specialty bookstores” to find these types of self-
help books.

63

indiscriminately.” Based on these characteristics, it would seemingly be difficult to not
check this one.

Most people, at any given point in time, would be candidates for checking off the
majority of these characteristics. Another example includes, “eating disorders, drug or
alcohol abuse (or total abstinence); other addictions, compulsive behaviors.” How does
Blume explain total abstinence from drugs and alcohol as an indicator of sexual abuse?
Put simply, she does not provide an explanation. The list is long, complex, and full of
psychological terms like splitting, repression, minimizing, “sensory flashes, ” acting out,
“sexaholism, ” multiple personality—the list is virtually endless. In addition, it is not
clear what the logic is for some of the characteristics. Blume includes the following
characteristics: extreme requirement for privacy when using bathroom; humorlessness;
instinctively knowing what the other person wants or needs; and high risk talking or
inability to take risks? How many people do you know who like to have privacy when
using the bathroom or who do not have a sense of humor or who either take risks or don’t
take risks. In essence, while there is some validity to the list (i.e., some parts of the list
are consistent with findings in thesexual assault literature), much of the list is subjective.
And although one might be able to see the absurdity in the list, it is important to keep in
mind that Gloria Steinem endorsed this book. On the front cover, Steinem is quoted as
saying, “Explores the constellation of symptoms that result from a crime too cruel for
mind and memory to face. This book, like the truth it helps to uncover, can set millions
free” (Blume 1989). What is problematic is that most people do not have access or the
time to survey all the sexual assault and abuse literature to discern valid findings from

subjective declarations.

 

Moreover, Blume’s discussions of all these characteristics are often vague and
unsubstantiated. For example, Blume asserts that many incest survivors have a
sensitivity to water on the face. After describing this, Blume concludes, “All I have been
able to suggest is the possible scenario where oral sex was followed by rushed washing of
the victim’s face, often as she sputtered and struggled to breathe. Oral sex itself could
also be the cause—but oral sex has not always occurred [emphasis added]” (1989: 196).

Based on this insight, what are survivors or those who think they might be survivors

A

suppose to conclude?

Indeed, Blume’s checklist would not be so problematic if every set of checklist .
characteristics was not so comprehensive as to include almost any form of behavior listed
under that particular topic whether it be trust, issues relate to sex, physical conditions, etc.

Along these same lines, Jeanette talked about how self-help books can be dangerous:

I think sexual abuse is very, very prominent, but the
suggestion in some of those books is that you’ve been sexually
abused and you should deal with it in this way and if you don’t
really know, then you may end up wrecking your life based on
a book you’ve read. I think it’s dangerous to do a checklist
and say this is how it is. If you read through the DSM IV, do
you know what the DSM is?. . .If you read through those
definitions of mental illness, you can find yourself in any of
those definitions. 1 mean. . .any given symptom can be real
general. What they look at is the syndrome, they look at how
many of these you have and how serious it is. You look at the
diagnosis for the symptoms and then you look at other
stressors and things like that to see how seriously mentally ill
you are and, you know, you can pick out any of those
symptoms on any given day and we’re all mentally ill. And I
think of the same with sexual abuse especially repressed
memories. Because our society has placed women in such
precarious situations, you can say that you’ve been sexually
abused in a lot of ways. You know, some people are really
offended by language and you can say, you can feel that
you’ve been violated by language. Does that mean you were
sexually and physically abused in your childhood and you
don’t remember it? I don’t know, you know. I think those
things are real dangerous.

