We as Americans write articles like this and call it anthropological research. We enter a foreign country, study and interview her people, traverse and welcome ourselves in others homes, and into suffering "others'" lives. Then into their lives we inject our analysis, our "educated" opinions, and then report back to America; and into the minds of those who read this story, and ingest it as truth because it comes from a reputable or scholarly source. We can be thorough, scholarly, and even considered "courageous" for telling a story about a "far away place" with a "problem" so severe, that we believe the world's (mainly our) shame is the only prescription to "fix" it. Those might be well deserved descriptions; but of course this, as with most things, is debatable.
What I want to know is, why are we so blind to the ways that these "others" and their stories represent themselves in our own culture, in our own back yards, in our own schools, and in our own homes? Why do I have to explain what 'rape culture' is, almost every time that I use the term? Why is it that people look away quickly, as if I've offended their sensibilities, when I tell them that much of my volunteer experience focuses on rape prevention?
With this being said, there is something unmistakably courageous, about giving the voiceless a voice. Rape is a particularly violent form of oppression that is exacerbated by the fear that lives inside of all of us. The same fear that causes family members to hide and/or condone assault of their loved ones out of shame, in an attempt to "protect" that which they consider sacred. In allowing the fear to steer the ship, the "sacred" that they were desperate to hide, created the "corrective" action that perpetuates the violence, and sinks the ship. When we hide from the stories, and inside of denial; we're solidifying and empowering the very source of violence that created the stories to begin with.
Can the effort to give a voice to the voiceless, a platform for the forgotten "other" in an often underserved, struggling area, country or society-- veer from courageous, and slip into exploitative? I think so, especially when that "voice" that we are trying to give, is preemptively quieting and redirecting the voice from within, the voice from inside of our own walls. What is it about the voice of our own women, here in the US, that makes us look away, shrug off, make "rape jokes" about, use derogatory terms like "slut," or write off as "feminist ideals?" I do not intend to discount the value of reporting sexual violence in an effort to expose oppression in its most insidious forms, wherever this report may originate. In a world where the last thought is placed on the survivors of sexual violence, in a society where we're spending too much time about what the survivor was wearing, how many partners a survivor had in the past, or how many drinks this person had; exposure is the first step to creating change. The value of said reporting notwithstanding, what can we do to create awareness, respect and commitment to addressing, understanding and placing value on the issues in our own backyards? I believe that begins with using our anthropology, to place the same attention and analysis at home as well. That begins by admitting that we have a problem of epidemic proportions; but can we as Americans step out of our self-absorption? I'd like to think that this is possible. What can we do to create a better understanding of our own issues?
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