Many women have experienced violence. And often an acquaintance, relative, boyfriend, husband became the aggressor. If a woman prefers not to remember what happened and not to consider herself a victim – is this saving for the psyche? And will not the experience gradually influence further relations with men?
Cases of sexual violence, unfortunately, are much more than we think. The World Health Organization quotes the following figures: “One in three women (35%) in the world experience physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by another person in their lifetime*.”
Lawyer and author of How to Read People, Wendy Patrick, writes that her case law has shown that many rape victims are not ready to seek help and file a police report. Why? There are obvious reasons that have been discussed more than once in the context of problems of sexual violence: shame, guilt, embarrassment, fear of “disgrace” or close (including family) relationship with the perpetrator.
But also, one of the common reasons victims of violence and harassment remain silent about what happened is because they make themselves believe that it was not rape.
“Misunderstanding”
Researchers Laura Wilson, Katherine Miller and their colleagues who have studied this issue have called such cases “unacknowledged rapes.” Their consequences and influence on the psyche of women are not well understood. A certain number of survivors, the researchers found, preferred to view the violence as “bad sex” or “miscommunication.”
“It was a very long time ago, about 20 years ago,” says 36-year-old Olga (not her real name). – I was only 16, and I was in love with an adult man (then I thought so), he was 7 years older. We met at my place when my parents were in the country. Kissing him was nice, but I wasn’t sure about continuing, I had never had sex with anyone before. And he started undressing me…
I resisted, but for some reason it was embarrassing to just scream or call for help (and who?), And he simply translated my words into a joke. And I had a thought in my head – I myself invited and began to kiss, and he is a man, they do not know how to stop, such is nature. She herself justified him, it turns out. In general, I decided to consider that it was bad sex.
Calling this “survivors’ psychological adaptation,” Laura Wilson and her colleagues cite an analytical study and write that about 60% of female survivors choose this view of the situation of violence.
Main reasons
What influences this choice? Two main factors: a fairly close acquaintance between the victim and the aggressor, and the degree of physical force that was used in the commission of the crime.
“It was at a student party. We were all having fun and drinking. This time we were hanging out at a friend’s house, I didn’t get enough sleep after the exam, so I quickly got drunk and went to bed. I woke up from the fact that one of the guys fell on me – we were already half-naked. I screamed, but the music was blaring so no one could hear. He said: now everyone will come, and he will tell me what I myself wanted, everyone will see me naked. It was as if I lost my strength to resist and simply turned away so that he would not touch his face … And then he began to convince me that I myself wanted to. There were no bruises, nothing like that on me … ”- says Evgenia, 30 years old.
Scholars point out that beliefs about traditional gender roles often influence women’s acceptance of violence and do not see its perpetrators as criminals. “My husband somehow didn’t really ask me, I want it – I don’t want it. And I didn’t think it was bad, we were brought up like that, since we are married, then we have the right, ”recalls 72-year-old Valentina Iosifovna. – The granddaughter will now have a different attitude to this, and rightly so. And I don’t hold a grudge against my late husband – I don’t think that he was angry, I just didn’t think that I might not even want to.
An important role is played by sexism and victimblaming (from the English victim – victim; blame – to blame), and often they come from the family, close circle of the victim. Often it is victimblaming that prevents a woman from sharing what happened, getting support and being able to realize the drama and illegality of what happened to her.
“When I was little, I heard more than once how my mother and a neighbor discussed some cases, such as “it’s her own fault, why she walked through the wasteland, why in a short skirt, why she twirled her tail” and something like that,” recalls 45-year-old Tatyana . “Therefore, when my second cousin harassed me in the village in the summer, I didn’t even begin to share at home. In fact, I didn’t tell anyone for a long time. For some reason, I felt ashamed, as if it was my own fault. And the reason is not at all in what clothes I was wearing!
“The victim should not solve this problem alone”
Anastasia Gurneva, psychologist
“Talking about the experience of violence is important and necessary. But if you look more closely, then to whom and why? Of course, this is necessary for the victim herself in order to restore a sense of security, receive support and thus heal the pain of what happened. To do this, the conversation must meet several conditions:
- trust on the part of the one who hears and is ready to provide this support – trust in words and experienced experience;
- readiness to keep the focus of attention on the experiences of the victim, and not their own opinions, advice, accusations on this matter;
- it is important to clearly distinguish between areas of responsibility, to be sure that the author, and not the victim, is responsible for the violence;
- do not doubt her words and do not say that she invented everything.
Where can you get that attitude? With loved ones – rarely, sometimes with a psychologist, if he has competence in helping victims of violence (that is, he does not suffer from victim-blaming and does not offer a violent response to traumatic experiences).
But in general it is difficult to find someone who meets all these conditions, and sometimes it is easier to remain silent. Not better, but easier, because if the victim hears the accusation, distrust of her words, secondary traumatization may occur, a wound over the wound.
Violence itself is an experience of helplessness, vulnerability, and shame, but telling the wrong person evokes similar experiences. And in choosing to speak or remain silent, the survivor often chooses to remain silent because that is actually the best way for her to take care of herself. So it turns out that the pain does not move to the surface, to contact with other people, to healing, but goes deeper, sometimes it is even partially erased from memory, it is remembered as a dream: whether it was or not.
After all, this story has no witness, just as there is no mourning and mourning, anger, restoration of justice and security. What happened continues to influence behavior and life, determine whether the boundaries with other people will be rigid or, conversely, blurred, how easy it will be to relax in the presence of men, how personal life will develop.
But since the history of violence is not lived through, it is often unclear why things do not turn out the way we would like. It requires completion and integration, but in silence and solitude this work is difficult to do.
It seems to me that the decision whether to talk about the experience of violence or not can not be a problem that the victim must solve alone. This is a question for each of us: about our own worldview, the fight against prejudices, the rejection of the role of a judge, the willingness to hear without judgment and provide support to the victims, then talking about violence will have the potential to heal, not traumatize.
About expert
Anastasia Gurneva – psychologist.
*According to the World Health Organization’s 2017 Violence Against Women Study.