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Contemporary Culture

Negotiating the Silence: Sexual Violence in Israeli Holocaust Fiction (video)

by Miryam Sivan on

Abstract: When American Jewish writers write about sexual violence against Jewish women in the Holocaust, they talk around the subject. Rape is implied. Sexual slavery described in broad strokes. Euphemisms abound to explain scenes in which women use sex in an attempt to bargain their way to survival. By contrast, when Israeli Jewish women write about sexual victimization during World War Two, there is a direct attention to detail; in fact, the sexual sadism experienced by the female characters is often a central point of the text. My talk will explore how the literary treatment of rape can act as a litmus test for a community’s sense of vulnerability or, its opposite, self-assurance, while keeping in mind that obfuscation and euphemism are linguistic acts of denial seeded in the Biblical story of Abraham and Sara’s first sojourn into Egypt.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

Miryam Sivan is a former New Yorker has lived in Israel for twenty years. Much of her fiction is about the experiences of ex-pats in love, in flux, in the liminal space between cultures, languages, and historical epochs. She is a lecturer of English Literature at the University of Haifa. Her book, Belonging Too Well: Portraits of Identity in Cynthia Ozick’s Fiction, was published by SUNY Press (2009). In addition to numerous scholarly publications, she translated On the Blossoming, a book of poems by Leah Goldberg (1992).

Her short fiction has appeared in Lilith, Arts and Letters, Wasafiri, Jewish Quarterly, and other publications. A collection of short stories, SNAFU and Other Stories was published in 2015. Her novel, Make it Concrete, will be published in the fall of 2018 by Cuidono Press in NYC.

Header image: Taken from the cover of “And the Rat Laughed” by Nava Semel

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The Handmaid’s Jail: Framing Sexual Assault and Rape Narratives in Biblical Comics

by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle on

Zanne Domoney-Lyttle teaches and researches at the University of Glasgow. Her research centres on comic book and graphic novel adaptations of the Bible through the perspectives of literary criticism, art criticism, comics theory and gender studies. Her doctoral thesis explored the space of comic books as visual aids to scripture, the tension between authorship and authority in biblical comics, and who has the right to reinterpret ancient sacred texts in a new graphical-visual medium. The following essay is based on Zanne’s presentation at the Religion and Rape Culture Conference organized by the Shiloh Project in July 2018.

The Handmaid’s Jail: Framing Sexual Assault and Rape Narratives in Biblical Comics

Dr Zanne Domoney-Lyttle

“Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

He went in to Hagar, and she conceived.” (Genesis 16:3b-4a)

In a post I wrote for this blog in November 2017, I discussed how biblical comics tend to avoid difficult scenes from the Bible, including visual depictions of rape, torture, violence and slavery. I argued that there is a reason and a need to represent such events in the graphic medium, because excluding difficult narratives erases not only violence and horror but silences the voices and experiences of the victims involved.

An alternative perspective is that comic book artists who choose to leave out “texts of terror” (Phyllis Trible, 1984), may do so because they do not want to be complicit in any act of sexual violence or of assault on the memory of the victim. Another reason is that they do not want younger or otherwise vulnerable readers to see violent scenes. Because of this, biblical scenes, which are unambiguously about rape and sexual assault – such as the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) or the rape, murder and dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine (Judges 19) – are intentionally left out in the majority of biblical comics.

But while these stories, which we might term “obvious” rape narratives, are often left out and often for reasons such as those just proposed, less “obvious” stories also depicting rape and sexual assault are often included. Moreover and disturbingly, there is often no indication that these stories can and should be read as stories of sexual aggression. Instead, violence is elided, rape becomes “just sex”.

To give one example, the story of Hagar in Genesis 16:1-4 is usually included in biblical comics, but never with any indication that Hagar is subjected to sexual servitude and abuse – namely, rape – in order to fulfil God’s promise to Abram for descendants.

A number of feminist biblical scholars, including J. Cheryl Exum, Phyllis Trible, Renita Weems and Susanne Scholz, have written compellingly about the importance of reading Hagar’s story as one of enslavement, rape and forced marriage and pregnancy. This is a burgeoning area of research in biblical studies and yet, the idea of reading biblical stories through the lens of classism and enforced motherhood is not one that is represented in mainstream comic adaptations of Bible material.

Comic book adaptations of Hagar’s story are always shown from the perspective of Abram and his “need” to have children. Depictions rarely, if ever, concentrate on the perspective of Sarai his wife, let alone on Hagar, a slave. Hagar is not so much suppressed in biblical comics but her representation is “shallow”, without autonomy and reflects a purely patriarchal perspective. Added to the exclusion of her voice, comic book creators also employ certain visual tools and word-choices, which further misrepresent the experience of Hagar. The effect of this is to imply her consent to sex and surrogacy and to normalise the treatment she receives at the hands of God, Abram and Sarai.

© R. Crumb, 2009

Let us turn to R. Crumb’s visual rendering of the story of Hagar (Genesis 16:1-6) in his The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R, Crumb: Hagar is introduced here as a solution to the problem of Sarai’s infertility. Given to Abram “as a wife”, the striking image which accompanies Genesis 16:3-4 depicts Sarai presiding over the “marriage”. This ceremony (of which there is no trace in the biblical text), moreover, resembles a traditional heterosexual Western wedding ritual, complete with officiant (Sarai), binding of hands and the face-to-face positioning of “bride” (Hagar) and “groom” (Abram). By referring to Hagar as a “wife” and graphically capturing her union with Abram in this way, Crumb encourages the reader to view the union as legal, consenting, sanctioned by God and as legitimate – rather than as a forced marriage between a slave and a powerful man for the purpose of producing Sarai’s surrogate child. This is further supported by Crumb’s word choice in his remediation: he uses “handmaid” rather than “slave-girl”.

Throughout the creation of his Genesis, Illustrated, Crumb relies heavily on three translations of the book of Genesis: the King James Version (KJV), the Jewish Publication Society version (JPS) and Robert Alter’s translation of and commentary on Genesis. The latter is the most prominent in his work and is clearly the source he relies on most.

