Kirstin Kelly, Monterey, California, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent
About a month ago, University of Tennessee researchers Dawn Syzmanski and Chandra Feltman published an article entitled “Helping Women Overcome the Anguish of Unwanted Sexual Advances.” The article professes that women who experience street harassment fall into two major categories: those who are resilient and those who are not. Immediately after publication, Syzmanski and Feltman faced backlash from people who felt the article was supporting victim-blaming mentalities by suggesting that people who are more resilient are better able to cope with the stress of unwanted sexual advances than people who are not.
Normally, I agree with people who caution against products or research that could perpetuate victim blaming because I, like most others, believe that pressuring those engaged in harassing behaviors is far more important than teaching would-be-victims to avoid responsibility. I fully agree that the onus of responsibility should be on the aggressors, not their victims. But this study is fundamentally different to me.
First, the idea of resiliency is widely accepted among psychologists as a way of understanding why certain people respond to stressors by using them as springboards while others experience overwhelming negativity as a result of the same type of occurrence.
Second, victim blaming usually refers to advice or products to help would-be-victims avoid situations that might lead to harassment or even assault. These are obviously problematic because they place the onus of responsibility on the victims to avoid situations in the first place, but ignore the reality that harassment and assault can happen to anyone at any time in any place under any circumstances.
Resiliency could be a useful tool in helping to combat the effects of street harassment because it helps survivors heal from trauma, which could include unwanted sexual advances, but it is victim blaming to suggest that people who lack resiliency will have a harder time. Similarly, since resiliency can be helpful in healing from a number of different traumas, it is not asking potential victims to alter their behavior in order to avoid negative situations.
There is nothing victims can do to keep themselves completely safe, but aggressors have the ability to stop their behavior. Social pressure definitely needs to be placed on the aggressors to stop the behavior, but in the meantime, research that helps us understand how victims can recover from their experiences is valuable. I think it’s helpful to encourage people to increase their resiliency regardless of their perceived susceptibility to aggressive behavior. Likewise, I think aggressors should be discouraged from continuing together.
Perhaps these two approaches work best when combined as a holistic approach to addressing rape culture and street harassment.
Kirstin is a Master’s Student in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a news editor at the Women’s International Perspective (The WIP). You can follower her on Twitter at @KirstinKelley1, where she regularly posts about human rights issues around the world.
