Gender Studies

16 Days of Activism – Day 13: Sofia Rehman

by Johanna Stiebert on December 7, 2017

On Day 13 of the 16 Days of Activism campaign we speak to Sofia Rehman, PhD student at the University of Leeds and activist.

Tell us about yourself: who are you and what do you do?
My name is Sofia Rehman and I am a second year PhD candidate at the University of Leeds. My research allows me the pleasure of being supervised in the Theology department as well as the Arabic, Islamic and Middle Eastern department. My current research centers around a 12th Century Islamic text by Imam Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi entitled al-Ijāba li-Īrādi mā Istadrakathu cĀ’isha cala al Sahāba – The Corrective: Aisha’s Refutations of the Companions, in which the statements of Aisha, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad, are collected wherein she is found to be correcting, refuting, or outright disqualifying statements made by invariably male Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, on matters pertinent to the understanding and practice of religion by Muslims. I am working on a translation and feminist study of the original text.

What’s your involvement with gender activism? Does your work intersect with gender activism? How?
Before returning to academia, I spent a number of years teaching within my local Muslim community, either in local mosques, or in my own home. This made me privy to many of the issues Muslim women face, and the ways in which both patriarchal interpretations of the religion within the community and gendered Islamophobia from outside the community oftentimes leave Muslim women doubly violated and doubly silenced. I had already studied in Islamic seminaries and received traditional instruction in Islam, so in 2014 I decided to return to academia and embarked on my Masters in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Leeds, and continued on to do my PhD thereafter. Whilst I had entered academia with the aim of expanding my own understanding of gender and religion, with particular emphasis on Islam, I was also invested in contributing to the effort of unreading patriarchal interpretations of its texts, more specifically the hadith tradition which purports to transmit the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad.

It is central to my outlook on research that my work be not only academically rigorous, but also of service and benefit to the Muslim community, most particularly the women. In pursuit of this then, I was able to secure some funding as Impact Fellow (2015) in the Theology and Religious Studies department, which I used to deliver a series of three workshops through the Muslim Women’s Council to a group of local Muslim women from Bradford. Each session spotlighted a different Muslim woman, one of which was Aisha, for whom I presented findings directly related to my research. We were able to discuss the importance of historicizing and contextualizing Prophetic statements, and the importance of being at liberty to question the veracity of such statements. It was thoroughly rewarding to witness the electric atmosphere of women feeling empowered through their faith tradition.

Additionally, I have recently been asked to take part as a contributor to an upcoming anthology, Cut From the Same Cloth, with Unbound Publishers, which recently enjoyed a flurry of attention when Hollywood actor, Riz Ahmed tweeted about the project. The aim is to platform 15 British Muslim women from a range of backgrounds to write on their experiences. This is an opportunity to allow Muslim women the chance to speak for themselves instead of being spoken over and about; to not be tokenized in a campaign aiming to tick a diversity box, weaponized in anti-terror political rhetoric, or utilized to the satisfaction of someone’s saviour complex. More can be learned about the project here.

How does or could The Shiloh Project relate to your work and activism?
I was made aware of the Shiloh Project through Johanna Stiebert. While the primary focus of the project is the Bible and interpretations of it, I can see how many of the efforts can inform my own work on Islamic texts, and showcase approaches that can be transferred too. Understanding that religion plays its own role in the rape culture inherent to the society in which we exist, allows for a more effective dismantling of this culture through the deconstruction of its component parts. The interrogation of narratives constructed around religious texts that allow for gender-based violence to be perpetrated, is vital in not only providing thought-provoking, insightful academic contributions but also in facilitating grassroots changes and actively impacting on people’s lives.

16 Days of Activism – Day 7: Mmapula D. Kebaneilwe

by Mmapula Kebaneilwe on December 1, 2017

Today is World Aids Day and our gender activist on Day 7 of 16 Days of Activism is Dr Mmapula Kebaneilwe, Senior Lecturer in Hebrew and Hebrew Bible at the University of Botswana. Botswana has one of the highest rates of HIV and Aids in the world. Botswana is also a country with a strong national commitment in responding to this health crisis: notably, being the first country in the region to provide universal free antiretroviral treatment to people living with HIV.

Mmapula is a womanist activist and has published on how the Bible can offer paradigms for women’s resistance in the face of vulnerability to HIV infection and to Aids. Here is her article on the character of Vashti from the book of Esther.

Tell us about yourself: who are you and what do you do?

I am Dr Mmapula Diana Kebaneilwe, Senior Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Botswana. I am a womanist scholar and my research and activist interests centre on women’s rights and experiences.

What’s your involvement with gender activism? Does your work intersect with gender activism? How?

I am involved in gender activism through my research and publications. I have keen interest in all issues that involve the welfare of women and girls in my society. My PhD thesis was on the Woman of Courage in Proverbs 31 and I read this poem for and within the patriarchal culture of Botswana, which has seen women suffocate in many ways. My conclusion is that men and women are created equal but that there remains an urgent need to reflect this equality – especially in our Botswana culture(s) that have long mistreated and that continue to relegate women and girls to the margins, to everyone’s detriment. My research has shown that in my context women and girls continue to experience multiple ills that are perpetuated by gender inequality. As part of this, our women and girls experience horrendous acts of gender-based violence – such as rape and murder – which are so rampant in Botswana.

How does or could The Shiloh Project relate to your work and activism?

I believe that The Shiloh Project will create a platform, which will allow me to carry forward my research on the issues mentioned above. As a scholar of the Bible the project will allow me to explore further, through research on gender issues, the ways in which rape culture and religion intersect in my own context. I hope to be able to get involved in my communities here in Botswana and to find out about the ways rape culture manifests and how religion both contributes to rape culture and how indeed religion might also be used to curb it.

The issue of rape culture in Botswana is one that causes me considerable concern as women and girls get beaten, raped and killed (predominantly by male perpetrators) every single day. I hope with The Shiloh Project I will have the chance to do more and to contribute to effective changes in gender policy in Botswana.

How are you going to get active to resist gender-based violence and inequality?

I am going to get active to resist gender-based violence by doing further research on the issue and disseminating the findings of my research, so as to reach the wider community. I intend to work closely with communities in order to learn more from real people’s lived experiences of gender-based violence and also to explore critically laws and policies on the same. My aim is to be able to influence policy makers to better the lives of primarily Botswana women and girls through creating legal channels aimed at the protection of our female population. At present such polies seem lax.

16 Days of Activism – Day 6: Emma Nagouse

by Emma Nagouse on November 30, 2017

On Day 6 of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign, we speak to Emma Nagouse, PhD student in the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS).

Tell us about yourself…who are you and what do you do?

I’m Emma Nagouse and I am a PhD candidate in SIIBS (supervised by Katie Edwards and Johanna Stiebert) where I research the Bible and rape culture. I’m involved in local feminist activism, particularly as co-organiser of the Sheffield Feminist Archive and a Branch Officer for Sheffield UCU. Before joining SIIBS I worked in HE and studied Archaeology where I specialised in the archaeology of religious violence.

What’s your involvement with The Shiloh Project?

I have been a member of The Shiloh Project since its inception at a research day in Leeds and I am a contributor to The Shiloh Project blog.

How does The Shiloh Project relate to your work?

My research focuses on how biblical and contemporary intersectional gender presentation (with a focus on class identity) facilitates rape and disbelief culture through reaffirming oppressive stereotypes and informing perceptions of rape gradations. I am focusing on the rapes of Dinah, Bathsheba and Tamar.

I have also authored a chapter for an upcoming volume on religion and rape culture edited by Katie Edwards, Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan. In this piece of work I read Lamentations 3 alongside the best-selling novel and widely acclaimed TV series Outlander to suggest that the Man’s suffering in Lamentations 3 can be read as an expression of the trauma of rape. A (very) abbreviated version of this chapter can be found here.

I returned to University as a PGR student after working in various professional roles in HE. I was particularly influenced by my time working for Sheffield’s Widening Participation Research and Evaluation team – a task that really impacted me was working on a literature review about the experiences of care leavers in HE. I was deeply moved and troubled by what I read and, coupled with roles working for Sheffield Students’ Union, trade unions and the Sheffield Feminist Archive, I knew that if I was to return to HE as a student researcher, it would also be as an activist.

I feel very privileged to be able to focus my working life on interrogating rape culture, which I believe to be one of the most urgent and insidious social justice and public health issues facing contemporary society.

How do you think The Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to discussion about gender activism today?

The work of the Shiloh Project has much to add to wider scholarship around rape culture, particularly in terms of interrogating underpinning values which provide a scaffold to normalised misogyny. After all, biblical motifs are still regularly appealed to in public discussions around sex, gender and, inevitably, sexual violence. Whether we’re talking about Mary’s virgin birth, the temptation of Eve, Jezebels…

What is particularly exciting about this project, as mentioned by Katie in a previous post, is the breadth of expertise involved from both faith, non-faith, and international perspectives.

What’s next for your work with The Shiloh Project?

As the news cycle is constantly exploding with reports on sexual violence I’m pretty sure that this will be a very busy year for The Shiloh Project. I am currently very interested in the phenomenon of revenge porn (particularly after the experiences of Blac Chyna made waves online) and how this relates to wider rape culture – I’m working on a piece of research exploring revenge porn alongside enforced bodily exposure in the prophetic texts.

I’m also applying for funding for a project with the feminist poetry collective Verse Matters and an artist from the University of Brighton for a collaborative project creating poems and a piece of sculpture relating to abused biblical women. I took great inspiration from Caroline Blyth’s research on the silencing of raped women and a talk by Cheryl Exum on the potential of art to grant access to the perspectives of biblical women.

Of course, immersing yourself in this kind of research can be quite challenging – beginning to come to terms with the sheer scope of the problem and being given an insight into the experiences of those who have suffered dreadful abuses can be (at least for me) dizzyingly infuriating, painful and emotionally draining. It can also cause you to reevaluate experiences in your own life. For this reason, I’ve collaborated with wonderful colleagues in Research Services (Dr Kay Guccione and Sarah Bell) to set up a network for researchers who engage in traumatic or sensitive topics.

Having said that, I’ve previously spent a lot of my time as a student not feeling like I had much (or any) capacity to work towards change in areas which were important to me. Undertaking this work alongside such inspiring scholars and activists is truly galvanising.

On Vulnerability and Victims: Does #MeToo perpetuate rape culture?

by Deborah Casewell on November 30, 2017

Deborah Casewell is Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at Liverpool Hope University. Deborah graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a PhD in Systematic Theology, and previously taught in Systematic and Philosophical Theology at King’s College London. Her current research is on developing theological and philosophical accounts of vulnerability, through post-war German theology in conjunction with contemporary feminist philosophy. This is done in dialogue with a retrieval of Christian asceticism as a response to our embodied, vulnerable existence. Deborah is also researching how nothingness is a source of modern selfhood in modern philosophy and theology.

The following post is an opinion piece. The Shiloh Project’s leads and participants hold a range of views on and responses to #MeToo and this post (like some other Shiloh blog posts) offers one such view in what we hope will be an ongoing conversation. We invite constructive comments, as well as responses to this and all our posts. Please write to: [email protected] – or any one of the Project’s directors.

On Vulnerability and Victims: Does #MeToo perpetuate rape culture?

At the beginning of October 2017, both The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles reporting allegations of sexual misconduct spanning many years committed by film mogul Harvey Weinstein against several women. In the wake of responses to Weinstein’s particularly egregious and long-running sexual abuse and harassment, actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet, that ‘if all women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote “Me too” as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem’, echoes a phrase introduced long ago by activist Tarana Burke.

#MeToo is not the first of its kind. It harks back to the #YesAllWomen movement of 2014 in response to the motives surrounding the Isla Vista killings, where even if not all men (#NotAllMen) were misogynist, the hashtag claims that #YesAllWomen suffer from misogyny.