65

Jeanette’s comment that self-help books often suggest how one should deal with a
particular problem brought me back to the list of stages in the book, The Courage to Heal
(1992). This book, which was mentioned by several respondents, is recognized as one of
the best among self-help books for survivors of sexual assault and abuse. Yet, as I will
discuss, it too has its shortcomings. For example, the section marked, “The Stages” is
prefaced with the following: Although most of these stages are necessary for every
survivor, a few of them—the emergency stage, remembering the abuse, confronting your
family, and forgiveness—are not applicable to every woman [emphasis added]” (1992:
58-59). The list includes at least two stages which I would question as necessary: 1)
making contact with the child within and 2) spirituality. Bass and Davis write, “Having a
sense of power greater than yourself can be a real asset in the healing process” (1992:
59). I argue that the assertion that it is necessary to have a sense of power greater than
one’s self in order to “heal” is problematic for multiple reasons. Primarily, this reasoning
does not acknowledge that sexual abuse is a social problem. Oftentimes, notions of
spirituality are forwarded in such a way that structural forces are not considered.

In addition, The Courage to Heal is full of psychological terms and phrases such
as the child within, being present in one’s own body, feeling invalidated, and one’s inner
voice. While it is well-known that self-helps books are based on the model of
psychology, some respondents made reference to the dangers of authors who write self—
help books who are not adequately trained. Carol commented that, “coming from people
who don’t have the proper education who are writing the books or coming from people

whose perspective is not one that is beneficial to everyone. I think sometimes we can get

66

too tied up into what you’re being told to do so you think since it worked for one person,

it’s going to work for everyone.” Karen’s comments were similar:

you know, in my psychology coursework too they always
warned you, “Don’t be an amateur psychologist. You’re
going to see all these symptoms and you’re going to think you
have every, you know, mental illness in the book.” Same
thing with people in med. school so I think that that would
alarm some people and would send them more into whatever
emotion they’re feeling. I think an interaction is nicer than a
checklist—an interaction with someone who might have some

knowledge about it.
As I was going through self-help books, the term amateur psychologist came to mind. F
For instance, in Kunzman’s book, The Healing Way: Adult Recovery From Childhood :

Sexual Abuse (1990), she suggests the following about “how to remember”:

Close your eyes and try on a memory to see how it fits and if it brings anything else to mind.

Write about or tell your therapist about your dreams, particularly any recurrent ones from childhood.

They may be a key to what you have repressed. Recurring dreams may be about someone coming into

your room, a monster in the closet, or something trying to hurt you. Pay close attention to these

dreams and try to understand what they mean. But remember, since dreams are generally not factual,

the images may be symbolizing something else that our unconscious is trying to work out or master.
(1990: 46)

As will be discussed below, it is questionable whether one should be doing these kind of
exercises.

Several respondents showed concern that self—helps books were isolating to
individuals. For example, Jennifer said, “I think there is some danger in thinking I can
sort of go it alone and just read enough books about it and I can become really
knowledgeable. . . that kind of gives the message that ‘I need to go this alone, I need to
do this alone, there’s nobody to help me. I’m going to do this by myself, thank you very

much’.” Renee recounted some of her experiences related to self-help books:

67

I have had a few experiences where people have said
they were reading a book at home and it brought up
these memories, and they didn’t know what to do,
and they were so distraught and it seems to me that if
we’re talking about something that is serious enough
to cause really psychological symptoms, then it’s
probably not a good idea to put someone alone at
home and ask them to deal with it on their own. It
seems to me that books always encourage isolation
and individual work.

Jeanette, from the previous discussion above, discussed the negative impacts these
books can have if one does not do what the books suggest. This is an important issue for
several reasons. First, it puts the responsibility on the person who has been assaulted.

For example, in Recovery: How To Survive Sexual Assault for Women, Men, Teenagers,
and Their Families (1994), Benedict says one should do the following if attacked:

0 Take a few deep breaths and concentrate on staying calm. If you breathe too fast, as people are prone
to do in a panic. you could get dizzy or even faint, which will makes you more vulnerable. Deep
breathing calms your body.

Do as the assailant says, calmly.

Look him in the face, unless he orders you not to. Looking at him makes you seem less afraid, which
may make him less afraid and thus less likely to hurt you in a panic. It will also enable you to
describe him later.