This makes Crumb’s decision to use the word “handmaid”, rather than Alter’s “slave-girl”, even more conspicuous. Alter argues persuasively in his commentary that to describe Hagar (and Bilhah and Zilpah) as handmaids imposes a misleading sense of gentility on the sociology of the story. He goes on to suggest that describing Hagar as a maid rather than as a slave conveys the sense of a person in paid employment of their own volition, as opposed to somebody who is forced to work without wages, rights or freedoms.

© R. Crumb, 2009

So, Crumb choosing to call Hagar “handmaid” and depicting her transaction with Abram as a consenting marital union, suggests to the reader that Hagar enjoys some status and privileges, including the ability to choose marriage and pregnancy. This is further enhanced by Crumb’s commentary on his graphic version of Genesis where he provides his thoughts on Genesis 16:4b, “and when [Hagar] saw that she had conceived, her mistress seemed diminished in her eyes.” Crumb argues that Hagar’s attitude towards Sarai is threatening, because by being pregnant, Hagar is in a position to usurp Sarai’s position as matriarch of the family.

Crumb encourages readers to see Hagar’s treatment in Genesis as consensual and in her favour by choosing specific words and visual codes for his images. By doing so, narratives of slavery, rape and assault against Hagar are erased or forgotten and the reader glosses over her story, understanding it only as a means to fulfilling God’s promises to Abram.

One could argue that Hagar’s depiction in Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated is representative of her appearance in the biblical text. The biblical text, too, is primarily focused on Abram and his role in God’s plan. The biblical text, too, focuses on Hagar’s role as child-bearer, which addresses the situation of Sarai’s apparent infertility.

© Siku, 2007

Let us now turn to the treatment of Hagar by Siku, artist and writer of The Manga Bible as well as the first section of The Lion Hero Bible. In both these versions by Siku, representation of Hagar is minimal. In The Manga Bible, Hagar’s story is glossed over entirely. Sarai hangs off Abram’s shoulder, whispering into his ear like a seductress as if playing into, as Susanne Scholz suggests (2010), an androcentric fantasy that imagines wives inviting their husbands to sleep with other women. Hagar is in only one panel, where she is represented as an object shaped like a trophy or vessel ready to be filled with Abram’s seed.

In The Lion Hero Bible, where Abram is called “Faith Man” Hagar is given space across four panels. Her face is either turned away from the reader or is in darkness. Most troubling with this remediation of her story is the panel where Abram leads her into ominous darkness. Rape is not visually depicted. Instead, one narrow panel fits in between the panel of Hagar being led into darkness and another showing her advanced pregnancy. This panel alludes to the circumstances of conception but functions like an ellipsis. Still, at least the panel creates a small space for the reader to imagine what happened rather than being presented with Crumb’s version, which assumes consent and respectability.

Siku briefly acknowledges Hagar’s enslavement by visually alluding to her bondage but he spends no time reflecting on what this status means for her as a victim or on what it means for the reader receiving the text. Possibly, this is because Siku focuses on Abram and his progression as a patriarch – not on Hagar. Hagar remains above all a tool in the narrative, a way for God to fulfil his promises.

© Siku, 2015

Brendan Powell Smith’s The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament is similar in its execution of Genesis 16:3-4. This time Hagar’s slave class is highlighted by her ragged clothing, which is juxtaposed with the robes and jewels of Abram and Sarai. Unlike Crumb, Powell Smith chooses to use the designation “slave-girl”. However, again Hagar’s status as slave is not challenged, highlighted or problematised: once more there is no allusion to forced marriage, or rape or involuntary impregnation. The Brick Bible is known for its humorous take on the Bible and this might be why Powell Smith chooses to ignore “difficult” or violent elements in the text.

© Brendan Powell Smith, 2011

Choosing whether to, and how to depict violent stories in biblical comics is a choice rife with responsibilities.

In a recently published essay, actor Molly Ringwald reflects on watching a scene of sexual assault in the film The Breakfast Club, in which she stars, given the revelations of the #MeToo movement. She asks:

“How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? […] Erasing history is a dangerous road when it comes to art – change is essential, but so too, is remembering the past, in all of its transgression and barbarism.”

This is a question that must be asked of the Bible as well – especially when it is adapted in modern times into new media. The responsibility of those who make biblical comics is to represent the troubling texts and multiple voices within the stories instead of presenting only the version of the Bible that aligns with any one dominant ideology. This might include, for example, acknowledgment of Hagar as a victim of a class-driven system wherein God, Abram and even the matriarchal figure of Sarai are guilty of oppressing and abusing lower-class women in a quest to produce children “for Abram”. By not problematizing the text, retellings only reinforce and endorse damaging (such as androcentric) readings of the Bible. They fail to free Hagar from the constrictions of her story, thus jailing her both graphically within the panels of the comic book, and literarily within the word-choices of the written text.

Skipping over narratives of rape and sexual assault in the Bible can be a dangerous road when it comes to biblical interpretation. It is essential to remember also the violent stories and to revisit them with all of their transgressions and barbarities. In the conclusion to her essay, Molly Ringwald suggests that that it is up to future generations to respond to stories of rape and sexual assault like those in The Breakfast Club, in order to make those stories their own.

Biblical comic creators also need actively to challenge and reframe stories of rape and sexual assault in the Bible so that we can redeploy them as potential challenges to androcentric readings, and to oppose their examples of female subjugation. By accepting the existence of these texts and by probing and if necessary problematising and challenging their effects, resonances and implications, by both cherishing and opposing them, we can both remember the violence of the text but also ensure the victims in the texts are given focus and centrality, so as to recover and honour their voices.