The circumstances that gave rise to this hashtag (#MeToo) persist. Unlike previous hashtags, there appears to be, in the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and its knock-on effect in Hollywood and beyond (e.g in politics in the US), increased attention to and acceptance of accusations of sexual assault and harassment. Despite those successes and despite the feeling of solidarity that many report in response to the increased visibility resulting from the MeToo hashtag, there have also been expressions of misgivings, doubt and criticism towards the campaign. The reasons are various: for some the barrage of MeToos triggers trauma, for others it is simply not enough. And whilst the campaign does give greater visibility to the widespread problem of sexual abuse and the culture that promotes it, it flattens them, like the women of Shiloh, into nameless victims and views them only in relation to the men who have acted upon them.

As someone reluctant to participate in #MeToo, yet glad of the openness and the seeming shift in culture, I am intrigued by my own discomfort, part personal, part professional. I work on articulating philosophical and theological accounts of vulnerability and the culture that gives rise to the silence around and acceptance of sexual abuse, as well as the belittling and covering up of incidents of harassment and sexual exploitation, strike me as indicative of failures to attend to widespread vulnerability. Furthermore, this perpetuation and acceptance of violence against vulnerable persons signify for me an especial failure to recognise first, vulnerability and secondly, responsibility towards vulnerable persons.

Despite how the campaign alerts us to the widespread nature of harm in our culture, it too perpetuates a view of women who are defined by how they are acted upon. And, in the process, this demands that they do so for a higher cause, as noted by recent cartoons, captioned ‘I’m Tired of Performing Trauma’.

At the heart of these images is the critique that what the #MeToo campaign has done is to call on the many to abstract away their experiences into a whole, and to place responsibility on victims to step forward. The artists express feelings of re-victimisation, and of another hashtag, another call, but still no real change. The re-victimisation also perpetuates a view of womanhood where a woman is acted on, rather than focusing on what people must do to prevent this behaviour, and change the culture that permits this behaviour: this is part of the responsibility that we all need to have towards each other.

Aside from insisting that women perform the emotional labour by participating in #MeToo, the hashtag has shown the limitations of the culture in which we live, especially in the public sphere. A way in which this can be shown in is the very origin of the hashtag itself. I noted above that Tarana Burke was the originator of the phrase ‘me too’. Burke is an activist and writer who started a movement and several organisations to empower and support women of colour and to aid sexual assault survivors in communities where there was no other support. She started the movement in 2006, following her inability to respond to a teenage girl who had been sexually abused. Burke wished she had been able to say to the girl, ‘me too’, and, as her campaign puts it, enable empowerment through empathy. The ‘Me Too’-movement has been around for more than a decade, but through all the previous hashtags, has never received the attention it receives now until promoted by a white actor and activist.

This is noted, for instance, by Alana Valens (here) and Zahara Hill (here), who both focus on how the #MeToo movement was largely co-opted, usually with little or no mention of its roots. These articles also mention a further point of contention. A boycott of Twitter was called for in response to Twitter temporarily banning the account of the actor Rose McGowan, who has been most vocal against Weinstein. Yet this sudden action in favour of a white actor again emphasised for these authors, the lack of attention to and solidarity with women of colour on Twitter, as Ashley C. Ford details here. Whilst understanding the reasons why the boycott happened, Ford argues that it is short-sighted. The call to boycott Twitter is symptomatic, Ford argues, of a grand action over choosing to understand and organise, writing that ‘even if the Twitter boycott is successful by some measure, it will also ultimately be a missed opportunity to stand together as women, our differences on display, bound in a unity we’ve yet to see so far’.

As I see it, this dichotomy of grand gesture over specific action applies to #MeToo as well. In Tarana Burke’s original rallying call the movement was not meant to be simply a show of solidarity, or something to show men and the world the magnitude of the problem. For Burke the first step to changing a toxic culture and its structures is empathy, and for her ‘me too’ seeks to express this. Now, too, Burke is calling for an acknowledgment of the humanity and personal story behind each ‘me too’, as a first step towards positive change.

The abstraction of the distinctiveness and purposefulness of the original campaign into something very widespread but for me ultimately purposeless (because the focus is less on empathy and more on displaying the widespread nature of sexual assault and harassment, which is hardly new knowledge) echoes the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s critique of the public, which he calls ‘levelling’, in the way it abstracts ‘me too’ from a campaign for and by women of colour into a statement on womanhood as a whole.

My invocation of Kierkegaard – a solitary, difficult Danish thinker, living in Copenhagen in the nineteenth century and famed for his individualistic existentialist philosophy and pseudonymous writings – rather than someone like womanist, activist and influential contemporary writer Audre Lorde, for example, might be surprising. However, considering the public nature of the hashtag, and with his focus on the individual and the different, Kierkegaard’s concerns over talk in the public sphere provide a useful framework for a critique of #MeToo.

In his essay The Present Age Kierkegaard warns against levelling: that is, the practice of reducing all differences to the same level and of speaking about them as one. This is not for him about merging the individual with the group or a kind of conformity of the masses, but a process that ‘destroys everything that is relative, concrete and particular in life’.[1]

Levelling involves detachment from local practices, in which specific issues grow and can be resolved through some committed action. The levelled public sphere, for Kierkegaard, is one where opinions can be shared without any responsibility being taken, or repercussions being experienced. Furthermore, as these opinions occur in the abstract, the solutions also remain abstract, rather than committing people involved on a local and directly engaged level. Kierkegaard notes that ‘what … the speakers at a meeting understand perfectly presented to them as a thought or an observation, they cannot understand at all in the form of action’.[2] As the critiques I have linked to above show, I am not the only one who has observed this being a risk with the hashtag as well.

Levelling has the effect that information can be shared and held without anyone having to act on it or be required to change their behaviour. For Kierkegaard, this tends to focus on opinions – one could opine on a subject without any relation to it or any intention actually to act on that opinion – and, as I see it, the parallels with #MeToo are striking.

In its abstracted, universal form, #MeToo entails no possibility of decision of action, but just perspective and critical commentary (the irony is not lost on me). Kierkegaard’s response to this malaise in his own present age is to plunge into action with passion. Hence, he writes:

There is no more action or decision in our day than there is perilous delight in swimming in shallow waters. But just as a grown-up, struggling delightedly in the waves, calls to those younger than himself: ‘Come on, jump in quickly’ – the decision in existence … calls out…. Come on, leap cheerfully, even if it means a lighthearted leap, so long as it is decisive.[3]

Talk, even if it raises awareness or brings something into the public sphere, is meaningless without decision and action. There is also the risk that #MeToo, even in raising awareness of the magnitude of the problem, perpetuates a view of women as ontologically ever-victim, and never moves us beyond that. To that end, #MeToo has prompted hashtags that hint at this, such as #HowIWillChange. But unless those words are followed through on, they remain an opinion in the public sphere, disassociated and abstracted. And, as Alana Massey notes, the instinct when faced with #MeToo has been to apologise and seek absolution.

Massey does not take solace in #MeToo. For her it is too late, too inadequate, and too much on her to apologise and forgive, to absolve men of crime and responsibility. #MeToo cries out that all women have been subjected to violence, all women are victims. One response to finding this inadequate, as this piece puts it, is to return to the particular spaces and work outwards from there.

That follows the established pattern of advocacy for change in the culture. Another approach is the French #BalanceTonPorc, or ‘expose your pig’, which instead of emphasising victimhood puts the responsibility on perpetrators. Yet I believe that recent philosophical and ethical work could contribute to a way of changing the culture without making so many demands on the marginalised group. Arguing that vulnerability is universal, constant, and inherent in the human condition, can provide a foundation for ways forward.

Several feminist thinkers have considered philosophical accounts of vulnerability. This is in part due to philosophy’s elevation of supposed masculine traits, such as being invulnerable, rational, unfeeling, or independent, in contrast to a view of women as vulnerable, emotional, embodied, and dependent. Ethics of vulnerability challenge such presumptions in the history of philosophy and argue that we need to think and consider the vulnerable subject: all are subject to harm, all are fragile, dependent on others, and capable of acting on the vulnerability of others.[4] This must not be taken as acceptance of wrongs done because they are just part of the way things are. The ethics of vulnerability involve care and attention to others, because we ourselves need care and attention. Ideally, the victim cannot be blamed because the victim is not responsible – the perpetrator is, for abusing their responsibility towards the vulnerable other. It also accounts for shifts in power, where everyone is, ideally, aware that they are both vulnerable and able to harm others.

One account of this is by the US philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler, famous for her accounts of gender as performance and for her recent work on ethics of care. In Precarious Life, written in the wake of 9/11 and the devastation it brought to the US, Butler sees that the experience of vulnerability, of being injured, hurt, or mourning, entails that we are fundamentally dependent on anonymous others. Whilst reluctant to speak of a generic, universal human condition, she notes that as loss happens to everyone, it has ‘made a tenuous “we” of us all’.[5] This experience of vulnerability is an experience of our embodiment, in part as ‘the body implies mortality, vulnerability, agency: the skin and the flesh expose us to the gaze of others, but also to touch, and to violence, and bodies put us at risk of becoming the agency and instrument of all these as well. Although we struggle for rights over our own bodies, the very bodies for which we struggle are not quite ever only our own’.[6]

Butler’s point here is pertinent in terms of how to proceed from the hashtag back into the roots of the movement. #MeToo has, like the hashtags that preceded it, been a good way to raise awareness, but it risks leaving women there. Even as I am glad that there is now this increased awareness, #MeToo, for me, enables and risks an unhelpful levelling of those who participate in it. I see that it does this on a number of levels, and I worry that #MeToo has perpetuated rape culture through this levelling, by making participants, like the women of Shiloh, indistinguishable victims, only known in relation to the misdeeds of men.

I worry that #MeToo levels all incidents of harassment and abuse – with verbal harassment, for instance, levelled with violent assault – and in doing so, it abstracts. This second level, the abstraction, removes the situated, personal experience of the individual and subsumes into a whole, into another instance of a hashtag. Whilst this critical mass has some power, it is overwhelming, as noted by those uncomfortable with not only reliving their trauma but seeing it become another drop in the ocean. My other concern is that it leaves participants in #MeToo hanging: that they have exposed themselves, made themselves vulnerable, torn open the curtain on the huge abuse of power and a profound neglect of those harassed and abused, but provides no way forward from there.

I readily acknowledge that the hashtag has been helpful in providing a means of talking about shared vulnerability and to raise the question of how to work with that so that culture changes for the better. Yet there is the risk that, like with the previous hashtags before that have insisted that women share their trauma, no cultural change will occur. Whilst there has been action, that action reveals the continued limits of the culture. Action from the perpetrators has often taken the form of belated acknowledgement, resignations from people seen to be expendable (for example, compare Netflix’s rapid dropping of Kevin Spacey whilst Danny Masterson, under investigation for rape since March 2017, remains employed on their show The Ranch), and apologies or denials sufficing for those who have enough goodwill to continue in their current roles (see the reaction to the cases of George Takei, Al Franken, and Roy Moore). In a number of cases the impetus has fizzled out, as it has in UK politics. The culture is still not strong enough to affect Donald Trump, and I thus worry that despite all the bandwidth that #MeToo has expended, it continues to place the responsibility for changing the culture, advocating for change in the culture, and maintaining interest in the cause, on the victims.

What action can then be taken? If the internet takes us out of the local sphere, perhaps a move away from the public sphere to the local sphere is a step towards an adequate response. A way of enacting and working around vulnerability can be gained from the source of the phrase ‘me too’. Tarana Burke, after recognising her own failure of responsibility to a young girl who confided in her about sexual abuse, founded Just Be Inc, a youth organisation that runs programmes focused on empowering particularly young women of colour. Burke continues her work in the role of Senior Director of Programs for Girls for Gender Equity. Whilst her organisation may not have the reach that the hashtag has had, Burke, beginning with empathy and awareness-raising, moved on to active programmes of victim empowerment. She also determined that this had to happen on the local level, by going directly into communities and working there.

