The politics of naming: victims, survivors and plain dead women

The 1990s launched a campaign against 'victim feminism'. By 'outing' themselves as raped, criminally assaulted at home, subjected to other forms of domestic or family violence, exploitation or abuse, or experiencing sexist or sexual harassment in the workplace, educational institutions, the cinema, public transport or the street, it was claimed women turned themselves into victims.

This was deemed deplorable.

In 'outing' themselves, purportedly women were 'seeking sympathy', notoriety, 'fame' or press coverage, were 'victim-careerists' or all of these. Bluntly, women sought public identification as 'victims', trading on victimisation, becoming victims by blaming men. This, at least, was the charge.

The expression 'victim feminism' is attributed to Naomi Wolf. It relies upon defining women as diametrically different from men, this being a 'central component' of 'victim feminist' women's very identity and existence. Victim feminism thereby 'turns suffering and persecution into a kind of glamour'. This 'emphasis on personal victimisation' absolves women from responsibility, 'helpless' against the power of men, unable to 'act to change their own condition' and so perpetually consigned to the victim realm. Men are identified as the perpetual and never-ending 'enemy'.

Wolf was not alone inher analysis. Others took up the term, publishing articles and books attesting to what was deemed a move away from engagement with the polity: no longer was there a focus on changing institutions seen as inimical to women's liberation; rather, there was an all-out wallowing in self-pity. Such women were 'wimp' feminists.

So was generated a new category in the panoply into which women are slotted, describing women in derogatory terms. 'Victimhood' was born. Yet how applicable is this label and the sham it implies?

The reality of crime reporting is that proportionately few women report crimes of violence against them. Since 1996, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has published annual 'snapshots' of crime and criminal justice in Australia. The 12^th annual report showed property crime, assault and sexual assault reports as declining between 2007 and 2008. Despite a 49 per cent 'increase in assaults between 1996 and 2008', the number of victim/survivors reporting assaults to police 'dropped from 176,427 to 170,277 between 2007 and 2008'.

Nonetheless, Dr Adam Tomison, AIC director, said 'long-term trends for serious crime types such as robbery, assault and sex assault have been increasing since 1996'. Statistics show the major victims/survivors of sexual assault as women. Yet criminological research shows, too, that these crimes are frequently hidden, because many women fail to report the crimes to police – or anywhere.

In Australia, in the main women are subjected to crimes of assault at home. As for rape and sexual assaults, these crimes are inflicted upon women at home or on the street. Where men are the subject of assault, this most often occurs in the pub or nightclub and environs, or at social activities where men predominate or congregate in groups. Men are generally attacked by men. Similarly with sexual assaults: men are generally attacked by other men. Most often they suffer this violence in prison.

Thus, when it comes to sexual assault, women are targets in the 'free' world – a world where men can generally move about without fearing sexual imposition by their partner at home, or sexual attack by strangers in public places. With assault, women are mostly targeted in the 'safety' of their own homes – whether by current or past partners. Assaults suffered by men do not have the same scope for 'cover-up' nor social pressure to impede reporting. A punch-up between men is likely to be seen by witnesses. When punching, kicking, hitting and other assaults are inflicted upon women, witnesses are rarely present and, if they are, they are most likely to be children and unlikely to report the crimes.

In 2010, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) observed that sexual assault 'remains one of the most underreported of all personal crimes' with 'personal, social, cultural and institutional barriers' operating to prevent reporting to police or in surveys. Therefore, ABS concluded, 'it is likely that survey reported victimisation rates underestimate the true incidence of sexual assault'. Nevertheless, for the year 2008 to 2009, '52,500 (0.3%) Australians aged 18 years and over reported in the [ABS] survey that they were victims of at least one sexual assault, with most of these victims being women (78%)'.

The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearing House at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is the premier Australian research unit on the topic of 'intimate partner abuse'. A 2011 report acknowledges the widespread nature of this form of violence as 'a gendered crime'. Noting that estimates of the prevalence of criminal assault at home and other forms of domestic violence 'vary depending on the definition used', the report relies upon the two surveys 'most commonly quoted in Australian research', namely the ABS 'Personal Safety Survey, Australia, 2005', and the International Violence Against Women Survey in its 'Australian component', along with AIC monitoring of homicides, including 'domestic homicide'.

The 2011 report sets out findings in detail, including the prevalence of domestic violence. According to ABS, '15 percent of women had experienced physical or sexual violence from a previous partner and 2.1 percent from a current partner since the age of fifteen'. Contrasted to this, 4.9 percent of Australian men 'had experienced violence from a previous partner and 0.9 percent from a current partner since the age of fifteen'.