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Religion as Gender Politics

by Daphne Hampson on

Abstract: Far from being an unintended consequence of those ideologies which are religions, the subordination of women may be central to their raison d’être. The form that religions (primarily the Abrahamic religions) have taken would seem to reflect (i) male splitting, and (ii) a desire to trump woman, quite possibly on account of an unresolved relation to the mother. Insofar as the raison d’être of religion is to constitute male as normative, while woman becomes ‘the other’, it is fascism. Male power and control over women is legitimised as only natural. We know control, rather than lust, to motivate sexual abuse. But sexual abuse is part of a wider scenario of male exploitation of women, with seemingly deep roots. To see religion in this light is vital.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

 

Professor Daphne Hampson held a chair in Post-Christian Thought at the University of St. Andrews. In her retirement she is an Associate of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford. The author of Theology and Feminism, After Christianity, and editor of Swallowing a Fishbone?, she is at present writing a book Religion as Gender Politics.

 

Header image:  “Creation of Eve”, a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo [via WikiCommons]

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Research as Resistance: Survival strategies for researching violence

by Rachel Starr on

Abstract: Feminist research into violence, within sacred texts, traditions and contemporary contexts, tends to be motivated by a desire to confront and challenge violence. This is certainly true of my own research into how dominant theologies of marriage function as risk factors in contexts of domestic violence.

This paper explores how being ‘research active’ can be understood as a form of active resistance. It suggests that this resistance begins with paying attention to forms of violence that have been normalised or ignored. Biblical scholar Gina Hens-Piazza argues that readers must be willing to name every occurrence of violence within a text; to fail to do so is to risk failing to name and resist violence encountered in everyday living. Secondly resistance requires commitment to a range of voices and methods of investigation, rather than reliance on tried and tested methods. In so doing, such resistance is creative, in reimagining both problems and solutions.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

Rachel Starr is Director of Studies (UG programmes) at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK. She completed her doctorate at Instituto Superior Evangélico de Estudios Teológicos (Protestant Institute for Advanced Theological Studies) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her book, Reimagining Theologies of Marriage in Contexts of Domestic Violence: When Salvation is Survival is published by Routledge in April 2018.

Header image: Ni una Menos (Not One Woman Less) march in Santa Fe, Argentina. 2018. Photograph by Agustina Girardo [via WikiCommons]

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“My prayers weren’t being answered”: The Intersection of Religion and Recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse

by Claire Cunnington on

Abstract: Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this paper draws on a thematic analysis of an online qualitative survey (n=143) and 25 follow up semi-structured interviews with adults who experienced CSA/CSE to understand and explore how religion has affected their recovery. While some found comfort in religion the majority of those who were religious as a child, had rejected organised religion as an adult, despite often retaining a sense of spirituality.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

Claire Cunnington is a Wellcome Trust funded Doctoral Research in the Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield. Her PhD title is “From Victim to Survivor: What actions do survivors take to redefine their identity when recovering from Child Sexual Abuse?” This research takes a salutogenic approach to recovery from child sexual abuse (CSA) and involved a qualitative survey followed by in depth interviews with adults who have experienced CSA/CSE to identify useful actions they have taken to improve their health and wellbeing. She is interested in the influence of religion on individuals recovering from CSA.

Header image: Creative response to Cunninton’s talk produced by Lily Clifford at the Religion and Rape Culture Conference. A glass collage.

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How to make a ghost: A collaborative approach to finding Dinah

by Emma Nagouse on

Abstract: Since October 2017 Lily Clifford and Emma Nagouse have been collaborating to produce a body of artwork based around narratives of rape in the Bible. By focusing on Dinah, Clifford and Nagouse have used their complementary skills and knowledge to create several artworks dealing not only with Dinah’s rape, but cultural responses to Dinah, and rape culture more broadly.

In this presentation, Clifford and Nagouse talk through Clifford’s portfolio of artwork – you can view or download this here.

This talk was delivered at the 2018 Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Click here to see more videos.

 

 

Lily Clifford is an artist and arts facilitator who is currently working towards her MA in Inclusive Art at the University of Brighton. Lily started working with clay in 2008 and studied at University of Sunderland to gain her degree in Glass & Ceramics. Lily makes art about women, religion, and stories – she uses paint, textiles and found objects. Follow Lily on Twitter.

Emma Nagouse is a PhD student at the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS) researching rape culture in the Bible and contemporary society, focussing on gendered constructions of believability. Emma is an active member of The Shiloh Project and is Chair of The Sheffield Feminist Archive. Follow Emma on Twitter.

Header image:  Lily Clifford in action.

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The Religion and Rape Culture Conference: A Summary

by Emma Nagouse on

The first Religion and Rape Culture conference was a huge success. We welcomed over 50 delegates from 6 countries and were treated to 14 fantastic research papers from a range of academics, research students, practitioners, artists, activists, and members of religious groups. The aim of the day was to explore the many intersections between religion and rape culture, and how religion can both participate in and contest rape culture discourses and practices.

Click here to see videos of our research talks

The conference opened with a powerful keynote address entitled “Rape by any other name: Cross-examining biblical evidence“ from Professor Cheryl Exum (Emeritus Professor, University of Sheffield). Professor Exum presented delegates with a survey of rapes in the bible, and demonstrated in her talk the ways in which commentators often work overtime to elide this violence. Professor Exum ended her address with a challenge to biblical scholars to make rape a visible issue in the discipline. Professor Exum continues to be an inspiration to staff and students in Biblical Studies, and is responsible for carving out a space for Sheffield as a leading place for feminist biblical interpretation.

After a short break, our first panel convened who explored “Biblical Perspectives” of rape culture discourses. This panel, chaired by Dr Johanna Stiebert, was well received, with thought-provoking papers from a variety of disciplines:

Lily Clifford (Inclusive Arts MA, University of Brighton) & Emma Nagouse (PhD Candidate, University of Sheffield): How to make a ghost: A collaborative approach to finding Dinah

Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar (PhD Candidate, Drew University):  For such a time as this? #UsToo: Representations of sexual trafficking, collective trauma, and horror in the book of Esther

Rabbi Dr Deborah Kahn-Harris (Principal, Leo Baeck College): This may not be a love story: Ruth, rape, and the limits of readings strategies

Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar discussing her research with a delegate.