There are indeed signs that the conversation is moving beyond #MeToo, and beyond the reach of the previous hashtags. A recent piece in The New York Times gives examples of those advocating in specific, marginalised situations and says to go beyond the headlines, beyond those who are famous and who can be called out publicly, to support those who do not have a platform, or voice. #MeToo should not be the last word, and my worry is that in taking solace in it, action ends there, and the culture remains fundamentally unchanged. The focus must continue, and on ways forward that can prevent #MeToo happening again.

[1] Soren Kierkegaard, The Present Age, trans. Alexander Dru (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 62.

[2] Kierkegaard, The Present Age, 39.

[3] Kierkegaard, The Present Age, 36-7.

[4] The work of Virginia Held is hugely important here: see Virginia Held, Feminist Morality : Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1993) and The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global (Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

[5] Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London/NY: Verso, 2004, p.20.

[6] Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, London/NY: Verso, 2004, p.26.

16 Days of Activism – Day 5: Zanne Domoney-Lyttle

by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle on November 29, 2017

We speak to Zanne Domoney-Lyttle to mark Day 5 of the 16 Days of Activism.

Tell us about yourself…who are you and what do you do?

I’m Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, and I am a Biblical Studies tutor (Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew language) at the University of Glasgow.

What’s your involvement with The Shiloh Project?

Other than admiring the work of The Shiloh Project from afar, I am a member of the Project, contributing to the blog posts. I hope to become more involved as the Project develops.

How does The Shiloh Project relate to your work?

My PhD research focuses on remediations of Genesis in comic books. One of the things that kept coming to the fore throughout my research was the representation of women in the text, especially in relation to motherhood and the use and abuse of women’s bodies as ways of fulfilling the expectations/needs of the patriarchs. Since submitting my thesis, my work has moved away from looking into the text, and towards looking at how reading these problematic texts of the use and abuse of women’s bodies shapes and informs our attitudes towards women and – on a larger scale – gender, today.

My next research project is concerned with appropriation and reappropriation of the Hebrew Bible in marginalised communities – ways that we can read the text which either give a voice to, or which further silence women in subcultural “underground” communities like punks, underground comix and graffiti art, for example.

The Shiloh Project is already highlighting work done in these fields – but more than that, it is a community which encourages and explores the problem of rape culture and religion from new perspectives too. It is an important resource to me, not just in terms of finding out information, but in connecting me to other people who can help shape and define what I’m interested in. In the world of academia, and especially in something like Biblical Studies which is traditionally white, male and class-driven, it’s exciting to see such relevant work being done by people of colour, women, feminists and so on.

How do you think The Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to discussion about gender activism today?

There are many ways The Shiloh Project adds to discussions about gender activism, many of which I’ve highlighted above – the building of communities which challenge traditional discourse in this area, the encouragement that there are other people who feel like I do. Most importantly for me though, is that the existence of the Project is a space to challenge assumptions and ignorance. For example, the Bible is often used to authorise or legitimise certain behaviours, mostly because people are happy to pick and choose bits of biblical text to support an idea without looking at the wider context or implications both within the text itself, and as a result of reading the text. Challenging these assumptions or even encouraging different interpretations of the Bible is so important – now more than ever – and for me, I have the space to do this within the scope of The Shiloh Project.

What’s next for your work with The Shiloh Project?

I have a few more ideas in mind in terms of contributing blog posts to the Project over the next year, and I’m really looking forward to meeting other members in April 2018, where I can learn more about what the project wants to achieve and how I can fit into those aims. Most of all though, I’m going to continue admiring it from afar and sharing the work that the Project has been doing with as many people as I can.

16 Days of Activism – Day 3: Caroline Blyth

by Caroline Blyth on November 27, 2017

Our third interview to mark the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence is from co-director Caroline Blyth, senior lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Auckland.

Tell us about yourself…who are you and what do you do?

I’m a lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Auckland, and also participate in the Gender Studies programme there too. My teaching reflects my research to a great extent, and I focus on religion in popular culture, with a particular interest in issues of religion, gender and sexuality – how do religious communities and traditions impact socio-cultural perceptions of gender and sexuality? I also co-organize a student engagement project in the Faculty of Arts, which is called Hidden Perspectives: Bringing the Arts Out of the Closet. It’s a project inspired by the original Hidden Perspectives project developed by the fabulous folks at Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield. With Hidden Perspectives Auckland, we have created an inclusive academic and social community for queer students at the University, where they can get involved in queering the Arts and making their voices heard.

What’s your involvement with The Shiloh Project?

As Katie and Johanna have explained in their own interviews, the Shiloh Project is something Katie and I had spoken about starting quite a while ago, but we were able to push ideas into practice when we met up with the indomitable Johanna and some other wonderful colleagues (Emma Nagouse, Valerie Hobbs, and Jessica Keady) last year at a meeting in Leeds. So along with Katie and Johanna, I help run the Shiloh Project, and I couldn’t be prouder to be part of such an important project, or to work with such wonderful colleagues.

How does The Shiloh Project relate to your work?

A lot of my work to date has focused on gender violence in sacred texts, particularly the ways that biblical depictions of gender violence can echo the still very prevalent myths and misperceptions around gender violence that sustain contemporary rape cultures. When I started my PhD thesis on the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34) back in 2005, I fully expected to be discussing the ways that social attitudes towards sexual violence had ‘moved on’ and become far more informed compared to biblical discourses of rape. But alas, I soon discovered this was not the case. And what frustrates me is that so many of the biblical traditions that do present really problematic ideologies around gender and gender violence are either ignored or excused by both religious communities and academic biblical scholars – as though their ‘sacred’ status rendered them beyond our critique. But, given how powerful the Bible remains as a religious and cultural text in global contemporary cultures, its problematic texts and traditions (which appear to endorse rape-supportive ideologies) urgently need to be addressed and discussed in both academic and wider public forums. Because these texts do still play a role in the world today, shaping popular perceptions about gender violence and granting validity to some really damaging discourses around rape and rape culture.

How do you think The Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to discussions about gender activism today?

I think that a massive strength of the Shiloh Project is that it rescues religious studies and biblical studies from the confines of the academy and offers academics, students, and interested members of the public an accessible (but still academically-rigorous) platform to talk openly and engagingly about a topic that remains so taboo. It’s not doing work that only a handful of like-minded academics can understand, but is really motivated to widening the discussion and fostering a sense of community and activism in which people both inside and outside the academy can participate. I think this is both vital for the future health of religious studies as an academic discipline, but also crucial to every academic’s role as critic and conscience of society and their responsibility is to make a difference – in my case, by tackling gender violence and encouraging activism that will make the world a safer and more inclusive place.

What’s next for your work with The Shiloh Project?

I have two future projects in mind at the moment. I’m hoping to work with my colleague in Auckland, Emily Colgan (a fellow Project Shiloh member), on the problematic depictions of gender roles and relationships in conservative Christian literature, particularly ‘self-help’ literature and fiction. This is an incredibly popular and prolific genre, and what I’ve come across has fascinated (and appalled) me as to its re-inscription of traditional gender roles, as well as its perpetuation of some very common rape-supportive discourses.

I’m also currently focusing on a slightly different strand of gender violence, and that is the symbolic and structural violence of transphobia sustained by religious rhetoric (particularly conservative Christian rhetoric). There’s been a huge flurry of concern among conservative Christian communities around, what they term, the ‘transgender debate’. To my mind, this ‘debate’ essentially denies the existence of authentic trans identities and works to exclude trans people from the human community. Some of the discourses evoked in these discussions are really toxic, and play a significant role in perpetuating or validating the alarmingly high rates of transphobic violence that trans people have to live with on a daily basis. I’m wanting to interrogate this ‘transgender debate’ and highlight its potential for sustaining violence, not to mention its problematic engagements with sacred texts, theologies, and traditions. I hope too that my work can inspire some timely and urgent dialogues of reconciliation between queer and religious communities. A tall order, but I’m intent on gradually chipping away at the homophobic and transphobic edifices that remain so prevalent in many religious communities today.

16 Days of Activism – Day 2: Katie Edwards

by Katie Edwards on November 26, 2017

On Day 2 of 16 Days of Activism we interview project co-director, Katie Edwards.

Tell us about yourself…who are you and what do you do?

I’m Katie Edwards and I’m a Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Sheffield Institute of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS).

What’s your involvement with The Shiloh Project?

I co-direct the project with my friends and colleagues Caroline Blyth (University of Auckland) and Johanna Stiebert (University of Leeds). Caroline and I had talked for a while about developing a project or network around the Bible and sexual violence but our ideas didn’t take shape until we raised them with Johanna and other fabulous academics at a research day at Leeds and there The Shiloh Project was born.

How does The Shiloh Project relate to your work?

I’m grateful every day for my job. It pays the bills. It gives me a voice and a platform – both extremely precious things – and there are few jobs that support you to develop and disseminate your ideas. For example, Johanna and I are funded to work with really brilliant colleagues and collaborators in Botswana and Lesotho next year, after receiving funding to visit the Universities of Botswana and KwaZulu-Natal earlier this year. I’m keenly aware of the opportunities, status and privilege I have because of my job. Nevertheless, academia can, in pockets, be a competitive and unkind world and it’s not immune from the structural issues that affect the rest of society. Universities continue to struggle with serious problems of institutional racism, sexism, ableism and classism, despite public-facing diversity narratives. Before I started work in Higher Education I imagined that universities were a different, nobler space, less affected by inequalities and therefore harassment, sexual assault and bullying than other places of work. I was, of course, naive. Universities and academia remain highly protective of hierarchies, and we’re slow, and sometimes unwilling, to respond to clear inequalities in gender, race, class and disabilities in our institutions. This is a context, then, that helps to maintain a culture prone to harassment and bullying of junior colleagues, in particular. The Shiloh Project is in part, as well as being a shared area of research, a response to the culture of tolerance around harassment and bullying in HE that helps to support and perpetuate it. The vast majority of women have experienced sexual harassment at work and I’m no different. From my first full-time job working at a brewery at the age of 18 when the middle-aged ‘Business Development Managers’ took bets to see which one could get me to have sex and return with evidence, to my first permanent job in a university when a senior male colleague took photos of me with his mobile phone from across the table while I was trying to tell him about my research priorities for the next year. After a few further similar episodes with the senior male colleague, and with little support or guidance from colleagues who knew what was happening, I approached a very senior female colleague in the same institution to ask her advice. As a new member of staff on a probationary contract, in a precarious personal financial situation, I was scared for my and my family’s livelihood. The senior prof told me to never report sexual harassment because it would follow me for life but it was highly unlikely to impact the perpetrator. Her advice was that I should be ‘more charming’ to my then line-manager. Like everywhere else, academia can be isolating, especially when you’re facing harassment and bullying from people in positions of power. In light of our various experiences, the directors and members of The Shiloh Project wanted to create a supportive and inclusive research community and be visible, vocal and united in our stance against sexual violence, assault, harassment and bullying.

How do you think The Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to discussion about gender activism today?

Johanna’s absolutely right that religion is often absent from discussions around gender activism and we aim to address that gap. The Shiloh Project has a range of expertise from Meredith Warren’s work on sexual violence in the Classics and the New Testament to Valerie Hobbs’ research into rape culture in church communities and I think we can make an important contribution to existing and future discussions around activism against gender-based violence.

What’s next for your work with The Shiloh Project?