Don’t stare panic-stricken at the weapon—that makes you seem more vulnerable.
Try to talk to him, meanwhile looking for avenues of escape.

Based on these suggestions (which obviously do not take into consideration that people
are faced with a whole host of differing circumstances and conditions), is it probable that
a survivor would blame her or himself for what happened if she or he did not follow
Benedict’s suggestions? Furthermore, where is the recognition in any of these self-help
books that sexual assault is indeed a social problem—directly connected to the sexism,
racism, classism, and homophobia in our society? The fact that self-help books use the
language of psychology and project the tenets of individualism is indicative of why they

are non-critical and non-structural.

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Popularity of Self-Help Books and Their Benefits

Of course, there are positive aspects of self-help books. I asked respondents both
what they thought about self-help books as well as why they thought they were so
popular. Claudia talked about how self-help books can be helpful in combination with

therapy. She said the following:

I think people can gain intellectual knowledge from reading
self-help books but I really think it’s really through relational
processes that people truly change, you know and that’s where
I think individual therapy comes in. But I’m not opposed to
recommending books that I. . .with people that I’m working
with while they’re not with me, especially with people only
once a week in therapy, you know, in the in-between times
they can do some reading and sort of keep the work going.

Erin not only finds self-help books to be useful for people whom they are written for, but
also for professionals such as herself. While she recognizes how they might not always

be the best approach, overall, she sees them as playing a positive role:

I think they’re very useful, especially within certain
circumstances but if the client doesn’t read well, or doesn’t
understand things or doesn’t have time to read, that mode of
therapy won’t be the best way to handle it, but for people who
do like to read or who do like to work through workbooks. . .I
love self-help books personally and I have a library where I
have started buying things in two and three and four copies
especially of books that I think are really, really good. So, that
way, when I have clients I want to give those to, I can.
Specifically, “Courage To Heal,” I think is a really good book,
“How To Survive the Loss of a Love,” “How To Survive
Depression”—you know, some things like that. Some good
basic self-help books.

Whether one finds self-help books to be useful or not, it cannot be denied that they are
increasingly popular. When inquiring about why they have grown to be so popular,

Cynthia responded:

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I think if. . .to do therapy well, it’s difficult. It’s scary, it’s
very frightening, it requires. . .a successful therapy requires
trust and a lot of people don’t trust and some people don’t
trust for really good reasons but it removes you from the, kind
of human experience and it’s really overwhelming for a lot of

people.

Simply put, according to Erin, “there are not a lot of alternatives out there.” From my
own analysis, it is clear that options for survivors of sexual assault and abuse are limited.
Therefore, it is not surprising that self-helps books are increasingly relied upon for
support, answers, and “healing.” The popularity of self-help books is yet another

indicator of the primacy of individual reliance and solutions.

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

CONNECTING THEORY WITH RESEARCH

This section will be focused on connecting theory with research. That is, now that
an integrated theory has been established, it is important to discuss how my research
findings help support the importance of utilizing an integrated theory. In addition, my
findings also provide important evidence to what has been reviewed in the literature on
sexual assault and abuse. To help organize this discussion, four main areas will be
discussed: 1) the structure of inequalities, 2) supporting or challenging the system, 3) the
maintenance of the ideologies of individualism and psychology, and 4) the role of self-

helps books in maintaining ideology.

Structural Inequalities: Who Reaps the Benefits?