As well as presenting on this panel, we were thrilled to welcome Lily Clifford from the University of Brighton as an artist in residence for the conference, who crafted creative responses to each of the presentations as they unfolded. We were delighted that this was received so warmly by delegates and our presenters – who were each able to keep their artwork.

Lily working during the conference

Our next panel,  “Theology and Thought” was chaired by Dr Valerie Hobbs and included papers which explored some of the ways in which Christian discourses and ideologies have engaged with rape culture, both historically and in contemporary contexts. These were fantastic papers, and while some of this content was challenging to listen to, they served to bring focus to how important and timely this research is.

Natalie Collins (Gender Justice Specialist, SPARK):  The Evil Sirens: Evangelical Christian culture, pornography and the perpetuation of rape culture

Claire Cunnington (PhD Candidate, University of Sheffield): “My prayers weren’t being answered”: The intersection of religion and recovery from childhood sexual abuse

Rhian Elinor Keyse (PhD Candidate, University of Exeter): “A man cannot in law be convicted of rape upon his own wife”: Custom, Christianity, colonialism, and sexual consent in forced marriage cases, British colonial Africa, 1932–1945

Rhian Elinor Keyse and Lily (conference artist) discussing Lily’s artistic response to Rhian’s research paper

After (a delicious) lunch, we picked things up again with our “Method, Critique and Discourse” panel chaired by Dr Meredith Warren. This was an interdisciplinary panel which explored the various ways rape culture is expressed politically by both oppressors, and those who seek to resist it. This was a fascinating session that inspired a lively panel discussion.

Kathryn Barber (PhD Candidate, University of Cardiff): “Rape is a liberal disease”: An analysis of alternative rape culture perpetuated by far-right extremists online

Dr Rachel Starr (Director of Studies: UG programmes, The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Research): Research as resistance: Survival strategies for researching violence

Professor Daphne Hampson (Associate of the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford): Religion as gender politics

Questions being taken by the Method, Critique and Discourse panel

A rapt audience listening to Dr Rachel Starr’s presentation on “Research as resistance: Survival strategies for researching violence”

Our final panel, “Media and Culture” was chaired by Dr Naomi Hetherington and included papers which explored how rape and rape culture discourses are presented in literature and artistic contexts. We couldn’t have hoped for more engaging talks to round off the day’s panel discussions.

Mary Going (PhD Candiate, University of Sheffield): Mother Zion, Daughter Zion, Witch Zion: An exploration of Scott’s Rebecca

Dr Miryam Sivan (Lecturer, University of Haifa): Negotiating the silence: Sexual violence in Israeli Holocaust fiction

Dr Zanne Domoney-Lyttle (Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Glasgow): The Handmaid’s Jail: Framing sexual assault and rape narratives in biblical comics

Header: Professor J. Cheryl Exum, who gave the opening paper.

The Religion and Rape Culture Conference was closed by a fantastic keynote address from Associate Professor Rhiannon Graybill (Rhodes College) entitled “Fuzzy, messy, icky: The edges of consent in biblical rape narratives and rape culture”. Graybill’s research brought feminist literature problematising the notion of consent to bear on biblical stories of sexual violence and rape, as well as the ways in which we as feminists read and respond to those stories. Graybill asked what a serious critique of consent means to a feminist biblical hermeneutic of sexual violence, and in response,  explored how feminists might engage with these texts beyond the position of mourning or recovering. We were thrilled to host Professor Graybill, and her insightful research has continued to be a point of discussion since the conference. We’re so excited to continue to work with Professor Graybill through The Shiloh Project.

After a break, there was a drinks reception where everyone was invited to view our research posters. Authors who were in attendance were invited to speak for one minute about their poster. Topics included: Consenting Adults? Faith formation’s less-than-immaculate conception of consent (Catherine Kennedy, University of Sheffield); Preaching Texts of Horror: How Christian Pastors teach about Dinah, the Levite’s Concubine, Tamar, and Potiphar’s Wife (Dr Valerie Hobbs, University of Sheffield); A Climate of Taboo: Trauma and the graphic novel Blankets (Hugo Ljungbäck, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee); Veils and ventriloquists: How do creative interpretations depict narratives of trauma for those who remain voiceless? (Lily Clifford, University of Brighton); “Life made no sense without a beating”: Religion and rape culture in US Girls’ In a Poem Unlimited (Liam Ball, University of Sheffield), and The girl needs some monster in her man: Rape Culture, cis-male allyship and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Ashley Darrow, Manchester Metropolitan University and Emma Nagouse, University of Sheffield).

What kept coming up in discussion was pedagogical questions on how these challenging topics should be taught in educational settings such as universities and colleges, but also in religious settings. It became clear that academics, teachers, practitioners, and activists alike all craved more tools when it comes to how to teach, research, and facilitate discussions around these urgent and important issues. Perhaps a topic for a future conference…? You can see some of the online interaction from the conference by searching for #ShilohConf18 on Twitter.

It was a powerful, energising and galvanising day – and, on a personal note, I was thrilled with the huge amount of interest we received from a cross-section of people from a wide variety of sectors and community groups, and the level of extremely positive and encouraging feedback we received from participants.

We would like to take this opportunity to extend our warmest thanks to WRoCAH for funding this much-needed conference. We look forward to continuing this important work and making the most of the inspiration, networks, and new friends which were made at our first conference.

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Silence as Defiance: Tamar’s Desolation

by Shiloh Project on

Today’s post is an anonymous, personal reflection on the experience of sexual exploitation in childhood. The reflection also draws in the biblical story of Amnon’s rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13). On the one hand this is a declaration reminiscent of #MeToo but it is also an expression of defiant and articulate silence and a reminder that there isn’t a single, let alone a ‘right’ response to sexual violation.

********************

“I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head.”