Next year is a busy one! Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan and I have a series of three edited volumes on religion and rape culture coming out with Palgrave Macmillan. Johanna and I will be developing our research project in Botswana and Lesotho and there’ll be a Radio 4 programme connected to our work on The Shiloh Project. I’m also working on a book looking at constructions of whiteness, purity and female sexuality and how these contribute to rape culture. I’m just really delighted to be part of this project and to work with such a fantastic group of people. My work, and friendship, with Johanna and Caroline gives me energy and motivates me to be bolder, more confident and more honest in my research. Something that took me a long time to come to – I spent much of the first few years of my time in academia feeling quite scared and wary of the culture I saw around me and my voice within it. I’m grateful to this project and to colleagues such as J. Cheryl Exum (University of Sheffield), Adriaan van Klinken (University of Leeds), Deryn Guest (University of Birmingham), Valerie Hobbs (University of Sheffield), Vanita Sundaram (University of York), Dawn Llewelyn (University of Chester), Rachel van Duyvenbode (University of Sheffield), Emma Tomalin (University of Leeds), Richard Newton (Elizabethtown College) and Musa Dube (University of Botswana) whose work and activism inspires me every day.

The Daughter and the Concubine from the Nineteenth Chapter of Judges Consider and Speak Their Minds, Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon

by Johanna Stiebert on November 22, 2017

The following dual-voiced poem by Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon is based on the brutal story found in the Bible in Judges 19.

Background: The Biblical Text

Aptly called a ‘text of terror’ by feminist biblical interpreter Phyllis Trible, this chapter tells of an unnamed Levite (that is, someone of the tribe of Levi from which the hereditary priests and other sacred functionaries were descended) and ‘his’ concubine (usually understood to be a wife of secondary status, particularly in polygamous societies).

For some reason – either because she was angry with the Levite (so the Greek version), or because she had ‘prostituted’ herself (so the Hebrew version – though it is unclear if the intended meaning is literal or figurative) – the concubine had earlier left the Levite and returned to her father’s house in Bethlehem. After four months, accompanied by a servant and donkeys, the Levite comes to get her back. The father delays the Levite for four days but on the fifth he sets off, taking the concubine. No word is said about her willingness to leave or otherwise.

Unwilling to spend the night among the Jebusites, as the servant proposes, the Levite determines (because the Jebusites are foreigners) to spend the night in Gibeah, a town settled by Israelites of the tribe of Benjamin. Arriving late, they are taken in by an old man who offers them hospitality.

As they are making merry, worthless, or perverse men, surround the house and pound on the door, demanding to ‘know’ the man staying as guest within. (The Hebrew word ‘to know’ can be used as a euphemism for carnal knowledge and the New Revised Standard Version consequently translates, ‘so that we may have intercourse with him’, Judges 19:22). (Quite a number of commentators point to the clear parallels between this part of the story and Genesis 19:5, set in Sodom.)

The old man tries to appease the men by telling them not to do such wickedness to his guest. Instead, horrifyingly, he offers them his own (previously unmentioned) virgin daughter and also the concubine, saying (in the NRSV translation), ‘Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.’ (Similarly, in Genesis 19, Lot offers his two virgin daughters to protect his guests.)

Neither the daughter, nor the concubine has a voice in the biblical text. All characters are nameless but unlike all the male characters (the father, the Levite, the servant, the old man, the men of Gibeah) neither female character (concubine or daughter) has voice.

When the men won’t listen, the Levite pushes his concubine outside the door and she is gang-raped all night until morning. At dawn she falls at the door, her hands on the threshold – one of the most affecting and distressing images of the entire Bible, surely.

When the Levite tells the concubine to get up, she does not, or cannot respond. He puts her on the donkey and returns home. Once there, he dismembers her body and sends its twelve pieces throughout all Israel as a summons to war.

This violent and gruesome story of the threatened rape of the Levite, of the offering up for rape of the daughter and the concubine, and of the gang-rape, killing and dismemberment of the concubine is – once events move away from Bethlehem to Gibeah – sparsely told.

There is every reason to believe that this brutal story elicited horror. Horrified outrage is certainly the response of the Israelites who receive the pieces of the concubine’s corpse. Subsequent events (related in Judges 20–21) are war and more rape and the call for stronger leadership in the form of a king, to put an end to mayhem. What is missing is not horror or outrage but any attempt at insight into the women’s terror and suffering. Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon addresses this lack.

Background: Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon

Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon is an award-winning poet and an Associate Professor teaching creative writing at Cornell University. Her magnificent published works include Black Swan, Open Interval and, together with Elizabeth Alexander, Poems in Conversation and a Conversation. She has also published in numerous journals and anthologies and is currently at work on another collection of poems, The Coal Tar Colors.

Black Swan, in which this poem is published, is winner of the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and includes several pieces inspired by women of the Bible and classical mythology who were pursued or raped by either men or male deities, including, alongside the daughter and concubine of Judges 19, also Tamar, Dinah (you can find the poem here), Daphne (here), Helen and Leda.

These poems are part of a growing creative tradition of giving voice and full characterization to women of antiquity. Other examples are Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, telling Dinah’s story in her own words, Alicia Ostriker’s ‘Jephthah’s Daughter: A Lament’ and Christa Wolf’s Cassandra and Medea.

Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon hails from Florida and in a fabulous interview containing many language (and other) gems speaks of early memories and of profound influences on her life. These include memories of racism and recollections of hitting the drop zone as a teenager, of the ‘beauty and terror’ of her Pentecostal upbringing and of working in a men’s prison.

Lyrae van Clief-Stefanon is public and vocal about being a survivor of child sexual abuse and of rape. In one of her recorded poetry readings from Black Swan she speaks also to her concern about campus rape culture. Her powerful poems break into the silence around rape, giving voice to voiceless women of the Bible and mythology and addressing abusiveness and injustice, particularly against victims of racism and of sexual violence, right up to the present.

The following poem is reproduced here with kind permission of the author. It is published in Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Black Swan (Pitt Poetry Series, edited by Ed Ochester), University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002, pp.31–36.

The Daughter and the Concubine from the Nineteenth Chapter of Judges Consider and Speak Their Minds

Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine;

Them I will bring out now, and humble ye them,

And do with them what seemeth good unto you: But unto this man

Do not so vile a thing.

Suddenly, I am a stranger Last visit, I stayed four months

in my father’s house. in my father’s house.

His doors open to any man For that, my man calls me

off the street, he opens his mouth whore, his mouth full of bread

to make me prostitute. as this old man offers me

Pimp, he has forgotten with his daughter

my name. And how I to the hoodlums in the road.

tended his fevers, wept I have been whoring after home

at the foot of his bed, slept since the day I left.

prayers while age played I miss my daddy’s easy smile.

the fool with his body. This time he tried so hard

What thing exists too vile to make us stay, seems like

For this man he’s known he saw this coming.

one half day that be My man can talk

not too vile for me? so pretty when he wants to,

I do not need to be humbled. pretty enough

And this girl, this wayfaring to love, but I know

man’s woman who sticks so when he looks

close to the walls seems like unsatisfied. I know

she longs to slip into when he looks unsatisfied

her own shadow, she looks not to stand staring

humble down to her bones. into a man’s mouth.

But the men would not hearken to him:

So the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them;

And they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning:

And when the day began to spring, they let her go.

They would have gone. I never learned but one prayer

They would have heckled the that was Daddy

house, And Daddy was answer

cursed and called until they’d quick to answer

grown And Daddy and me were praise

And Daddy was Hallelujah

bored. They might have thrown And I was Glory Glory

a stone, broken a window, but And Daddy was Great

then Day in the Morning

they would have gone And I was Yes Lord Yes

And I was a gift once

and left us alone. And I was Daddy’s to give

But he brought her to them And Daddy was joy and sorrow

the way one might drop And Daddy was Oh

my baby gal done got big

an ant into a spider’s web. And Daddy was Lord

And my father, silent, watched she done grown and gone

curious to see destruction. And Daddy said

Make that negro treat you right

It could have easily been me. And Daddy said Come back if he

It could have easily been me. don’t

It could have easily been me. And Daddy said Come anyway

I’m making your favorite

Not one creature stirs. And Daddy said Come anyway

It is as though the birds Y’all can have your old room but

no longer recognize I am in the eye of something so

bright

morning: a cheap faint glow I am in the middle of light

haunting the eastern sky I am in the middle of something

and what is there to sing about? so

bright I can’t see day

If I had but a burrow breaking I am in the middle of

I would call myself blessed. something so bright Daddy

If I had a grave, I would climb I’m praying for night

into it.

Then came the woman in the dawning of the day,

And fell down at the door of the man’s house

Where her lord was, till it was light.

The smell of death squats Day comes like something

in every corner: this house stinks snatched from me

of men. I have to spit. I keep

My mouth keeps hearing snatches, songs

Filling with saliva. In the kitchen Precious Lord,

I hold the back of my hand take my hand

to my nose the same line keeps

and try to remember catching me

some other I am tired

smell than male I am tired

sweat and musk I am tired

and spilled semen Do not lead me

that hangs heavy to the light

in these rooms. I am afraid I am afraid

to open the windows, of what waits for me

afraid the outside air Precious Lord,

will carry the same where is my

smell, Lord

will add to this mixture I am

blood. tired

And her lord rose up in the morning,

And opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way:

And, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down

At the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold.

Ground glass. Say one

Nightshade. sweet word

Pot ash. to me.

Blood tired, blood I am waiting

tired. Blood tired. to be comforted.

Polk berry. Something

Jimson weed. pretty

Snake venom. to the skin,

My father. the dirt

My God. beneath my fingernails,

Arsenic. to my mouth,

Diffenbachia. twisted and full

Monkshood. of sand,

Blood tired. Blood pretty words

tired. Blood tired. for bruises,

Ground glass. for my raw throat

Nightshade. burning. Bring flowers

Pot ash. for me like you

My God. used to.

And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going.

But none answered.

Then the man took her up upon an ass,

And the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.

Should I

refuse

to tell

this story

May I

never again

cross my

father’s

threshold

And when he was come into his house,

He took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine,

And divided her, together with her bones …

Consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.

Judges 19: 24–30

Blood I am

drips from not forsaken

block and no

to Earth war

spinning witness will silence

mud tinted my bones.

red/black This Earth

soaked. drinks

When my

a man finds blood

his soul in remembrance

wracked and no

and one man

finger will silence it.

points back I have put

to this blood, my story

when into

the moon my sisters’

goes down mouths

in this and we

blood, will sing

when the sun and we

refuses this will wail

blood, my soul and we

will say will shout.

Yes. Amen.

__________________________________________________________________________

Feature Image: ‘Judges 19’ by Mario Moore, 2009.

Graphic representations of rape in biblical comics

by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle on November 10, 2017

Zanne Domoney-Lyttle is a tutor in Biblical Studies, including Biblical Hebrew language, at the University of Glasgow, and is currently working towards her PhD on the representation of the Bible in Comic Books (Theology & Religious Studies/Stirling Maxwell Center for Text-Image Narratives). She is passionate about reading the Bible as a contemporary cultural product, both in terms of adaptation and re appropriation of biblical material in our society.

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Biblical comics – that is, adaptations of biblical material into comic book formats – have become increasingly popular in recent decades. In the past ten years alone, W.W. Norton has published The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb (2009), Siku wrote and illustrated The Manga Bible (2009), and a group of creators are currently working on producing a digital word-for-word Bible which claims to be historically accurate, unabridged, and “untamed.” Many more adaptations exist, many more are in the process of being created, and the market for text-image Bible shows no sign of slowing down.
It is easy to see why: the Bible is full of graphical, fantastical, easily visualised and emotionally charged stories, all of which provide great fodder for comics’ artists and writers to use either in “straightforward” retellings (and I use that term tongue-in-cheek with regards to biblical material) like Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, or for biblically-inspired stories like Goliath by Tom Gauld, which narrates the battle of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17) from the giant’s point of view.

Like any form of literary or visual adaptation, creators of biblical comics have to pick and choose which stories to tell, which characters to include, and most importantly, which bits to leave out of their adaptations. For the majority of biblical comics on the market, that tends to mean leaving out scenes of sexual assault and rape. Of the 30 or so biblical comics which sit on my physical and digital shelf, only two include scenes of rape: R. Crumb’s “word-for-word” interpretation of Genesis means he had to include the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34, as well as Genesis 16 where Hagar the slave-concubine is given to Abraham for the purpose of producing an heir; an event which many biblical scholars interpret as rape owing to Hagar’s subservient status meaning she has no free will to accept or refuse. The other comic is The Book of Judges, a digital comic by Simon Amadeus et al. Also a “word-for-word” Bible comic, the rape and dismemberment of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19 is graphically depicted across two pages, in full colour.