Who uses therapy is often connected to broader structural forces, more
specifically, the structure of opportunity. Based on lines of gender, class and race, the
structure of opportunity gives advantages to some while to others it does not. Therefore,
it is important to discuss how various racial groups use or do not use therapy. As
discussed by several respondents, there are important differences between how Whites,
Blacks, and Asians utilize therapy. Although I found very limited research which
reported general, outpatient mental health utilization by race, research does clearly
recognize that there are important issues related to the underutilization of mental health

services by racial minorities (Cheung and Snowden 1990). Yu and Cypress reported that

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“Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders were less likely than Whites to have seen a
psychiatrist of made a visit to a nonpsychiatric physician for mental health reasons”
(Cheung and Snowden 1990: 280). It has also been reported by Horgan and Sussman, et
al. that Blacks have been underrepresented with regards to mental health services
utilization (Cheung and Snowden 1990). Cynthia discussed how Blacks are less likely to
use therapy because therapy is part of the establishment and the establishment only works
for certain people. The argument that Blacks are less likely to use therapy because it is
part of the establishment is particularly important if we consider what hooks has to say in
her book, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery (1993). According to
hooks, negative attitudes about therapy have been influential enough in the Black
community to hinder Blacks from seeking mental health care. Within her analysis of how
racism, sexism, and the capitalist economic system impact Black women, hooks contends
that “traditional therapy, mainstream psychoanalytical practices, often do not consider
‘race’ an important issue and as a result do not adequately address the mental-health
dilemmas of [B]lack people” (1993: 15). Based on my argument that survivors do not
have alternatives to therapy and counseling, the issue of whom uses therapy and
counseling is a particularly urgent one if marginalized racial-ethnic groups are less likely
to use the medium of psychology. One must ask, “if racial-ethnic groups do not use the
one avenue available to survivors of sexual assault and abuse, what does that mean for
marginalized groups in our society?” One could argue that their options are even more
limited. ’

When I asked respondents, “who is more likely to use therapy?”, most responses

focused on gender and racial differences. Yet, as discussed by Bellah, et al., (1996), it is

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important to recognize class differences. That is, according to Bellah, et al., therapy and
the like is more likely to be accepted and utilized by the middle class. They point to the
observation that they found, among middle-class American’s mainstream, therapeutic
language very prevalent. Related to this, Renee, a White social worker, commented on
how psychology and other related mediums, are not accessible for certain groups.
Specifically, as discussed in the findings, she said, “the psychotherapy model. . .is based
on the White, middle-class verbal model.” In the 19703, young, urban, well-educated

people from professional backgrounds were most likely to use therapy yet Bellah, et al.

I.

(1996) also discuss how these dynamics have been changing up through the 19903
whereby all sectors of society are participating in psychology, therapy, social work, etc.
Such changing dynamics is an important topic for future research. Specifically, what
does it mean for all sectors of the population to be utilizing psychology, especially if
psychology helps maintain the status quo? Related to this issue is the next topic: do

professions such as psychology and social work support or challenge the existing system?

Supmrting the System versus Challenging the System

Among professionals who help survivors of sexual assault and abuse, there seems
to be ambivalence around the true goals of “the helping professions” whether it be
psychology, social work, crisis work, or therapy. Jeanette, a social worker, directly
commented on this ambivalence by discussing how people in the therapy profession are
often “taught to help people to adapt to bad situations instead of looking at structural
issues that create those bad situations. . .” Furthermore, she commented on what the true

mission of social work is compared to how it is actually perceived, even by fellow social

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workers. That is, social work was designed to look at how structural factors influence
individuals but more and more, Jeanette sees social work as becoming individualized and
non-structural. In addition, Erin discussed how social work helps perpetuate the system
as it is. As stated in the findings, she said, “. . .we perpetuate the system the way it is. If
we didn’t have people who come to see us, we would be out of business, which is hard to
think about.” While the social workers, counselors, and therapists I interviewed work
within the system, they are also able to critique the individualistic model. Their critiques
can be an important basis for social change. The idea of such critiques being used as a
basis for social change relate well to Marcuse’s argument that therapy cannot adequately
serve as a medium of social change because it would be subversive to itself.