Edwidge Danticant, Breath, Eyes, Memory

I have always been intrigued by silence; it has given me the space to observe and understand people.  Because of my mother’s influential position as a prayer warrior within the Christian community, our house was constantly filled with people, especially troubled women.  Since I was just a young girl, invisible in a patriarchal world, no one seemed to notice me.  So I just listened and studied the women who came with their stories, women who were under-appreciated, disrespected, unloved, silenced, cheated on, battered, and raped.  Too many stories to tell.  Yet the advice was all too familiar, quietly endure the mistreatment and abuse for the sake of the children, for the family.

It was the same advice that my mother kept for our own family.  And so I was silent when I had to deal with my own sexual molestation.  When I was young, I didn’t have the emotional capacity and definitely not the words to understand what was happening.  My mother knew what was happening but she failed to protect me because it was a family member she wanted to protect even more.  It was an ongoing shameful “event” that was confused with love, loyalty, and duty to the family.  All integrally connected to Korean cultural values that I only understood to be burdensome in my adulthood.  My mother, herself a victim/survivor of molestation and rape, tried to normalize the “event.”  It happens in all families and it was my responsibility from making it happen yet again.  I, the woman, had the power to say no and avoid the situation.  Since it was understood that men had no self-control, he could not be expected or punished to stop. But I was just a child, confused, not a woman.  So I was silenced or had no choice but to be silent.  I would not have known what to say or to whom I would have spoken. After all, it happens in all families.  So I tried to listen to my mother’s advice, to avoid situations and learned to say, “No.”  But it was at the cost, the loss of a loving relationship that I needed and valued.  Of course, the perpetrator had his reasons, perhaps justifiable to him, for his perversion but that is not my story to tell.  The burden is on him to explain his behavior to the world and God.  But most likely, he will choose silence for fear of jeopardizing his standing in the family and without question, his community.  I just wanted to make sure that it never ever happened again in the family. Never.  And it never did.

When I came into my personhood, I chose to be silent about the “event.”  Perhaps I was ashamed and somehow blamed myself for not stopping the “event.”  But more than anything, I still did not know how to express the inexplicable rage, hatred, self-loathing, and disgust that lied underneath.  And as always, I felt the responsibility to protect the perpetrator and my family which had a reputation to keep in the community.  I was not equipped emotionally to share this story with my close friends.  I remember just uttering a few words to a couple of people who were victims of molestation to make a point.  But it was all in passing, nothing to brood over or deal with.  This was the norm for a dutiful person who wanted to honor her mother’s implicit wishes.

Even when I was heavily influenced by the Oprah-era of needing to share one’s life publicly, I chose silence. I knew the rhetoric that silence equaled death and courageous women were the ones who came out with their stories.  After all, truth or finding one’s voice liberates the person.  However, I chose silence to deal with the “event.”  I still did not have the words to describe the “inexplicable.”  How does one talk about trauma?  What words can encapsulate the “event”?  Who will be able to understand the mixed emotions of being hurt by a loved one?

But I have decided now to talk about the “event” through the story of Tamar (2 Sam 13).  In the biblical story the daughter of King David, a virgin princess, is raped by her half-brother, Amnon.  The author explains that he was “tormented” because he was madly in love with a virgin who happens to be his sister.  He could not help himself; he was ill with lust so he had to possess her sexually.  And he does, forcibly against the wishes of his vocal sister.  She resists, fights, but he overpowers her.  Afterwards, she tries to talk sense into her half-brother, begging him to marry her so that they do have to bear the shame.  He does not listen; he is after all the crown prince, the heir apparent to the throne of Israel.  She will be shamed, not him.  Why would he listen to a woman?  He commands the servant to kick her out, whereupon she puts ashes on her head, tears her garment, and leaves the premise crying out loud.  She rightfully mourns for herself.

Everyone in the palace would have known; it would not have been a mystery that Amnon had raped his sister.  Yet everyone was silent.  The servants were silent.  Amnon disappeared into the background and therefore became silent.  Her father, the almighty King David knew but he remained silent.  Absalom, her full brother, found out but he too kept silent.  And it would appear that Tamar was silenced or became silent.  Yet their silences were not the same.

The servants did not have the power to speak; they would have spoken only at the cost of their livelihood or lives. If they spoke of the “event,” it would have been in hushed tones.  Amnon himself chooses silence because he probably did not believe he wronged anyone. Why would he talk about a trifling matter?  Is he not the prince who will one day rule the kingdom as he saw fit?  King David, the father and executor of justice, should and could have punished his son and uplifted his daughter but he chooses silence.  He did not want to punish his beloved son.  But then what about his daughter?!  He, by his silence, became complicit in Amnon’s crime.  Absalom, the rightful defender of his sister’s honor, also decides to remain silent.  His silence hid his determination to kill Amnon.  But who knows if he was defending his sister or making a run for the throne.  All three men in position of authority should have spoken up for Tamar; yet they chose silence to protect, to ensure their own power.

Then what about Tamar’s silence?  Scholars have argued that Tamar was silenced; Absalom asked her to remain quiet.  I argue just the opposite.  She chooses to remain silent.  Given her characterization throughout the story in which she, a woman, speaks against her brother is quite significant.  No female biblical character is more vocal than Tamar.  A woman who demonstrably cries out her pain most likely could not be silenced by her brother, Absalom.  Yet her silence is not quiet but defiant.  Rather than use words, she decides to speak through her “desolated” body.  It is not clear if the court historian had personally experienced or knew of her story but s/he aptly encapsulates Tamar’s response with the word, “desolated” (2 Sam 13:20).

The Hebrew word conjures imagery of devastation in the aftermath of war, the absence of life in the midst of charred ruins.

She embodied the “event” so that every sigh, every pained look, every deadly silence bespoke the devastation of the violent rape.  She did not need to utter a word because she had become a living monument to the “event.”  So she speaks without words; she breathes her pain. And everyone would have experienced and known of the “event” through her very presence.  Though men have refused to publicly acknowledge the “event,” she used her desolated body to tell her story.  She created a space that defied the men of power, ultimately undermining their authority.  This is real power, power to throttle or overthrow unjust leaders.