Most other biblical comics avoid such difficult scenes. For the reader, this is potentially problematic. In a recent article for The Conversation, Dr. Katie Edwards and Dr. Meredith Warren discussed the problems of leaving out the more gruesome, violent, or sexual aspects of the Bible when children are exposed to the text, arguing that encouraging close, critical readings of the text would give young people the tools to address issues of violence, slavery and even genocide in our own time.

This can and should also be applied to visualisations of sexual assault in biblical comics; after all, other graphic narratives concerning genocide (Noah’s flood, Genesis 6:9 – 9:17), slavery (the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, book of Exodus) and violence (for example, Genesis 4, when Cain murders Abel) are frequently re-presented in biblical comics. So why do comic creators stay clear of sexually-orientated scenes of violence?

One answer might lie in the fact that comic books are often still seen as children’s items; there is a wealth of material that argues against this notion (both inside and outside of academia) and thankfully, it is not as prevalent an opinion anymore. However, that comic books stem from a tradition pertaining to children’s literature still potentially influences their content, and so leaving out sexually explicit subjects might seem safer in order to “protect” a younger audience from difficult content.

Still, the question remains as to why certain forms of violence are deemed appropriate over other types of violence. Conversely, it must be noted that comics are, as highlighted above, no longer the domain of children. Markets are moving towards young adult/adult readers which, if it is the case, somewhat negates the argument that creators must be cautious of sensitive material influencing young minds. Leaving out scenes of sexual violence might be less to do with perceived readership, in that case, and more to do with the creators themselves.

To visually and textually represent a scene of violence from the Bible is difficult enough; to visually and textually represent a scene of rape or sexual assault from the Bible requires the creator to not only interpret and imagine the scene, but to recreate the act. It is the creator or the team of creators who must physically draw Dinah being raped (Genesis 34), for example, which makes them complicit in the act of rape. Complicity may be more pronounced in the act of creating text-image narratives of rape and sexual assault than it is in translating or transcribing, because the visual image is often more visceral than word alone. The creator[s] must figuratively and literally picture how the scene looks; their hands physically transmit the violent act on to paper where it is apprehended instantaneously and directly, without the “cover” of words. In a similar way, the reader also becomes complicit in the act by reading the text and image, and by physically handling and turning pages, effectively allowing the story – and the rape – to continue.

The lack of re-presenting biblical rape narratives in comic books, then, is perhaps just as important as their inclusion in biblical comics. By not including them, the creator of the book is choosing not to become complicit in a sexually violent act, and at the same time, preventing the reader from having to experience the rape, themselves becoming complicit in the continuation of the story’s intimate violence. Conversely, choosing to include rape and sexual assault in biblical retellings is giving a voice and a face to the victim, who otherwise, would remain silent and faceless.

Giving a voice to a victim of sexual assault or rape is essential, especially in the current climate. On an almost-daily basis, new revelations and allegations concerning sexual assault and rape appear in our newsfeeds, and the victims of such crimes are often unable to present their case – either because they are silenced or because they lack the ability or opportunity to present the wrong done to them. Visualising biblical rape narratives, if nothing else, may be a way to present cases of sexual assault and rape, forcing readers to confront the wrongs done to victims, be they historical, current, or even fictional.

Abandonment, Rape, and Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why and King David’s Concubines in 2 Samuel 15–20

by David Tombs on October 18, 2017

David Tombs is Professor of Theology and Public Issues, as well as Director for the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand). He is passionate about contextual and liberation theologies and author of Latin American Liberation Theologies (Brill, 2002). Recently, David has been working on intersections of religion, violence and public theology – particularly, on Christian responses to gender-based violence, sexual abuse and torture.

Abandonment, Rape, and Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why and King David’s Concubines in 2 Samuel 15–20[1]

The Netflix series 13 Reasons Why (2017) sparked headlines and prompted considerable concern and criticism from viewers. However, the controversy surrounding the series did little to dampen its appeal, and the show proved so popular that a second series was announced for 2018. Based on the young adult novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher (2007),[i] it tells the fictional story of high school student Hannah Baker who takes her life after a series of events that she describes on a sequence of cassette tapes. She arranges for the tapes to be circulated among a group of students at her school whom she names on a list. Each student is asked to listen to all the tapes, learn how they (the students) have contributed to her decision to end her life, and then send them on to the next person on the list. The viewer shares the point of view of Hannah’s friend, Clay Jensen, as he listens to the tapes. The timeframe goes back and forth between Clay’s experiences as he listens and Hannah’s experience of each decisive event.

The series’ engaging and suspenseful format has proved a huge hit with teen and young adult audiences. Some viewers, however, including a number of mental health organisations, strongly criticized the way it depicts Hannah’s suicide, including the length of the scene and its graphic detail. There has been particular concern that when young audiences watch they might see it as glorifying suicide, or legitimating suicide as a solution to difficult life events. Moreover, some critics have argued that the series fails to address many of the issues commonly involved in suicide, such as depression and other forms of mental illness. In New Zealand, these concerns led to the Classification Office creating a new PR18 category rating for the show, which prohibits (or at least warns against) young people under the age of eighteen watching the series without parental guidance. The Classification Office cited the portrayal of suicide and its aftermath as a real risk for teen viewers who may be struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts.

The questions and concerns raised over the representation of suicide in 13 Reasons Why are important, especially in a country like New Zealand, where suicide rates are the highest in the developed world. In 2016–17 the figure was 606 suicides: the highest rate since figures began to be recorded in 2007–08. Yet these discussions around the series’ depiction of suicide also need to be set in context. 13 Reasons Why is not primarily about Hannah’s suicide; rather, it is her life experiences prior to her death that are central. In contrast to the public attention that has been given to her suicide, there has been relatively little discussion about the thirteen events she speaks about and the impact that these had on her. As the story develops, Hannah explains that even though some of these experiences were relatively incidental, they had a cumulative effect upon her. She states, “I recorded twelve tapes. I started with Justin and Jessica who each broke my heart. Alex, Tyler, Courtney, Marcus who each helped to destroy my reputation. On through Zach and Ryan, who broke my spirit. Through tape number twelve, Bryce Walker, who broke my soul” (Netflix 2017, Episode 13, cassette 7 side A).

The public focus on the portrayal of Hannah’s suicide, rather than on the reasons underlying it, are perhaps due to the fact that these involve her experiences of the often-taboo topic of gendered violence and rape culture, including sexual shaming, objectification, invasion of privacy, groping, harassment, and rape. Hannah dwells on each of these experiences in turn, using one side of a cassette to explain how they have affected her. Here I am focusing on one of these events in particular—namely, Hannah’s rape by fellow student Bryce Walker in a hot tub at a student party—and consider its place in her story. My approach is to “read” Hannah’s story in dialogue with a biblical story, in which I see similar themes around gender-based violence emerging, particularly in relation to the theme of abandonment. This dialogical approach, in which we allow the biblical text and Hannah’s experience to speak to and illuminate each other, can reveal how they each attest to the devastating impact of gender-based violence on victims’ lives and identities.[ii]

While in no way wishing to minimize the harm done by the violence itself, my primary intention is to broaden the focus and explore the harm that is often caused by both the actions of others in precipitating sexual violence and the reactions of others in the aftermath of sexual violence. Both these actions and reactions can be seen as forms of abandonment. Indeed, it is Hannah’s sense of abandonment after the event that is Hannah’s all important ‘thirteenth reason’ (cassette 7 suicide A, episode 13). An attentive reading of what happens to Hannah both before and after her rape suggests that the actions and responses by other people require far more scrutiny than they usually receive.[iii]

The first part of what follows identifies a three-step framework for viewing Hannah’s rape and its effects upon her. First, Hannah’s classmates physically abandon her when they leave her alone in the hot tub after the party. Secondly, Bryce rapes her. Thirdly, she feels a “second abandonment” by both her classmates and the school guidance counsellor, Mr Porter, of whom she hoped that he would offer her some much-needed help. I then use the same three-step framework (abandonment—rape—second abandonment) as a lens to read three biblical passages in 2 Samuel (15:13–16; 16:20−3; 20:3). These passages relate the tradition of the ten concubines in King David’s royal household, who are abandoned by David, raped by Absalom, and then abandoned again by David.[iv] In the second part of the chapter, I explore whether the biblical reading can offer additional insights back into Hannah’s story, particularly in terms of her double abandonment. I suggest that in addition to David failing the concubines after their rape, he may also have been more culpable in leaving them to their fate than first appears. That is, he may have knowingly left the concubines as an offering to Absalom. This interpretation also offers a new perspective on the culpability of Hannah’s classmate Courtney Crimsen in the events that led to Hannah’s rape.

Hannah Baker: Twice Abandoned

Hannah describes her rape by Bryce on Cassette 6, side B: the basis of Episode 12 in the Nextflix series, and of Chapter 12 in the book. She sees the rape as the culmination of other experiences she has already described in previous tapes. These begin with the rumours that circulate about her sexual promiscuity after Justin lies to his friends about what happened on their first date.[v] Shortly afterwards, she experiences sexual objectification when her name is added by another student to a “Who’s Hot/Who’s Not” list as “Best Ass in Freshman Class”. This in turn leads to two separate incidents where fellow students Marcus and Bryce touch her inappropriately. In the tape, Hannah says that each of these experiences builds on the previous one. After her rape, she feels she has eventually become the person that others already believed her to be. This event (or at least the version of it that will be told by Bryce) will finally validate the rumours that have already made her life so miserable.

Hannah’s initial abandonment

Hannah was not planning to attend the student party, but after having a row with her parents, she goes out for a walk and is eventually drawn to it by its sounds. In the series, the party is at Bryce’s house. Hannah sees a group of people she knows relaxing in the garden hot tub—Jessica, Justin, Zach, and Stephanie. They invite her over and encourage her to join them. When she demurs, they reassure her that she does not need a swimsuit, since they are all just wearing underwear. After a while, however, the others in the group gradually get out of the hot tub for various reasons and go back into the house, leaving Hannah in the hot tub by herself.[vi] While they might not intend to abandon her in this potentially vulnerable situation, abandonment is, nonetheless, one of the consequences of their actions. Before Hannah can follow them, Bryce appears and climbs into the hot tub next to her.

In the novel, the party is at Courtney’s house rather than Bryce’s. Courtney and Bryce are in the hot tub when Hannah arrives, and the other classmates have already left. Courtney’s subsequent decision to leave Hannah alone with Bryce (a student known for his sexually predatory behaviour) is more ethically ambiguous and raises questions about her motivations. I will return to this issue later.

Hannah’s rape

When Bryce and Hannah are alone in the hot tub, they talk for a bit, but soon Bryce starts to touch her. Hannah does not want this but Bryce persists, eventually forcing himself upon her. As Hannah recalls on the cassette: “Bryce, you had to see my jaw clench. You had to see my tears. Does that kind of shit turn you on?” In the novel, there is some attention to the complexity of Hannah’s thinking and feelings about her rape, and little reference to Bryce’s use of physical force:

I did not say no or push his hand away. All I did was turn my head, clench my teeth, and fight back tears. And he saw that. He even told me to relax … And that’s all you needed, Bryce. You started kissing my shoulder, my neck, sliding your fingers in and out. And then you kept going. You didn’t stop there (Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why, New York: Razorbill, 2007, p.265).

In the television series, however, Bryce uses obvious force. When he gets into the hot tub, Hannah tells him that she had “better get going” and stands up to leave, but Bryce tugs at her arm to get her to stay. When Hannah sits back down, Bryce starts to fondle her bra and again, Hannah says, “Sorry, I got to go.” She turns to climb out of the hot tub but he grabs her arm again, this time with enough force for her to lose her balance. He traps her against the side of the tub and pulls her hair while he rapes her. When she gets home and undresses, there are red marks on her arms and shoulders.

