Rebecca Campbell’s piece, “From
Thinking to Feeling” stirred up a lot of contradicting emotions in me. From
being upset by reading these horrific cases that have and are happening to
women, to being happy and grateful that they at least survived to tell the
story (as some may say) but furious at how they do have a story to tell.
It was interesting reading how the interviewers prepared
themselves conceptually, emotionally and practically but understandingly,
seeing how it wasn’t enough. In one-way or another, the stories will be
affective because of how relatable and dehumanizing these cases truly are.
Rebecca
talks about how these specific eight interviews were no more significant the
total of 100 that they had, they just chose them for this chapter because they
made the interviewers “feel rape”.
I can see the context in which this sentence was made,
because they related to the women as their mannerisms and daily life routines
were similar, but I personally don’t find it appropriate to use the word “feel”.
You can feel someone’s emotions and feel their grief, but the actual word
“rape” refers to the physical sexual interaction between people and/or use of
objects that is without consent.
Unless they experienced sexual assault of the same calibre
as these survivors, I personally don’t believe that they “felt” rape. The
interviewer’s can sympathize with the survivors, which is a very common and
natural emotion for human beings, but being able to empathize is completely
different.
They
sympathize with these women by hearing them, crying for them and recognizing
that they too are at risk of rape, as it is an act that is not directed towards
a certain group of human beings. They are able to share emotions of sadness and
emotional pain, and are able to provide comfort but they cannot understand the
feeling of the actual experience, the feeling of their bodies being violently
and intentionally violated by another person/people.
These survivors are stuck with the aftermath of emotional,
physical, and financial trauma (to name a few) and to say that these cases made
the interviewers “feel rape” suggests that they feel and live with all of these
post-traumatic burdens as well.
I am not trying to undermine their work and the emotions
that they experienced in these interview processes because it is instinctive to
sympathize especially when they are susceptible to rape as well. In my opinion,
it is just scholarly correct to distinguish between sympathy and empathy in
cases like these.
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ReplyDeleteHi Michelle,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this aspect of the Campbell chapter. The choice of words struck me as well and I would like to take the chance to also work through them.
What I appreciated about the statement was that it focused my attention and made me appreciate how the researcher’s behaviour, thoughts and perceptions of safety changed after hearing the survivor’s accounts. The protective boundaries they had built up over the course of their lifetime were forcibly removed after being faced with the reality of their vulnerability. I don’t think sympathy totally captures this experience. However, there is a difference in what the researchers and the women interviewed had lived through and that too made me uncomfortable with the term “feeling rape.” That being said, we live in a society with a prevalent rape culture. In this context, it could be said that everyone “feels rape” to varying degrees, whether we have personally been the victims of sexual assault, know friends and relatives who have been or are living in fear of that possibility. As you said, the women being interviewed have financial, physical and psychological burdens resulting from their experiences, which are distinct from the impacts the interviewers felt. But I think “feeling rape” might exist on a spectrum and is a term that can be useful in illustrating what is it is like to live in a society with a rape culture that causes many women to live by a set of safety rules born of fear.