The “Take Back the Night” campaign to end sexual assault and abuse has the best intentions. But it is problematic because it perpetuates the idea that women’s sexual assault and abuse follows the dark night, man-behind-the bushes-with-a-knife narrative. In reality, the “night” is a constructed demon. All too often abusers closely mimic the warmth and appearance of sunshine.
Traditional stereotypes for profiling bad guys completely fail us when it comes to identifying abusers. Abusers come in all shapes and sizes, and oftentimes they capitalize on their normal appearance and normative success in order to persuade us of their goodness. The “Take Back the Night” campaign is a symbolic reduction—an oversimplification—of the experience of assault and abuse. It implies that women are assaulted suddenly by a stranger when they are alone at night. In reality assault and abuse can be short to long term projects where the predator chips away at the victim’s protective walls. According to Statistics Canada, 80% of sexual assault survivors knew their abusers (Statistics Canada 2003). Assault and abuse are usually psychological as well as physical projects, leaving the victim distressed with complicated grief.
So it isn’t a particular profile or scene we need to avoid in order to protect ourselves. Instead, it is a particular pattern within our existing relationships that we need to look for: a pattern of power asymmetry. Sexual assault and abuse is a function of unequal pattern relations; it happens when the abuser establishes dominance over you. We need to work on strengthening our discriminatory power until we become pros at identifying the problematic power structures that constitute assault or abuse. The fact is that women are not educated enough about their rights. Certainly, we are familiar with and celebrate the equality we are entitled to in politics and law, but many of us forget that we are entitled to the same equality in the relationships that comprise our everyday lives.
Inequality in romantic relationships has become so normalized in our culture that we now romanticize the idea of the man that yields power over us. The popular Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer portrays power asymmetry as an enviable relationship dynamic. Bella’s obsession with Edward shows that he yields enormous power over her, and his paternalistic babysitting is patronizing. The idealization of an unequal power relationship sends a negative message to women. Women today should be taught that a healthy relationship should leave them feeling empowered, not disempowered.
In preparation for the traditional rape narrative we have rape whistles. But there is no simple tool for blowing the whistle on everyday toxic relationships. We want to ask you if you have any ideas on how we can help facilitate a better understanding of the importance of power symmetry in relationships. You can suggest a conceptual theory, a slogan, or even a symbolic artefact.
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Love your post. I think we also need to start putting the onus for healthy relationships onto men and boys as well. I don’t think that a lot of men and boys ever have conversations and get taught how healthy relationships work and what they look like. Boys watching Twillight and seeing how girls and women react to it are going to have a really disturbed view of what a relationship should be.
We need to figure out how we can teach both boys and girls how to respect each other and we need to open up the rigid boundaries around gender expression so that men can feel comfortable expressing their emotions instead of acting out in violence and frustration and so that women can feel comfortable being assertive and living their own lives. Seriously, the narratives we teach children about love are perverse and sickening! No wonder there are so many problems!
i love you post carry on blogging !
I haven’t read the twilight series so I can’t pass judgment there, but I agree that women and girls need stronger role-models, and not just in the realm of gendered literature. Prefixing genres with ‘womens’ only reinforces the perception of negative stereotypes, and it extends beyond the realm of books. A few days ago I read an article where a designer was described multiple times as a ‘woman designer’ and as a ‘female designer’ as opposed to just being called a ‘designer.’ What does her sex have to do with her competency as a person who designs products? There is nothing empowering about being othered- you’ll never see a ‘male designer’ being called anything but a designer, or ‘male literature’ being called anything other than literature. Why are we singled out? I’d say that the first way to balance the power in a relationship between a man and a woman is to stop othering the woman. It starts with language, which is our greatest tool for change.