Hannah’s second abandonment

The rape leaves Hannah distraught and overwhelmed. She understands it as a progression and consequence of other ways she has been objectified, harassed and mistreated during her time at school. It leads her to write down the names of the people involved in the different events that have occurred and to figure out the connections between them. One of the positive outcomes from this is that she recognises her need for support if she is to cope with these traumatic incidents. She decides to approach the school counsellor, Mr Porter, in a final attempt to seek help. Despite her turmoil about all that has happened, she has not yet decided to take her life.

In the series, Hannah describes her meeting with Mr Porter on Cassette 7 Side A (Episode 13). She initially tells him how she is feeling, describing herself as “lost and sort of empty”. She then goes on to recount some details about what happened with Bryce. Hannah does not use the word “rape” here, but she starts to cry and it is clear that she is talking about something serious. Mr Porter is depicted as well intentioned and genuinely concerned, but he fails to ask the right questions. He initially thinks Hannah made a decision about having sex with someone that she now regrets. Hannah flatly rejects this. He then asks, “Did he force himself on you?” Hannah replies, “I think so”. Instead of taking this at face value, Mr Porter undermines what she is saying, by replying, “You think so, but you are not sure”. He then asks if she told the person to stop or said “no” to him, and Hannah says that she did not, without expanding further.[vii] Mr Porter then suggests that perhaps she consented but then changed her mind. Hannah tells him it wasn’t like that, but instead of asking her what it was like, he presses her to tell him the boy’s name. Hannah hesitates, and then asks Mr Porter to promise that the boy will go to jail and she will never have to face him again. Mr Porter acknowledges that he is unable to do this, and can only promise to do everything in his power to protect her. He asks again for the boy’s name but Hannah will not give it. Mr Porter fails here to recognize the signs of Hannah’s desperation, despite her telling him that she is tired of life.

Eventually, since Hannah continues to refuse to say who raped her, and remains adamant that she does not want her parents involved, Mr Porter suggests that “moving on” is her only option if she does not wish to report her assault. Hannah interprets this as the end of the conversation and rises to leave. Mr Porter encourages her to stay, but she says that they have figured it out and she does indeed need to “move on”. Despite his good intentions, Mr Porter leaves Hannah feeling alone and in a state of despair. She exits his office and closes the door behind her, waiting outside to see if he will come after her and offer further help or support. When he does not appear, she feels her isolation and abandonment is complete. As she puts it on Cassette 4 Side A (Episode 7), “The kind of lonely I’m talking about is when you feel you have got nothing left. Nothing and no-one. Like you’re drowning, and no-one will throw you a line.” In the novel, she initially tells Mr. Porter that she wants “everything to stop. People. Life.” When Porter seems alarmed by these words, Hannah responds by telling him “I don’t want my life to end. That’s why I’m here” (Asher 2007: 272−73). Mr Porter is her final resort, and when she feels he abandons her, she decides that there is no alternative but to take her own life. As she puts it: “I think I’ve made myself very clear, but no one’s stepping forward to stop me … A lot of you cared, just not enough” (Asher 2007: 279).

The Twice Abandoned Concubines of 2 Samuel

This threefold narrative pattern of abandonment, rape, and second abandonment recounted in 13/Thirteen Reasons Why is likewise evoked in the biblical tradition about David’s ten concubines. In 2 Samuel 15:13, we are introduced to these women, whom David left to look after his house when he fled from his son Absalom. We subsequently hear about their fate in two very brief passages (16:21-23 and 20:3). The biblical narrative is not terribly interested in the story of these women, nor does it treat them as characters in their own right. Their story—mentioned cursorily in only a few verses over six chapters—affirms that they form a fragment, or aside, in what the narrator sees as the more central story of a competition for power between men: David’s conflict with Absalom and Absalom’s attempt to usurp David from the Israelite throne. Yet if we look closely at these three passages, we can see they follow the same three-phase sequence of abandonment, rape, and second abandonment that unfolds in Hannah’s story.

The abandonment of the concubines

A messenger came to David, saying, “The hearts of the Israelites have gone after Absalom.” Then David said to all his officials who were with him at Jerusalem, “Get up! Let us flee, or there will be no escape for us from Absalom. Hurry, or he will soon overtake us, and bring disaster down upon us, and attack the city with the edge of the sword.” The king’s officials said to the king, “Your servants are ready to do whatever our lord the king decides.” So the king left, followed by all his household, except ten concubines whom he left behind to look after the house (2 Samuel 15:13-16).

The story of Absalom’s rebellion against his father David is part of a much longer sequence of family betrayals and broken alliances related by the narrator of 1 and 2 Samuel.[viii] When David hears about Absalom’s growing popularity in Israel, he decides to flee, fearing that Absalom is about to bring disaster upon him, his adherents, and the city (v.14).[ix] He leaves, we are told, with his “household” in tow, except for ten concubines, whom he leaves to “look after the house” (v.16). The total number of concubines David had in Jerusalem is not specified, so it is unclear whether these ten women constitute all of his concubines or whether there were others who accompany him and his primary wives on the household flight.[x] Since Absalom was expected to “attack the city with the edge of a sword,” it is clear that David was leaving these women in a perilous predicament. My use of the word “abandoned” here is therefore appropriate: David’s intention may not have been to leave them defenceless and exposed to danger or sexual violence, but this was nonetheless a clearly predictable consequence of his actions. Yet in this narrative, focus is placed on the urgency of David’s flight (and the question mark hanging over his fate), rather than on the vulnerability of the ten women – hence, this is where the reader’s attention is directed.

The rape of the concubines

Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your counsel; what shall we do?” Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines, the ones he has left to look after the house; and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.” So they pitched a tent for Absalom upon the roof; and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel. Now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the oracle of God; so all the counsel of Ahithophel was esteemed, both by David and by Absalom (2 Sam. 16:20–3).

Rape of the concubines is part of the political strategy advised by Ahithophel, an admired counselor. It is performed by Absalom, the king’s popular son. It is not called rape and is depicted in passing, in terms of Absalom “[going] in to [them]”. There is no further description and no insight into the women’s perspective or experience. It is easy to read on, without dwelling on the matter, or imagining its violence and indignity.

Ahithophel’s words here can be interpreted in different ways. The degree of force and physical violence that “going into” the concubines might involve is not specified. There is insufficient detail given for the reader to discern if the rapes were enacted in full view of the public or if they took place out of sight. Ahithophel speaks of Israel “hearing” about this event, but the narrator then tells us that Absalom “went into” the concubines “in sight of all Israel”. Whether or not this last phrase should be taken literally is unclear. Nevertheless, the passage leaves open the possibility of an orchestrated spectacle of public rape to signal the power and virility of Absalom as a military conqueror.[xi] An alternative reading is that the tent would offer privacy, and what happened inside was closer to a (wedding?) ritual to establish the women as Absalom’s possession. This arguably more benign reading, however, would still involve rape, or perhaps rape marriage. Even if “rape” is not the term that might have been used at the time, to modern sensibilities this remains an act of sexual domination by Absalom and of failure to secure consent from the concubines – hence, rape.

Likewise, there might be different interpretations of how Absalom’s public rape of David’s concubines will “strengthen the hands” of Absalom’s followers. Will these followers be filled with admiration (or fear) at the supposed “manliness” of Absalom’s actions? Is this a public display that seals Absalom’s superior power and authority over his father, demonstrating David’s inability to protect “his” women? Whatever the reason, neither Absalom nor Ahithophel give any thought to the effect Absalom’s actions will have on the ten concubines: their sole concern is that the event will be “odious” to David.[xii]

Absalom would surely have been aware of the devastating impact of rape on women, given that he witnessed the “desolate” state of his sister Tamar after her sexual assault by Amnon (2 Samuel 13:20). It does not seem to cross his mind, however, that he will be inflicting the same desolation on these ten women. Such indifference is also apparent in the narrator’s response to these events, as the text reveals nothing from the women’s perspective. What was going through their minds when David left them behind after he fled from Absalom with the rest of his family? Did they anticipate what would happen to them? Were they afraid? Did they try to protect themselves, or seek help? Did they cry out in fear when Absalom approached them? Did they plead with him or try to fight him off? And how did they feel after he raped them? Were they shocked, angry, and in pain? Did they speak to each other about what happened, or try to console each other? The narrator remains silent about these matters, inviting the reader too, perhaps, to pay little heed to these women’s abandonment and assault.

The concubines’ second abandonment

David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten concubines whom he had left to look after the house, and put them in a house under guard, and provided for them, but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood (2 Samuel 20:3).

After Absalom rapes the ten concubines, the action moves swiftly to his ill-fated pursuit of David and his eventual defeat, flight, and death. Absalom’s death causes David renewed grief but allows him to return to Jerusalem and reclaim his throne. On his return, we are told that he shuts the ten women up under some form of house arrest, and never sleeps with them again. Some might read this as relatively benign treatment, given that David provides for the women and offers them protection. Yet the statement that he did not “go in to them” but rather left them to live “as if in widowhood” suggests he sees them as in some sense irreparably damaged or taboo. Under the honour-shame code that permeated this ancient Near Eastern culture, the women would have been viewed as damaged goods or defiled, their sexuality having been “misused” by a man other than their husband. The shame associated with their defilement would have transferred to David—the “owner” of their sexuality.[xiii] This was likely Absalom’s intention. David was the primary target of Absalom’s public display. David seems to accept that the women’s defilement cannot be reversed or the stigma removed, so he endeavours to contain or mitigate its impact, to some extent at least, by isolating the women. The guard whom he sets over their house may have been more their jailer than their protector; this is hinted at in the last sentence, when the narrator tells us that the women were “shut up until the day of their death”. This term conveys little in the way of protection or care, but instead conjures up images of imprisonment, or even entombment.

David’s actions need to be understood against the values of the honour-shame code of the day, and against the contagious stigma associated with sexual defilement. David’s reaction could, of course, have been even harsher: he might have executed the women, for instance. Even so, this does not mean that his response should be either ignored or excused. As concubines in the royal household, the ten women would not have had the power or authority to question or confront David about their treatment. Nevertheless, a contemporary reader is entitled, indeed obliged, to consider the events in this tradition from these women’s perspective, and not just from David’s (as appears to be the narrator’s intention). Being secluded for the rest of their lives seems tantamount to a punishment, and we are left wondering if David blames these women for the violence to which they were subjected.

Moreover, to excuse David’s response as understandable in its historical context—in keeping with the social dynamics of the honour-shame code—is to miss the ethical challenge posed by 2 Samuel 20:3. Rather, David’s behaviour needs to be recognised as a misguided and damaging reaction to sexual violence, prompted by assumptions that are still prevalent within contemporary rape cultures, and which still need to be challenged. Shame should attach to the perpetrators of sexual violence not to the victims. David’s reaction, driven by his wish to protect his own honour, has disastrous consequence for the women. Just as Tamar, following the rape, becomes “a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom’s house” (2 Samuel 13:20), so the concubines become sequestered and hidden away “shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood” (2 Samuel 20:3). It should be unacceptable that shame and stigma attaches to the victims of rape – not to the rapists and not to David, who let both rape victims down. Far from challenging the dynamics of gender and power linking the rape of Tamar to the rape of the royal concubines, David’s decision to seclude the concubines only reinforces these dynamics further.