Indeed, the ideology of individualism in advanced industrial society has impacted
the roles that psychology, therapy, and social work play in society today. The
discussions generated in the interviews point to the realization that psychology, therapy,
and counseling are part of the establishment; therefore, part of the status quo. As
forwarded by critical theory, advanced industrial society is set up in such a way that those
who do not reap its benefits are constrained and limited both in living within the structure
and moving beyond it. Therefore, when the question, “Choices for survivors of sexual
assault and abuse?” is posed, it becomes clear that options are clearly limited. As
discussed by Marcuse (1964), advanced, industrial society has been particularly effective
at containing social change. Since psychology, therapy, and the like help maintain the
status quo, they, too, play an integral role how the system is and is not challenged by
those who do not benefit from it. More specifically, as discussed in the findings,

psychology is utilized and is more accepted by women who are also disproportionately

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impacted by sexual assault and abuse. Therefore, based on both theory and research, we
can attempt to make the connection between sexual assault and abuse with how

psychology and other therapeutic mediums are used to perpetuate women’s oppression.

The Maintenance of the Ideologies of Individualism and Psychology

Directly related to the above argument that psychology is used to maintain and
perpetuate women’s oppression is the argument that the ideologies of individualism and
psychology are maintained through how society perceives sexual assault and abuse. Put
simply, myths, stereotypes, and misconceptions that surround sexual assault and abuse
are maintained through these ideologies. As already discussed, tradition ideas of blaming
the victim (e. g., “she should have been walking with friends instead of being alone”;
“she shouldn’t have been drinking: and “she shouldn’t have been alone with him”) still
persist despite evidence that clearly points to the realities of sexual assault and abuse that
contradict such ideas. For example, as reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
(Greenfeld 1997), most perpetrators are acquaintances or family members of the
victim/survivor. In addition, women and children are encouraged to buy safety products
like mace and whistles, which perpetuate the idea that the majority of attacks are stranger
assaults. Sexual assault myths and victim-blaming are closely connected to the
ideologies of psychology and individualism because it is believed that individuals must
take responsibility for sexual assaults. When analyzed as a social problem though, it

becomes clear that these ideologies play a significant role.

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More specifically, when critically analyzing sexual assault prevention and
elimination the ideologies of psychology and individualism are clearly present. Even
among educated professionals, notions of prevention still focus on individuals, whether it
be individual women or individual men. For instance, one social worker spoke about
prevention in terms of what adolescent boys should be doing. She said, “I think rape
prevention occurs with young, adolescent males. Rape prevention does not occur with
females. . .you really need to be talking with teenage men and boys about their sexuality,
their sexual urges, [and ] how they act upon them. . .” Such thinking is also present in the
sexual assault and abuse literature where it is believed it is either women’s responsibility
to deal with sexual assault (the “take charge” perspective) or men’s responsibility (this
thinking based on the fact that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by
men). By focusing on individuals or even specific groups of individuals in society, Mill’s
notion of psychologism becomes the reality of how sexual assault and abuse is treated
and perceived. Rather than seeing sexual assault and abuse as a social problem (e.g., as a
macro-structural issue), it is seen as a personal trouble of sorts.

Related, notions of prevention and elimination were often discussed in
psychological terms. For instance, respondents said that sexual assault and abuse could
be prevented if: people better understood relationship dynamics, they could talk about
their feelings, people felt good about themselves, and if people learned how to take care
of themselves. Others also spoke about awareness and self-esteem. Comments such as
these are of particular interest. If those in the helping professions (the ones who work

most closely with survivors of sexual assault and abuse) are making comments such as

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these, we can begin to see how the ideologies of individualism and psychology affect
whether or not survivors see sexual assault as a social problem or an individual issue.
Finally, education and the legal system were often mentioned with regards to
prevention and elimination of sexual assault and abuse. Respondents discussed
educational programs for communities and schools, better laws to deal with perpetrators
and to protect victims/survivors, and political involvement like writing legislators and
lobbying. Both respondents and the literature spoke about these issues. While it is
important to look at these more structural issues in terms of prevention, there still needs
to be a critical analysis of how these institutions uphold the ideology of individualism. If
these institutions support and perpetuate ideology, it is critical to analyze if sexual assault

and abuse can truly be prevented or eliminated by working within these institutions.