The emboldening story of Tamar’s rape and her desolation has given meaning to my silence. I do not necessarily think a survivor’s silence is an act of acquiescence to the cultural silencing of women.[1] Yes, one could argue that my mother had been silenced by the expectations of her culture.  It was shameful for a woman to discuss sex, especially sexual violence that was committed against her body by a family member, a much older half-brother. However, she embodied the desolation in the silence.  She, who constantly remembered and repeatedly told stories of her emotional, verbal, and physical abuse, did not utter a word about the sexual abuse.  But I knew she had been molested before she even mentioned it. Her body language bore the desolation. She only said a few words to me just once, not twice. And I knew of the rape because I was physically there.  I was not a direct witness but I knew with all the yelling, bashing of fists one particular night that a rape followed.  I just knew. I did not know the word for the violent violation but I knew it was the “unspeakable” act of terror. She did not say anything.  She again bore the shame of the event and I have inherited her pain.  I bear in my body the burden of her rape.  But again I have chosen to be silent about her story.

I can hear voices in my head the words of my Western education – “you have been silenced by your family, by your traditions, by your oppressive culture.”  Perhaps.  But like Tamar, I know that my silence has been an act of defiance.   First, it has given me the space to formulate my own narrative of the trauma.  I own the story and in my silence, I have refused to acquiesce to the counter-stories created by my mother and perpetrator.  Second, silence has allowed me to mourn the pain on my own terms.  No one has been able to dictate on how and why I should feel the way I do.  Third, I have been able to share my story through my desolated body, not through words but my very presence.  I have found that words almost always fail but silence embraces all – the tempest of emotions, the pain, the profound sadness, the confusion.  In other words, silence allowed me to be all and nothing at all.[2]  And it is through this choice that I have forced the perpetrator to break, to apologize.  Interestingly, that was not I wanted.  I had forgiven him a long time ago.  Nothing would have given back my innocence, my trust, my childhood.  No.  All  I really wanted was him to acknowledge his perversion, to admit his culpability and therefore find a road to his own healing.  As for my mother, she is too broken to understand her role in my trauma.  She utters a few words because she sees my pain in my silence.  But I do not want to hurt her more as Buki, a character who had undergone female circumcision in Breath, Eyes, Memory writes to her dead grandmother:

Because of you, I feel like a helpless cripple.  I sometimes want to kill myself.  All because of what you did to me, a child who could not say no, a child who could not defend herself. It would be easy to hate you, but I can’t because you are part of me.  You are me.[3]

It is in the silence that I have been able to express all the raging emotions and it is through my desolation that I have been able to tell my story, my version of the “event.”

Therefore, I do not believe in asking, encouraging, and definitely not forcing women to verbally share their stories.  If we just listen to their defiant silence and observe their desolated bodies, we will be able to piece their stories.  For me, it is the silence of the perpetrators and their complicit partners who should be encouraged, perhaps forced to speak about their acts of violence against women.  They should be shamed for their cowardice in wanting to hide behind a deafening wall of silence.  They should be forced to acknowledge and speak about their crimes.

You may ask.  Why have I broken my silence now? I felt a responsibility to a community of women who have chosen to remain defiantly silent.  I laud their decision to silently speak of the atrocities committed against them.  They may not use words but in their very being, in their embodied desolation, they have and continue to share their stories.  And their stories resonate with the stories told by other women.  Think about it.  Despite all the silence around Tamar, her story is included in the Court History in the Bible.  And so her story of her desolated body echoes to this day.  She has spoken so loudly through her silence that now everyone knows her story.  So we all should listen to her cries and say, no more. Never again, Tamar.

Dedicated to a woman whose desolating silence has inspired me to write this story.

 

[1] I am not including numerous instances in which women are forcibly silenced.  I am speaking of instances in which women have the choice, the privilege to choose between speech and silence.

[2] After much contemplation over silence, I have a deeper appreciation of the divine name, Yahweh (“I am/I will be”).  It allows God to be present without being defined, without being named.

[3] Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (New York: Soho, 2015), 206.

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Corinne Rovetti: Reproductive Rights

by Corinne Rovetti on

Corinne Rovetti is Co-Director for the Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health in Tennessee. Alongside other services, the Center provides safe abortions. It is one of few legal abortion providers in the region.

Corinne is a human rights activist and community organizer with decades of experience. Among many other causes and groups she actively supports is Women in Black.

The Situation in the Here and Now

The U.S.A. is in serious legal, ethical and moral decline. The laws, values, principles and beliefs of freedom, equality and rights in the pursuit of happiness and independence are being diminished. Nowhere is this decline more evident than in its application to women’s reproductive and human rights.

I write this article to update those outside the U.S.A., those who are committed to global concerns regarding the status of women in the world and more specifically, in the intersection of religion with gender, sexuality, violence, race and class, on the conditions threatening U.S. women today. Given the current U.S. Administration’s policies, we here in the U.S.A. are experiencing continual erosion of reproductive rights and services. The United States of America’s willingness to exploit religion for political gain, while not new and evident throughout its history, reaches new heights of hypocrisy and abuse in the present.

The Religious Right’s obsession with women’s reproductive health is a prime example of age-old tactics to control and subjugate women. While professing vows to uphold the sanctity of life of the unborn (and disavowing the sacredness of life of the mother who is seen as a vessel) these same fanatics are drastically slashing public programs that support lives and families. Long-standing funding for contraceptive and family planning services are being eliminated from the federal budget as well as programs for food and nutritional support for families and schools, child health care and insurance and early childhood development.

Governmental assault co-mingled with religiosity, though affecting all women, disproportionately affects women of color and of lower socio-economic standing.

About Myself

My credentials: I have been a long time advocate, director and provider of reproductive health services. I have been on the front lines witnessing the massive changes of what has now become a daily battle for women to access health care without the intervention of politicians, religious zealots and demeaning attitudes of health care professionals.

