MeToo. Meenakshi Gigi Durham

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Название MeToo
Автор произведения Meenakshi Gigi Durham
Жанр Кинематограф, театр
Серия
Издательство Кинематограф, театр
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781509535217



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must be corroborated by evidence of resistance on the part of the female victim. This myth places responsibility for rape on the victim and eliminates the possibility of marital rape, rape by an acquaintance, same-sex rape, male rape, or rape of trans people; it also misses sexual violence that does not involve heterosexual intercourse. Although the US Department of Justice currently has a much more expansive and reasonable legal definition of rape,13 this myth is still culturally prevalent in the United States and in many other societies.

      The silencing of sexual violence survivors as a result of the influence of rape myths is one of the most serious consequences of rape culture. Sexual assault survivors are reluctant to report for a range of reasons, many of which are related to fears created by rape myths. It is telling that such fears are reflected in studies across a wide range of countries and cultures, races and identities. Worldwide, a pitifully small percentage of sexual assaults are reported to the police or other authorities: the estimates of reported cases of sexual violence range from 5 to 25 percent of the number of actual cases.16 Even for rich and famous white women in the global North, a culture of silence allowed multiple incidents of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment to continue unchecked for decades in some of the world’s wealthiest corporations.

      In the chapters that follow I will trace the specific strategies and structures of rape culture that harbored and hid sexual predation in the media industries, silencing the capacity of survivors to disclose their assaults. Delving into these processes requires a multifaceted analysis of the media environment: the workplace conditions that condone and conceal sexual violence, but also the mediated representations and images through which rape culture is circulated and interpreted and the ways in which the media—especially social media—have become a catalyst for silence breaking and for feminist activism against rape culture.

      This is even more alarming in light of the uptake of rape culture and endorsement of sexual violence, particularly against women, at the highest levels of political power, in parallel with the global rise of despotic populism.

      The second chapter shifts the focus from organizational structures to media content, examining how rape culture has been systemically incorporated, resisted, and reinforced through representations, from pornography and sexual cybercrimes to news reporting. Some of these representations preceded and gave rise to the MeToo moment, some coincided with it and energized it, and some unfolded after #MeToo made its mark; some functioned to reassert silencing strategies, while some reinforced the structures that consolidate rape culture. My analyses center on forms of media that have had a global impact, from revenge porn to the work of the Boston Globe’s investigative “Spotlight” team.

      The Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire writes of a “culture of silence” in situations of domination, where subordinate groups are rendered mute by those in power. Breaking this enforced and subjugating silence will, he believes, create the conditions for the oppressed to enter into dialogue with the oppressors, so that together they may create a vision for collective social change.21

      #MeToo/MeToo called out the “culture of silence” that rape culture has imposed for centuries on sexual violence survivors. The silence has been broken. For all the ambivalences, tensions, and confrontations of the “MeToo moment,” by breaking the silence, we are beginning to see our way toward transforming a rape culture.