The ABS also found 1.6 percent of women experiencing sexual violence in the twelve months prior to the date of the survey, '81 percent of those experiencing sexual assault', with 21 percent of incidents relating to a previous partner. The survey confirmed women as overwhelmingly more likely to experience physical violence from a current or previous partner:

'Overall, 31% of women who experienced physical violence in the past twelve months were assaulted by a current and/or previous partner, compared to 4.4% of men …'

The Australian component of the International Violence Against Women Survey found 'over a third of women (34%) who had a current or former intimate partner reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence since the age of sixteen …' As for current relationships, for Australia 9-11 percent 'reported experiencing physical or sexual violence from their partner at some point in their lifetime'. Additionally, 37-40 percent 'reported experiencing at least one type of controlling behaviour', this 'most commonly' comprising 'name calling, insults, put downs or behaviour that made the woman feel bad'.

In light of these statistics, is it 'wrong' or 'attention seeking' for women to speak up? Why should women be singled out in this way, when no one suggests men who complain about violence against them are seeking publicity, putting themselves into a category of 'victim', or seeking victimhood identity?

Is it wrong of a woman who has been raped or assaulted to say so – and to say by whom? Is it wrong to say she is a victim, when she has been victimised by these crimes? When she lives to tell the tale, is her voice raised wrongly in denunciation of the perpetrator?

Is she making herself a victim, or is it the perpetrator who has done so? Who is to blame: the raped woman or the man who raped her?

In other areas of the law, no one contends that those bringing to light their victimisation are to be chastised for doing so. Nor is it said they are 'turning themselves into victims' or that naming the responsible party is wrong.

When Mr Amadio and Mrs Amadio sought redress through the courts for being misled as guarantors for their son's inability to manage his borrowings, they were not subjected to attack on the basis that they ought not to have used the legal system. The bank contested their case, but public protest was not raised against the Amadios. No commentators said they had 'made themselves into "victims"'. Nor was it said that blaming the bank was an act taken to gain notoriety for themselves, or to glamourise their predicament. It was not contended that the Amadios simply should accept the loss of their home to the bank, and that to raise issues in court about their age, family relationship and non-English-speaking background was to trade wrongfully on their identity.

Consumer protection and trade practices laws exist to ensure that those who are unfairly taken advantage of by finance providers have an avenue through which their losses can be recognised and ameliorated. Civil laws exist to enable individuals who suffer in this way to speak out and take action. Criminal laws exist so that if the wrongs endured go beyond the civil sphere – to fraud or extortion – the state can step in when those who have been victimised speak up.

Civil laws exist so that those who have suffered any form of tortious wrong can claim redress through civil courts. Where these wrongs constitute crimes, the criminal law enables the state to step in when those victimised come forward.

The idea that women voicing concerns about being victims and survivors of violent crimes directed at them as women are somehow 'trading' on this as an identity runs directly against the feminist call for recognition of 'the personal as political'. Assertions that women are turning themselves into victims ignores the reality: crimes of violence make victims, and those committing crimes of violence are responsible for that victimisation. A woman raped does not make herself a victim: the rapist does.

Crimes of violence cannot be addressed if those who are subjected to them are silenced by socio-cultural norms, by threats of the perpetrator/s, or by stigmatising and labeling the victim/survivors as having suspect motives. Victim/survivors have rights: the legal system acknowledges them. Without the courage of women who have been victimised – and who have survived – the reality of crimes against women would continue to go unrecognised.

Violence against women is no figment of the imagination. Like abused and raped women, dead women are real.

The number of women killed by intimate partners (mostly men, but rarely named so) is the ultimate evidence of women's victimisation in a society that for too long put to one side this most pernicious of social ills. The 19^th century Women's Movement endeavoured to bring to attention what Frances Power Cobbe aptly named 'wife torture'. Throughout the centuries, women have sought to end rape and criminal assault at home through establishing refuges and shelters, and urging legal and administrative reforms.

The 1970s and 1980s saw an upsurge in public attention on women speaking up and speaking out with courage and fortitude. The media played an important role: reporting on women's speak outs, publishing interviews, reviews of books and extracts from reports. It was this that began to see real change in government awareness and moves towards educating police and courts. It is ironic that this leap forward should be challenged as consequential upon a 'publicity seeking' exercise by 'publicity seekers'.

If women do not speak up about rape and sexual assault, who will speak for them? Is the field to be left to women who have not suffered and survived these crimes – or to bystanders only? Or are women obliged to stand back so that men's voices alone are heard?