Moreover, David’s attitude to the concubines in 2 Samuel 20:3 is often passed over as an irrelevant aside in the succession narrative. The narrator keeps our focus firmly on David and on his sons, thereby eclipsing the female characters. A more attentive reading, however, shows that there is more at stake. It is David’s abandonment of his concubines in the aftermath of their rape, not just Absalom’s initial act of rape, which requires ethical scrutiny.[xiv]

In a similar way, contemporary survivors of sexual violence who turn to their community for help or compassion are often subjected to blame, stigma, and social rejection rather than supportive inclusion.[xv] The initial trauma caused by sexual violence is thereby reinforced afterwards through the secondary victimization at the hands of people who might instead offer comfort and support. Perpetrators, typically, can rely on negative reactions of others to heighten the impact of their actions on individuals and communities. This should be of particular concern to Christian churches and other religious communities, whose own responses to sexual violence often reinforce stigmatization and discrimination felt by survivors of sexual violence. As Elisabet Le Roux writes:

Many, if not most, churches are promoting sexual violence through their teachings, practices and response to sexual violence survivors, for example by admonishing those who disclose violations and ordering them to keep it secret. Unfortunately, those churches that choose non-involvement actually also contribute to the continuation of sexual violence. By not condemning it they are implicitly condoning the beliefs, perceptions and activities that facilitate sexual violence.

Hence, addressing such secondary victimization is one of the most appropriate and effective contributions that churches and faith-based organisations can make to support survivors of sexual violence and to challenge the rape-supportive discourses that sustain such violence.

As a means of examining the destructive impact of rape and the ways that rape trauma can be reinforced by subsequent responses of others, a hot tub scene in a popular Netflix series seems very remote from a dynastic battle in an ancient biblical narrative. Yet despite their markedly different geographical and historical locations, we can still discern shared tropes of sexual violence and re-traumatizing social responses to it within these two texts, suggesting that they have much more in common than might first appear. As I outlined above, there are three steps to Hannah’s experience of gender violence: first, she was physically abandoned by her friends and rendered vulnerable to being raped; secondly, she experienced rape; and thirdly, she felt socially abandoned and isolated after her rape. In particular, she was failed by the school counsellor Mr Porter when she turned to him in a last-ditch attempt to seek help. Like David, though, Mr Porter (if metaphorically) closed the door on her.

Considering 13/Thirteen Reasons Why intertextually alongside the story of David’s concubines allows us to read this biblical tradition with fresh insights, and we begin to see that these women’s story parallels each of the stages in Hannah’s story. Of course, important differences as well as similarities exist between the two texts. For example, while viewers and readers of 13/Thirteen Reasons Why are granted intimate insight into Hannah’s experience of sexual violence (though some have argued that Hannah’s experience is actually filtered through Clay’s interpretation) Samuel 20:3 does not report the inner world of David’s concubines at all: their point of view is completely absent from the narrative. We are given no details about how their experiences of sexual violence and their double abandonment affected them—physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Instead, the narrator chooses to focus on male perspectives: Ahithophel’s counsel, Absalom’s execution and David’s reaction to their rape.

Re-reading Thirteen Reasons Why in the Light of 2 Samuel

Having explored how Hannah’s story might offer a lens for reading the biblical passages in a similar framework of double abandonment and secondary victimization, the following section offers an interpretive reading in the opposite direction: what light might this biblical story shed on our understanding of gender violence in 13/Thirteen Reasons Why? Here the focus will turn from the “second abandonment” and the harm done by those who fail to respond appropriately to survivors (David and Mr Porter), to the possibility that some characters may have an even more direct culpability for the violence itself. This involves a further examination of David’s role in his first abandonment of the concubines, and Courtney Crimsen’s abandonment of Hannah in the novel.

An intentional offering by David?

As mentioned above, David’s first abandonment of his ten concubines occurs when he leaves them behind to look after the palace while he flees from the city with the rest of the household. What are his motivations for doing so? Since the narrator does not offer an explanation, David’s decision begs further questions. Why does his house need to be looked after? Is he concerned about protecting his property from looters, or from Absalom and his forces, or someone else altogether? Furthermore, how exactly would the ten women protect the household? Did David assume that they had sufficient authority and influence, given their status as members of the royal court, to deter potential intruders, even Absalom himself? It seems unlikely.

It is possible that David left other household staff (soldiers or servants) with the women to provide for their physical security. But if this is so, it receives no mention in the narrative. The narrator may simply have left it out, focusing solely on the fate of the women because this has the most direct bearing on David’s honour. But the sense of their vulnerability—their aloneness—is accentuated in 2 Samuel 15:16, where David is said to leave his house, “followed by all his household, except ten concubines whom he left behind”.

Another possibility for understanding David’s abandonment of the ten women is to consider it in the light of the ideologies underpinning rape during warfare. Particularly in recent decades, the rape of civilians and military personnel by enemy combatants has rightly received increasing scrutiny and condemnation in both the media and in academic and political discussions around human rights during armed conflict.[xvi] Other forms of sexual violence associated with conflict have also come to the fore, including sexual slavery, trafficking, and forced prostitution. War is not required for women’s bodies to be commodified and traded by men in these ways, but it often contributes towards making such gendered violence more prevalent. For example, during times of conflict, military leaders can use women as payment to reward their followers or bribe those whom they need to influence.[xvii] Might David have intended to leave the ten concubines for Absalom—an intentional gift, bribe, or offering from one warlord to another? Was David willing to explore some form of pact or power-share with his son, and therefore attempted to “sweeten the deal” by gifting him “his” women? Perhaps he saw these women as an acceptable price to buy Absalom off, or to soften his anger, or even to distract him temporarily from pursuing his father.

Viewing David’s decision to leave his ten concubines behind as an intentional offering for Absalom presents his action in an even more negative light than if he had left them behind with unintentional unconcern for their safety and wellbeing. Admittedly, this reading has to be tentative and there is a degree of speculation at stake. Nonetheless, it would offer an answer to David’s otherwise ambiguous decision, and if correct, it may also be suggestive for a re-reading of Hannah’s own abandonment prior to her rape in the Thirteen Reasons Why novel.

What was Courtney thinking?!

As noted above, the Thirteen Reasons Why novel and the series locate the party Hannah attends at different people’s houses. In the series, it takes place at Bryce’s house, while in the novel, it is held at the home of fellow student Courtney Crimsen. Courtney has already featured in the story, especially on Cassette 2 Side B and Cassette 3 Side A (Episodes 5–6). On Cassette 2 Side B, Hannah and Courtney had collaborated to expose the school year book photographer, Tyler, who was stalking Hannah and taking photos of her. Hannah therefore hoped that she and Courtney could become friends. Instead, Courtney spreads false sexual rumours about Hannah, which further reinforces the damage to Hannah’s reputation.

In the novel, Courtney and Bryce are already in the hot tub when Hannah arrives. Bryce invites Hannah to join them, and Courtney encourages her and offers to give Hannah a ride home afterwards. Courtney’s subsequent decision to leave Hannah alone with Bryce raises questions about her complicity in Bryce’s sexual assault, which follows shortly after. Of course, Courtney may not have realized that leaving Hannah with Bryce places Hannah at risk of Bryce’s unwanted attentions.[xviii] Nevertheless, there are a number of other clues in the novel that imply Courtney may have been more complicit than Hannah’s own comments suggest. For example, when Hannah initially joins Bryce and Courtney, she makes clear that she distrusts both of them:[xix]

With the calming water also came terror, I should not be here. I didn’t trust Courtney. I didn’t trust Bryce. No matter what their original intentions, I knew them each well enough not to trust them for long. And I was right not to trust them (Asher 2007: 261–62).

Hannah also observes that Courtney’s “perfect” exterior masks something less pleasant. Hannah has noticed “the little smiles on [their] faces” when she first encounters Bryce and Courtney in the hot tub (Asher 2007: 261), hinting at a certain complicity between the two. Courtney’s intentions are further suggested as the scene develops. When Bryce slowly slides over next to Hannah and rests his shoulder against hers, Hannah recalls that “Courtney opened her eyes, looked at us, then shut them again” (Asher 2007: 262). Bryce says Hannah’s name in a soft voice, which Hannah interprets as “an obvious attempt at romance” (ibid.). His fingers touch her thigh, she clenches her jaw and his fingers move away. Then, when he tries again, Hannah opens her eyes and sees that “Courtney was walking away” (Asher 2007: 263). When Clay hears this on the cassette, he comments: “Do you need more reasons for everyone to hate you, Courtney?” (Asher 2007: 264).

Courtney does not leave Hannah alone with Bryce until he has begun sexually harassing Hannah.[xx] At best, Courtney might mistakenly believe that Hannah’s silence in the hot tub indicates consent. Shutting her eyes when she sees Bryce move next to Hannah and then leaving the hot tub may therefore be her way of giving them some privacy.[xxi] It is possible that Courtney is not expecting Bryce to assault Hannah sexually, but it is equally possible that Courtney is actively complicit in offering him this opportunity. Hannah describes how much Courtney wants to be popular, and Bryce is one of the most influential boys at the school. Perhaps, then, Courtney’s departure is, like David’s gift to Absalom, a tacit sexual “offering” motivated by her own self-interest. In David’s case, it is an attempt to save his own skin, whereas Courtney’s motivation is harder to guess at. It is possible that she is paying Hannah back after Hannah’s earlier rebuke when Courtney spread rumours about her. Or perhaps Courtney is simply ingratiating herself with Bryce, by giving him the opportunity to carry out an act (raping Hannah) that, deep down, she knows he wants to commit.

Courtney’s abandonment of Hannah raises the same disturbing questions as David’s (first) abandonment of the concubines. In each case, the abandonment might be more calculated and callous than first appears. To be sure, the fate of the concubines, and of Hannah, is the same –rape – whether the abandonment is intentional or not. Nevertheless, the question marks hanging over David’s and Courtney’s intentions make it even more urgent to look beyond the immediate perpetrators of the violence, Absalom and Bryce, and recognise the roles and responsibilities of others.

Conclusion

Throughout this post, I have argued that the 13 Reasons Why television series and the novel upon which it is based treat a number of themes that are important for understanding rape culture, including how the responses of others may both precipitate rape and also increase its impact and legacy for survivors. My reading of 13/Thirteen Reasons Why has illustrated the three-step sequence in Hannah’s rape story. First, Hannah is physically abandoned in the hot tub and left vulnerable to Bryce’s unwanted attentions. Secondly, Hannah is raped by Bryce. Thirdly, after the rape, Hannah has an overwhelming sense of isolation and despair. She experiences a “second abandonment” in which she feels isolated from her classmates and let down by the school counsellor, Mr Porter. It is this sense of second abandonment and not just the rape itself, which prompts her to take her life. This sequence is echoed in the three passages of 2 Samuel that relate the story of David’s ten concubines. First, they are physically abandoned when David and his household leave Jerusalem. Secondly, they are then raped by Absalom. Thirdly, when David returns to Jerusalem, he confines and abandons them again, leaving them to a life of social isolation, sequestered until death.

Reading these 2 Samuel passages in the light of Hannah’s story draws attention to the failure in David’s decision to leave his ten concubines in such a vulnerable situation, and, particularly, his inadequate and harmful response to the sexual assaults on these women. This does not in any way detract from Absalom’s guilt as perpetrator of multiple rapes, but it does suggest a wider context in which to understand the impact of sexual violence on these women. It is not only rapists who contribute to survivors’ trauma. Other people often compound and reinforce the damage by the responses that they make in the aftermath of rape. These responses frequently leave survivors feeling rejected, isolated, and abandoned, rather than supported along a path towards recovery and healing. Recognising this failing in both David and Mr Porter helps to focus attention on the different ways that survivors can experience social harm from the negative or insensitive reactions of others, even when this might not be their intention. The social response to rape can make its impact even worse for those affected. While Bryce and Absalom are fully responsible for the act of sexual violence, the negative or thoughtless reactions and failures of support by others also need to be highlighted and challenged.

Furthermore, when we read back in the other direction, from biblical text to television series and novel, we might notice that the biblical text leaves an unanswered question about what David really intended when he left the concubines behind. A similar question can be asked of the hot tub scene in the book. Viewers of the series who are unfamiliar with the novel are likely to be surprised that this question even arises. Nevertheless, the fact that the series alters how the scene plays out in the novel may be a telling indicator that the series producers sought to remove this disturbing aspect of the book. When Courtney walks away from the hot tub, leaving Hannah with Bryce (Asher 2007: 263), the possibility is raised that she is complicit (to some extent at least) in Hannah’s subsequent rape.