Women evaluating our services often express surprise and deep gratitude for not being judged or criticized in our facility. Every time I read these remarks they break my heart. What it tells me is that women’s expectations of receiving care with dignity and respect are so low that it’s not even anticipated in a supportive reproductive women-centered community! Women expect obstacles, judgement and shaming for the delivery of even the most basic of health care needs.

What is Happening

So, let me address the barriers of access to care issues in the U.S.A.

Since 2010, states have passed 338 restrictions on abortion services creating undue hardships on women and limiting access to services. Many staunch conservatives were elected to state legislatures and governorships to ensure a victory in the passage of laws upholding anti-abortion agendas. According to a 2017 Guttmacher Institute report, an organization dedicated to research and policy analysis on abortion in the U.S.A., ‘by 2016 more than half of all states had at least 4 of the major types of abortion restrictions classifying them as hostile to abortion rights. Notably, all the states in the South, along with most states in the Midwest, are considered hostile to abortion. Fully 22 states have 6 or more restrictions, enough to be classified as extremely hostile to abortion rights.’ Since January 2018, 308 new restrictions have been introduced in 37 state legislatures.

Many of the regulations are written under the pretense of safety concerns and the need to ‘protect women’. For example, imposed waiting periods of 24, 48 or 72 hours between the woman’s first visit and the day she returns for her procedure, mandated 2 office visits to receive services, imposed hospital privilege laws for physicians (recently struck down by the Supreme Court), mandated ultrasounds and requirement for the woman to listen to the heartbeat, gestational age limits, state-scripted intimidating informed consents and hospital applied regulations for free-standing clinics (also recently struck down but not before the closure of many clinics unable to comply with these expensive and unnecessary regulations. Between 2011-2014 the number of clinics fell by 6%).

There are now seven states with only one remaining open clinic. Remember the vast geographic territory that the U.S.A. covers! Many women must travel hundreds of miles…twice…to receive services, paying high transportation and often also childcare costs. Many women work low paying jobs with no benefits and experience loss of wages and sometimes loss of jobs due to missed work days, despite medical reasons being provided. Women in school or college miss classes and exams. Many women must find excuses for prolonged absences from home when they are hiding their decision from abusive partners.

Mind you, there have been no changes in reported mortality or morbidity statistics to warrant these ‘safety’ concerns. Abortion remains one of the safest medical procedures performed worldwide where legality is not an issue.

Many of the abortion laws interfere with the patient/physician relationship, dictating to physicians how they practice medicine. Most women live in states with abortion laws that conflict with science and facts and are 70% lies, legislating laws that force doctors to say things that contradict scientific evidence and the oath they have taken to do no harm to their patients. In eleven states doctors must tell patients that an abortion procedure may cause mental health problems (NO), loss of fertility (NO) and breast cancer (NO). Two states also require physicians to tell women (falsely) that the medical abortion pill, once taken, is “reversible”.

Two of Trump’s recent appointees to key roles in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are people directly responsible for health policy. They incorrectly insist that abortions cause breast cancer, claiming that abortion providers are in cahoots with scientists to hide the evidence of this connection! You can’t make this stuff up!

Further restrictions to access are related to financial issues. Remember, the United States has no national health care plan (except for seniors). Many people are un-insured or under-insured. Under the Obama Administration, health care legislation finally improved the insurance status of an additional 20 million people, mandating free contraceptive coverage for the first time in U.S. history. This law, the ACA (Affordable Care Act) has been under major attack and dismantled by the Republican Party (also called the GOP, ‘Grand Old Party’) and the Trump White House – despite their inability to outright eliminate it. Many plans can now deny the coverage of these services, based on religious objection.

Few states may use the available public funding programs for abortion services. Seventeen states may, but 32 and D.C. (the District of Columbia, where the capital city is located) prohibit the use except in the case of rape, incest or the endangerment of the mother’s life.

Few private insurers cover abortion services, with half the states passing laws and implementing bans for private plans to cover these services this year. The White House is pushing for further barriers.

Further restrictions are implemented under the guise of religious freedom. Conservatives are challenging and winning institutional discrimination cases based on ‘religious liberty’. This matter particularly has impacted the coverage of contraceptive services (as well as having a huge impact on the erosion of the rights of the LGBTQ community). The United States of America has become weaponized by the religious fundamentalists governing it, legislating their religious/political agenda in a nation founded on religious freedom. Regressive and hostile stereotypical misogynistic attitudes are being legislated in regards to women, their sexuality and health care access.

There are many more issues pertaining to the concerns for the reproductive health status of women in the U.S.A. This piece is limited in covering all those issues. However, there are a few more points that I would like to cover.

One is in regards to the aforementioned closure of many clinics nationwide. Many of these facilities had been the main provider of women’s preventive health services, contraceptive care and STI (sexually transmitted infections/diseases) screening and treatment. With reduced services we see exponentially higher rates of problems. The U.S.A. is experiencing a public health crisis with more than 2 million STI cases in 2016: the highest number recorded EVER. And how many more undiagnosed cases are out there, given the increasingly limited access to clinics providing services to prevent and treat STI’s? Are these undiagnosed cases contributing to the decline in the fertility rate? Are these cases contributing to the overall negative health status and birth complications women in the U.S.A. experience? (For statistics, see here.)

Which segues into another serious public health concern, the abysmal maternal mortality rate affecting U.S. women. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2015, the U.S.A. ranks as having the worst rate in the developed world and this is rising as other countries experience declining mortality rates. For example, the rate in the U.K. is 9.2 deaths per 100,000 women; in the U.S.A., 26.4/100,000 women. Moreover, Black women in the U.S.A. experience a 4 times higher rate of death than White women, which is indicative of more than socioeconomic factors alone. This is shown in that educated urban Black women have higher maternal mortality than rural uneducated White women. In N.Y.C. (New York City) the rate of death for black women is 10 times higher than that of the rural southern state of Georgia! Much analysis has and is being conducted addressing the implied racial bias in the delivery of healthcare in the U.S.A. (For examples, see here and here.)