The Role of Self-Help Books in Maintaining Ideology

When analyzing the ideologies of individualism and psychology, it is important to
consider self-help books. That is, it can be argued that self-help books for survivors of
sexual assault and: abuse are actually harmful because they perpetuate and maintain the
ideologies of psychology and individualism that uphold the status quo. Here, it is useful
to refer back to Crawford’s critical discussion of the self-help movement. He argues that
“the ideology of individual responsibility threatens to incorporate and use the self-help
movement for its own purposes. . .because the movement has focused on individual
behavior and only rarely addressed the social and physical environment. . .it lends itself

to the purposes of victim-blaming” (Crawford 1990: 394). As already discussed above,

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such victim-blaming is used to help perpetuate the ideologies of individualism and
psychology in such a way that survivors of sexual assault and abuse are negatively
affected. For instance, in Recovery: How To Survive Sexual Assault For Women, Men,
Teenagers, and Their Families (Benedict 1994), the author provides multiple lists that
discuss what people should do when being attacked or to prevent attacks. For example,
in one of Benedict’s lists, the following are included: “If you are tired, stoned, or just
feel vulnerable, take taxis or use main thoroughfares”; “carry a whistle or shriek alarm”;
and learn some simple self-defense techniques” (1994). Such advice, which is common
in self-help books for survivors, focuses on the individual rather than looking at how .
sexual assault and abuse is a social problem. Also, much of the advice in self-help books
assumes that all people have the same access to resources.

Without a doubt, self-help books also perpetuate the ideology of psychology. As
discussed by Bellah, et al. (1996), the therapeutic model is full of the language of
psychology which focuses on symptoms, identification as a victim, and the subconscious.
As already discussed in the literature review, this language of psychology confines both
survivors and perpetrators as it looks for individualized explanations for actions and
behaviors. Related, respondents spoke about how the language of psychology, which is
found in many self-help books for survivors of sexual assault and abuse, can make almost
any individual think she/he has been sexually abused. Some respondents discussed how
self-helps can be dangerous. For instance, Jeanette related some self-help books to the.
DSM IV, the reference book used by psychologist and psychiatrists to diagnose mental
illness: “if you read through those definitions of mental illness, you can find yourself in

any of those definitions.”

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Hooks provides an important critique of self-help books in her book, Sisters of the
Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery (1993). She is concerned with the lack of
recognition of the importance of social structure in impacting women’s mental health.

Hooks argues the following:

[Women Who Love Too Much] like many other self-help books
for women, disturbed me because it denied that patriarchy is
institutionalized. It made it seem that women could change
everything in our lives by sheer acts of personal will. It did
not even suggest that we need to organize politically to change
society in conjunction with our efforts to transform ourselves.
(1993: 4)

In response to what self-help books lack, hooks calls for the development of communities
of resistance. Moreover, such resistance can and should incorporate both struggles for
personal self-recovery as well as collective organization to bring about broad-based
social change (hooks 1993). Indeed, self-helps lack acknowledgment of the role of social
change. Rather, these books focus on individual’s behavior and psychology. By doing
so, the status quo and the ideologies of psychology and individualism are clearly

maintained and perpetuated.

ALTERNATIVES FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND ABUSE
Ideally, one day we can eliminate sexual assault and abuse so we do not have to
seek alternatives for those who have been affected by it. As nicely stated by Renee, the

task is twofold. We must:

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continue to offer compassionate services to survivors of
assault (rehabilitative focus), the ;e_a_l solution is to push for
universal human rights. Gender discrimination occurs on
individual (conscious/unconscious) m institutional levels.
Sexual assault will continue as long as the condition exists.
Why not start wit the economic and political system?
Socialist-feminists have been telling us for a long time that
capitalist-patriarchy is killing us. Maybe that’s the answer.