Thus, reading 2 Samuel through the lens of the television series 13 Reasons Why has highlighted the responses and reactions of others in the aftermath of rape, and the damage done to survivors by a “second abandonment”. Reading in the other direction, from 2 Samuel to the novel Thirteen Reasons Why, has raised a question mark over both David’s and Courtney’s intentions during their “first abandonment”. Again, while Absalom and Bryce must take full responsibility for their perpetration of rape, David and Courtney may likewise be held culpable for their (perhaps deliberate) complicity in its execution. These two seemingly very different stories can therefore be read alongside each other as part of a wider conversation on rape cultures, both past and present.

[i] In this chapter, I will refer to the 13 Reasons Why (2017) Netflix series as “the series” and to Asher’s novel Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) as “the novel”. When I am referring to both simultaneously, I will use 13/Thirteen Reasons Why.

[ii] For a similar approach, where I consider sexual violence, Latin American torture reports, the death of Saul (1 Samuel 31) and the violation of Muammar Gaddafi, see David Tombs, “Crucifixion, State Terror, and Sexual Abuse”, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 53 (Autumn 1999): 89−108 and “Silent No More: Sexual Violence in Conflict as a Challenge to the Worldwide Church”, Acta Theologica 34/2 (2014): 142−60.While both these works read the biblical text from a contemporary context, neither gives sustained attention to reading back from the text to the present, as I attempt here.

[iii] In recent years, faith-based organisations have become far more active in preventing and responding to sexual and other gender-based violence. Organisations like “We Will Speak Out”, a global coalition of Christian-based Non-Governmental Organisations and church groups committed to ending sexual violence across communities around the world, are at the forefront of this work. Prevention of sexual violence is of utmost importance, but churches and faith communities can also make a crucial contribution beyond this, as they are especially well placed to address also secondary victimisation and to challenge negative attitudes and responses towards survivors. At present, however, this potential goes largely unfulfilled (see Tearfund, Silent No More: The Untapped Potential of the Worldwide Church in Addressing Sexual Violence, Teddington, Middlesex: Tearfund, 2011).

[iv] The language of 2 Samuel 16 does not explicitly state that Absalom rapes the women by force, or that they do not consent. This is hardly surprising: in the Hebrew Bible sexual violence is routinely depicted in sparse and casual terms and any indications of a woman’s right and ability to give or withhold consent are rare. Many interpreters fail to refer to the sexual act in this tradition as rape. A common circumlocution is that Absalom’s intercourse with the women of the royal harem constitutes his claim to the throne (see for instance P. Kyle McCarter, Jr. The Anchor Yale Bible: II Samuel. A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974) and/or an assertion of his male prowess (see Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Women’s Bible Commentary. Revised ed. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1988, p.162). I agree that political symbolism is central to the tradition, but it remains important also to name Absalom’s actions here as rape. Even if he did not use excessive physical violence, there is nothing to suggest that the ten concubines granted consent, and there is considerable disparity of power between concubines (i.e. secondary wives) and Absalom, the king’s son. The passage presents sexual decision-making and agency entirely as male concerns (Ahithophel plans, Absalom executes and David responds to the rape). Furthermore, reading these passages in the light of the rape of Absalom’s half-sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13), and of Nathan’s prophecy (2 Samuel 12), offers a clear context for reading 2 Samuel 16 as a narrative of rape as well (on this, see Ken Stone, Sex, Honor and Power in the Deuteronomistic History. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

[v] These rumours are compounded by Bryce sharing a photo of Hannah coming down a slide in the playground, taken by Justin on their date. Although the picture is entirely innocent, Justin misrepresents to his friends what is happening in the photo. Given Hannah’s pose (she is lying supine on the slide, her clothes dishevelled), they are quick to believe his version of events.

[vi] Justin and Jessica go back to the house to find a room where they can make out. A little later Stephanie leaves the hot tub to find a bathroom in the house, and Zach offers to show her the way because “it’s like a maze in there”.

[vii] Hannah’s slightly hesitant reply and Mr Porter’s interpretation of it as expressing doubt are strange given the way the rape is depicted in the series. The discrepancy is best understood as a plot device, which allows the meeting with Mr Porter in the series to remain reasonably close to the version in the novel, despite the two different depictions of the rape. In the novel, the rape is depicted as involving less explicit use of force, and at the meeting, Hannah tells Mr Porter: “You mean rape? No I don’t think so” (Asher 2007: 276), which makes his response easier to understand.

[viii] The story forms part of what is often referred to as “The Succession Narrative” (2 Samuel 9−1 Kings 2). This narrative focuses on David’s reign (including the events unfolding in his household and court), and ends by describing how his son Solomon came to succeed him as king. Absalom has already featured in 2 Samuel 13, where his sister Tamar is raped by their half-brother Amnon (all three are children of David). David’s role in this event is critical for understanding the unravelling of his relationship with Absalom. Amnon draws his father into an enabling role in the rape by asking David to instruct Tamar to go to Amnon’s house and cook for her “ailing” brother (v.7). It is when she is there that Amnon rapes her. When David learns what has happened, he becomes angry with Amnon but does not punish him (v.21). From this moment, Absalom hates Amnon (v.22). David’s inaction instigates Absalom to exact revenge and restore (his) honour. Two years later, Absalom entices Amnon to a feast where he has his servants kill him (vv.23-29). There are interesting similarities and echoes between the two violent incidents (namely, incestuous rape and fratricide). Absalom requests that David send “my brother,” which echoes Amnon’s earlier request that David send “my sister”. Both times David plays a crucial but unwitting role. After Amnon’s murder, Absalom flees Jerusalem for three years, until David eventually allows him to return. A further two years pass, however, before David agrees to a reunion with his recalcitrant son (14:28-33).

[ix] 2 Samuel 15 opens with Absalom endearing himself to the people of Israel, thereby building up his power base in Jerusalem (vv.1-6). After four years, he travels to Hebron in order to extend his support further. When he summons David’s respected counsellor Ahithophel to join him in Hebron, it signals that a tipping point has been reached, and a revolt against David is imminent (v.12). The opportunity to take the crown may have been Absalom’s primary concern, yet the story also suggests that he nurtures a keen hatred, caused by both Amnon’s violent actions against Tamar and his (passive and enabling) father’s inaction. Revenge to redress perceived dishonour is likely to be another major concern for Absalom.

[x] David first marries Michal, daughter of Saul; he then marries six further named wives during his time in Hebron (Ahinoam, Abigail, Maachah, Haggith, Abital and Eglah). 2 Samuel 5:13 says that in Jerusalem “David took more wives and concubines”. This includes his marriage to Bathsheba, after arranging the death of her husband Uriah.

[xi] The literature on the public rapes that took place during the war in Bosnia make for a terrible reminder that such was not just an archaic practice (e.g. Inger Skjelsbæk, The Political Psychology of War Rape: Studies from Bosnia and Herzegovina, War, Politics and Experience, Oxford: Routledge, 2012). On rape in war and the Bible, see Pamela Gordon and Harold Washington, “Rape as a Military Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible”, in A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets, edited by Athalya Brenner, 308−25, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. The fullest study on rape and the Hebrew Bible to date remains Susanne Scholz, Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010.

[xii] There are probable allusions here to the Bathsheba story, including to David seeing Bathsheba from his roof (2 Samuel 11:2). The prophet Nathan denounces David for taking Bathsheba and killing Uriah, and warns of God’s punishment (2 Samuel 12:11–12). This passage offers the particularly troubling suggestion that rapes are part of a divine plan to punish David. In addition, Ahithophel appears to be Bathsheba’s grandfather, and may therefore have been motivated by avenging his own family honour (2 Samuel 11:3 and 23:34).

[xiii] On adultery as a source of male dishonour, see Carolyn Pressler, The View of Women Found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993.

[xiv] Commentators regularly glide over any criticism of David’s action, and some ignore 20:3 entirely. Arnold Anderson (2 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary, Dallas: Word Books, 1989, p.240) does not offer any comment on v.3: his discussion jumps from v.2 straight to v.4. McCarter merely acknowledges but does not question or challenge the action: “Now that these women have been illegally claimed by Abshalom (16:21–22), they must be put away” (1974: 423). Graeme Auld presents David’s action as benign, and discusses mostly whether or not there is any allusion between the ten women and the ten tribes (I and II Samuel: A Commentary, The Old Testament Library, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, pp.561–62).

[xv] For examinations of this situation from very different contexts, see Lee Madigan and Nancy Gamble’s work on responses to rape in the United States, The Second Rape: Society’s Continued Betrayal of the Victim, New York: Lexington Books, 1989. On rape in conflict, and the stigma associated with survivors, see Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, A Patient Heart: Stigma Acceptance and Rejection around Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Working Paper. Washington DC: World Bank, 2011; and Tearfund’s To Make our Voices Heard: Listening to survivors of sexual violence in Central African Republic, Teddington, Middlesex: Tearfund, 2015.

[xvi] For a theological perspective see also Anna T. Höglund, “Justice for Women in War? Feminist Ethics and Human Rights for Women.” Feminist Theology 11 (2003): 346–61.

[xvii] Examples include the use of “comfort women” by Japanese troops during the Second World War (see the post by Samantha Joo on this blog!), the trafficking of women in Bosnia in the 1990s, and recent stories of sexual slavery by Boko Haram and Islamic State.

[xviii] There is some support for this from Hannah herself, who says at the start of the cassette: “No, this tape is not about Courtney … though she does play a part. But Courtney has no idea what I’m about to say because she left just as things got going” (Asher 2007: 259).

[xix] Even before the previous week’s party at Jessica’s house, Hannah had seen Bryce’s true character. On Cassette 3 Side B, Bryce and a girlfriend come to the cinema where Hannah and Clay work. About halfway through the film, they see the girl run out, clearly distressed (Asher 2007: 146). After the film, Bryce stays to talk to Hannah. Clay warns Hannah against Bryce, and Hannah replies, “I know who he is Clay. I know what he is like. Believe me” (Asher 2007: 147). Even more importantly, at Jessica’s party the previous week, Hannah witnesses Bryce rape Jessica, but does not intervene. (This is another rape story that requires fuller investigation and discussion elsewhere.) In the novel, Hannah describes this on Cassette 5 Side B (Asher 2007: 220-31), which is included in Episode 9 of the series (Cassette 5 Side A). Hannah’s previous experience with Courtney also gives her good reason to be distrustful. On Cassette 3 Side A, Hannah warns that Courtney’s sweet persona is misleading: “And you … are … just … so sweet. Right? Wrong” (Asher 2007: 94). She goes on to explain how Courtney used her to get a lift to a party, only for Hannah to discover that Courtney was spreading rumours about her (Asher 2007: 113).

[xx] Courtney’s awareness of the threat of male predatory behaviour has already been confirmed earlier, when, at another party, she warns Hannah against spending time with a guy who gives Hannah a drink and then invites her to stay and talk to him (Asher 2007: 103). Moreover, Hannah is likewise familiar with Bryce’s predatory reputation among fellow students when she notes on the cassette, “Everyone knows who you are, Bryce. Everyone knows what you do” (Asher 2007: 263). Clay, too, seems familiar with Bryce’s reputation: when he hears Hannah say on the cassette that Bryce calls her name in the hot tub, he exclaims “God no. This can only end one way” (Asher 2007: 260).

[xxi] In some ways, such a charitable reading of Courtney’s character would fit with Hannah’s perspective in the book: that her (Hannah’s) problems often stem from people genuinely not understanding how their behaviour impacts her. There is, however, enough evidence in the book to suggest that Courtney’s decision to abandon Hannah with Bryce in the hot tub may have been more menacing than Hannah realises.

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