Heterosexist Discourses: A Critical Analysis of the History of Sexual Violence Prevention in Higher Education

• In Event: 75.060 - Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 75.060-5 - The Politics and Policy of Responding to the Crisis of Campus Sexual Violence

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: The author illuminates the ways in which universities and colleges construct and (re)produce a specifically heterosexist discourse of sexual violence. This discourse is made manifest in various “sites” in higher education, including policy and specific resources such as rape aggression defense trainings. This paper examines the historical production of this discourse that has led to its contemporary use. The effect of this discourse on current constructions of sexual violence and policy, particularly the national conversation spurred in part by the White House’s initiatives on preventing sexual assault in higher education, will be discussed.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: A feminist poststructural theoretical framework guides this paper. Feminist poststructuralism is concerned with “disrupting and displacing dominant (oppressive) knowledges,” (Gavey, 1989, p. 463). It represents “a mode of knowledge production which uses poststructuralist theories of language, subjectivity, social processes and institutions to understand existing power relations and to identify areas and strategies for change,” (Weedon, 1987, p. 40-41). The author uses feminist poststructuralism to assert that the discursive shift regarding sexual violence that resulted from feminist scholarship five decades ago defined rape in ways that were, and remain, deeply patriarchal. Women are framed exclusively as victims of rape while men are framed as the perpetrators, leaving little to no space for male experiences of rape by women or men, or women’s experiences of rape by other women.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: The author utilizes critical discourse analysis (Gee, 1990; van Dijk, 2008; 2009) from a feminist poststructuralist lens (Gavey, 1989; Luke, 2002; Weedon, 1987) to analyze how a specifically heterosexist discourse of sexual violence that arose during the 1960s and 1970s in feminist scholarship has continued to pervade contemporary understandings of sexual violence, including who can, and cannot, experience rape and sexual assault.

Data sources, evidence, objects, materials: The author conducts a critical discourse analysis (Gee, van Dijk, 2008; 2009) on five foundational feminist texts, analyzing them for specific constructions of rape that are distinctly heterosexist. She then conducts a comparative critical discourse analysis on current policies, including the White House’s recently published report Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault (2014), examining the ways in which they deploy a similarly heterosexist discourse of sexual violence.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions: The heterosexist discourse deployed by feminist scholars during the second wave feminist movement can be directly traced through the law and policy into higher education policy and even research on campus sexual violence. The exclusionary effects of this discourse of sexual violence in higher education are substantial. LGBTQ students are often left without meaningful prevention and response resources that account for their unique experiences and concerns.

Scientific or scholarly significance: Little research exists on the heterosexist implications of sexual violence policy and how those implications impact material resource development and allocation. This paper surfaces possibilities for more transformative and holistic interventions into sexual violence policy for higher education institutions.

Author

• Sara Carrigan Wooten, Louisiana State University