In order to move toward the real solution Renee is talking about, we must have a

reduced reliance on psychology and individualism. Until sexual assault and abuse is t

 

recognized as a social problem and treated as such, the ideologies of psychology and
individualism will have full rein over the way in which sexual assault and abuse is dealt.

In addition, feminists, as well as others, cannot be afraid to address a topic that
has relied on its secrecy. Sexual assault and abuse continues to be a tabooed topic. It
continues to be a tabooed topic precisely because it has not been analyzed as relating to
other social problems within our social structure. Several respondents related the secrecy
surrounding sexual assault and abuse to the overall repression that exists about anything
sexual or related to the body. For example, one respondent pointed to the fact that only
recently has society openly encouraged women to get regular paper smears and
mammograms.

In order to move ahead, as Hartsock (1979) and Kelly (1988) argue, we must be
committed to fundamentally transforming our social relations. That is, eliminating sexual
assault and abuse requires broad, structural change. As forwarded by Joan, coalitions and
organizing by both men and women are necessary in order to create social change.

Although sexual assault and abuse has been gendered (i.e. survivors/victims are

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overwhelmingly female and perpetrators are almost entirely males), the solution does not
have to be. More directly, we cannot rely on a gendered solution to sexual assault and
abuse.

If we follow the vision of socialist-feminists, we must forge knowledge with
action in order to organize large-scale collectivities in order to radically transform the
social structure. The goal is not to focus solely on eliminating sexual assault and abuse
from society, but recognizing that capitalist-patriarchy is responsible. Scholars have
focused on making reforms within institutions such as education and the workplace.
While such solutions are important aspects of progress, it must be recognized that these
institutions, as microcosms of broader society, mirror existing social relations. Changing
the laws, building rape crisis centers, and education are beginnings but they are not the
solution to eliminating sexual assault.

Since capitalism is inherently full of contradictions, the same conditions that
cause sexual oppression and exploitation can also be catalysts for social change. For
instance, the social workers, therapists, and counselors whom I interviewed, while
working within the system, are clearly aware of the system’s faults and problems. Their
critique and awareness could become a basis for broad social change. While the
respondents may call for and work for reforms within the educational system, the
possibility to collectively work toward social change against sexual exploitation exists
because of the awareness of the problems inherent to the system.

Here, broader social change means fundamentally altering the social structure and
social relations — a revolution to end oppression and exploitation. In conceptualizing the

move toward revolution, Hartsock (1979) contends that there is no blueprint for

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HI

 

revolution. Yet, in order for it to be successful, we must be knowledgeable and
organized. It is useful to refer back to Kelly’s (1988) discussion of collective resistance
where she discusses how out of oppressive social relations and conditions, oppositional
consciousness and organized resistance can develop. To re-iterate, Kelly asserts that
“individuals must see that the cause of their personal experiences is oppressive social
relations. This understanding must be accompanied by a belief that social change is both

necessary and possible” (1988: 228). Thus, a revolution is the only true alternative for

survivors of sexual assault and abuse—a revolution led by everyone who is oppressed F
and exploited by capitalist-patriarchy. it.
FUTURE RESEARCH

Because sexual assault and abuse has been the domain mainly of psychologists
and social psychologists, it is imperative that future research and theorizing focus on how
sexual assault is deeply embedded in all aspects of the social structure: economic,
legal/political, and social. The fact that we live in a capitalist, patriarchal society cannot
be separated from an analysis of sexual assault and abuse. Future scholarship must fully
acknowledge how past and present research and theory continue to focus on individual
survivors/victims and perpetrators rather than broader social forces. We cannot continue
to have academic journal articles and books tell women what they should be doing to stop
rape. In addition, it is useful to tell individual men they are the ones responsible for

ending rape in our society.

