Reproducing Victims: A Policy Discourse Analysis of Sexual Violence Policies

• In Event: Power, Discourse, and Institutional Policy: Discourse Analysis in Higher Education Research

Abstract

This paper shares results of a study that examined the text of sexual assault policies to investigate embedded assumptions and predominant meanings constructed through these policies. The problem of sexual violence on college campuses is well established, and a prominent focus of the U.S. government’s expectations is on sexual assault policies and procedures. In November 2013, 29 of the 64 SUNY campuses were named in a resolution agreement issued by the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. These campuses will, among other expectations, modify their policies to align with each other and federal law.
Inquiry into the problem of sexual violence tends to remain outside the policy realm. Studies of incident rates and prevention approaches are important; however, a gap exists in the literature regarding the role of policy as a solution to the problem of sexual assault on campus (Iverson, 2015). This analysis of sexual violence policies follows the work of those who conceptualize policy-as-discourse: “policies as discursive and/or textual interventions that produce effects within formal organizations” (Allan, 2008, p. 31; Bacchi & Goodwin, 2016; Shaw, 2010). This approach examines “the assumptions underpinning policy narratives and their conditions of existence while also concentrating on their potential material effects” (Phipps, 2010, p. 362).
The sample for this study consisted of sexual violence policies from 29 SUNY institutions that were named in the 2013 Title IX / OCR resolution. This investigation utilized the method of policy discourse analysis (Allan, 2008) to investigate university policies on sexual violence.
Identification, and deployment, of alternative discourses (i.e. empowerment) in policy are needed to illuminate the multiple ways individuals experience sexual violence and exercise their agency. Narrow conceptualizations (i.e. at-risk, dependent victims) reify images of the “perfect victims” (Srikantiah, 2007) and “engage us in an exercise of comparison and contrast about which woman did the right thing” (Heberle, 1996, p. 72). A range of subjectivities exist (i.e. empowered, resistant, assertive, decisive) and must be brought forward to illuminate that individuals respond to incidents of sexual violence in a multiplicity of ways (Iverson, 2006, 2015).
The purpose of this investigation was to enhance understanding of the discourses circulating in sexual violence policies and how these discourses contribute to shaping particular identity positions for men and women to assume. Further, this inquiry adds to the scholarship about how the problem of sexual violence is gendered. A research goal is that this paper will inspire further research about the discursive construction of men and women in sexual violence policies.

Author

• Susan V. Iverson, Manhattanville College