Lastly, I will address recent disturbing changes acknowledging the dire erosion of human rights issues.

In 2015 a U.N. working group of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) completed an official ten-day visit to the U.S.A. They reported that women in the U.S.A. are lagging seriously behind in human rights and that they witnessed ‘unprecedented hostile stereotyping of women’ in the political arena with ‘increasingly restrictive legislative measures by many of the states to prevent women’s access to exercise their reproductive rights.’ The report concludes that U.S. women are becoming seriously compromised in all areas of human rights, be it issues of violence against women, incarceration, intimidation and harassment in accessing health services, deeply disturbing conditions of migrant women and their children held in detention, the disparate vulnerabilities of minorities, the poor, the elderly and disabled, LGBTQ people, migrant women – the list is long.

In a recent move, May 2018, the Trump Administration directed the State Department to censor mention of women’s reproductive rights and discrimination in its annual report on human rights; in other words, prohibiting the acknowledgement of human rights violations that pertain to reproductive rights. Passages covering family planning and contraception and abortion access were removed while minimizing sections on sexual, ethnic and racial discrimination.

In June 2018, the U.S.A. removed itself from the U.N. Human Rights Council as it had committed heinous acts of human rights abuse and violations to immigrant families and those seeking asylum in the U.S.A. by separating children from their parents and detaining them in horribly inadequate conditions in tents, cages and ‘camps’.

And then very recently, the Thomson Reuters Foundation released the report on its 2018 survey, previously conducted in 2011, assessing the 193 U.N. member states which are considered most dangerous for women in areas of healthcare, economic resources, traditional practices, risks of harassment, rape, sexual and non-sexual violence, abuse and coercion and human trafficking. 550 experts in global women’s issues conducted the survey. India ranked #1, the U.S.A. ranked #10, behind Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen and Nigeria. The U.S.A. is the only Western country represented. The survey was conducted after the #MeToo Movement which exposed the extent of harassment and rape culture in the U.S.A.

With U.S. descent into a world of alternative facts and destruction of truth-based evidence (be it human rights, climate change, the environment, scientific pursuits), in a classic textbook case of fascism and authoritative rule, the U.S.A. is rapidly slipping into dangerous realms of ever-increasing human rights violations, especially for women and minorities.

I never would have thought that in my lifetime’s commitment to working for and witnessing progressive changes in the status of women in the U.S.A., that so much could so quickly be dismantled and annihilated. We still had a long way to go but had made many great strides.

Reporting from a troubled place, I continue to work and advocate for ​all​ women and our rightful equal place in the world! We will not cease in our efforts to uphold women’s rights as human rights… and as a priority for humans everywhere on this planet.

Submitted by Corinne Rovetti FNP, APRN-BC Co-Director at Knoxville Center for Reproductive Health

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‘Feminism and Trauma Theology’ project

by Katie Cross on

To live in 2018 is to live in a ‘moment’ for feminist issues. Late last year, the #MeToo movement, originally founded by African-American civil rights activist Tarana Burke, became a viral hashtag when co-opted for use following the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. Through #MeToo, women from various industries, careers, perspectives and social backgrounds began to share their stories of trauma relating to sexual harassment or assault.

What has happened since has been unprecedented. The realisation that we do not live in an equal, post-feminist society has become inescapable. Slowly, it is being realised (albeit not without some resistance) that violence against women is, tragically, a far more pervasive and ordinary occurrence than ever understood.

The #MeToo hashtag is not the only social movement in which women’s trauma is being voiced. Say Her Name seeks to raise awareness for black female victims of police brutality and anti-black violence in the United States. There are ongoing protests by Sisters Uncut, who protest the cutting of services for women and gender-variant domestic violence victims in the UK.

Recently, the Repeal the 8th Campaign has taken place in Ireland, and we have heard stories of suffering related to oppressive reproductive legislation. Movements such as the Dahlia Project seek to care for women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM). Everyday Sexism is an intersectional online project, documenting experiences of sexism, harassment and assault.

In these movements, and in this wider moment, there is a turning point. The normalisation of systemic violence against women is being denounced. Those who have committed violent acts are being exposed and shamed in public view. In ways big and small, in politics and in pop culture, the violence women have experienced as a result of power imbalances is being acknowledged. Now, more than ever, a new story is beginning to take shape – one in which women’s experiences of trauma are being articulated in their own voices, and in their own time.

It is because we are on the opening pages of this new story that Karen O’Donnell of Durham University and I (Katie Cross, University of Aberdeen) find it so important to give voice to the many varied experiences of suffering that women face. As such, we are in the process of putting together an edited volume on feminism and trauma theology. The area of trauma theology highlights the ways in which studies in trauma have impacted and reshaped the central questions of the Christian faith. Some notable works in this area include those by Shelly Rambo, Serene Jones, Stephanie Arel, Musa W.Dube and Jennifer Beste.

Notably, all of these thinkers have either been informed by feminist theology, or are overtly feminist in their approaches to the study of trauma. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that the issues surrounding trauma are similar to, and intimately connected with, feminist issues – those concerning power in both individual and societal contexts, control over the body and bodily integrity, and the narration of experience as liberative. Even so, trauma theology remains a small and underrepresented area.

We hope that our collection will provide a space in which to voice women’s experiences of suffering, abuse, and trauma from the perspectives of feminism and theology, and that it will speak to the new and unfolding context we find ourselves in.

If you are interested in contributing to the volume and being a part of this project, you can find information about our call for contributions on our website: https://feminismtraumatheologies.wordpress.com. The deadline for abstracts (of 250 words) is 7th September 2018, and these should be emailed to [email protected]. Karen and I are also happy to answer any questions or queries about potential pieces of writing. We look forward to hearing from you!

Author bio:

Dr Katie Cross is a newly-appointed teaching fellow in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Her doctoral work examined trauma and suffering through the lens of the Sunday Assembly’s ‘godless congregations’ in London and Edinburgh.

You can find her on Twitter at @drkatiecross.

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