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Of particular importance, the topic of sexual assault, like most social problems,
has differentially impacted children and women, people of color, people with disabilities,
and those who are disadvantaged economically. While some have argued (both scholars
and those I interviewed) that anyone can be sexually assaulted or abused, there are clear
indications that this is not so. For instance, Schwendinger and Schewendinger (1983)
provide empirical evidence that as both victims/survivors and perpetrators, the poor are
over-represented. In addition, the most recently published report by the US. Department
of Justice states that “Per capita rates of rape/sexual assault were found to be the highest
among residents age 16 to 19, low-income residents, and urban residents” (Greenfeld
1997: 2). Even if we accept the argument that sexual assault and abuse cuts across class
and race lines, it is evident that based on the structure of opportunity and inequality, the
choices for marginalized groups are even more limited than for those who have access to
various types of resources. Therefore, future research must continue to analyze the
structural patterns of sexual assault as well as how sexual assault and abuse differentially
impacts various groups.

Finally, the next step in researching and analyzing sexual assault and abuse is to
put it within a critical, structural analysis of race and racial inequality. Multiracial
feminism has made important strides in recognizing the importance of analyses centered
on race, as well as other systems of inequality. As explained by Baca Zinn and Dill, this
framework “is an attempt to go beyond a mere recognition of diversity and difference
among women to examine structures of domination, specifically the importance of race
in understanding the social construction of gender” (1997: 23) [emphasis added]. What

is both unique and important about multi-racial feminism is that it looks at multiple

83

 

sources of gender inequality whereby race is analyzed as a power system that is part of
intertwined systems of oppression (Lorber 1998). As feminist sociology progresses, it is
increasingly filling the gaps left by other feminist theories. Thus, it is important to
recognize the importance of utilizing frameworks such as multiracial feminism to analyze

sexual assault and abuse in the future.

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APPENDIX A
Interview Questions

Below are the most commonly asked and/or pertinent interview questions I asked
during the in-depth interviews I conducted with sexual assault/abuse counselors,
therapists, and social workers.

How do you self-identify with your social class? Race/ethnicity?

How old are you?

Are you currently a student? If so, what are your educational goals?

Do you work? If so, what do you do?

Could you tell me something about your background—something about your
education, where you grew up, something about your family?

How long have you been a therapist or counselor?

What are your professional qualifications as a therapist or counselor?

Why did you choose to be a counselor? What are your personal motivations for
choosing your field?

Are you presently a therapist or counselor?

Could you tell me about your experiences with counseling? For instance, what issues
most affect the people whom you see?

How long have you been seeing people?

Who do you think is most likely to use therapy or counseling?

Do you see or have seen people of color, women, children, etc.?

What do you think are the goals of therapy?

Do you think there is equal access to therapy? Why or why not?

Are there other (alternative) models that could be used besides therapy to help people
who have been sexually assaulted and abused?

How useful do you think self-help books and resources are?

Do you think sexual assault is a social problem? Can you elaborate on your thoughts
about this?

Why do you think so many people, particularly women, have been sexually assaulted
and abused?

How is therapy not useful for people who have been sexually assaulted and abused?
Psychology is based on helping the individual. If we consider sexual assault and
abuse to be a social problem, why do you think survivors are so apt to turn to
psychology and individual therapy?

What are your notions of rape prevention? How can people prevent sexual assault?
What should/can be done for people who have been sexually assaulted and abused?
What should/can be done for people who commit sexual assault and abuse?

What are your notions about social action against rape and sexual assault? What can
and should be done?

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What do you think about the anti-date-rape movement as mainly a campus/university
issue; that is, there is not much discussion or mobilization around this issue outside
of campuses and universities.

Why do you think people and groups outside of the universities and campuses are not
as organized around the anti-date-rape movement?

What are the most practical ways to create social change with regards to sexual
assault and abuse?

What types of political activities, collective action, and/or social movements would
be helpful in eliminating sexual assault and abuse?

Can we eliminate sexual assault and abuse in our society?

How do you tie individual experiences with the larger social structure?

What impact does the social structure have on sexual assault and abuse? That is, how
is social structure related to sexual assault and abuse?

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