Surfacing (im)possible victims: A critical review of the role of gender, sexuality and power in constructing the conditions of possibility for South African victims of female sex crimes

Abstract

Female sex abuse (FSA) has recently gained increased visibility in academia, the legal and mental health systems and the media both globally and in South Africa. However, the academic research currently in circulation is primarily focused on abusers, resulting in very limited information on the victims. Victim data that is available is based mainly on studies conducted with these abusers. FSA victimhood is underexplored and many victims remain invisible to the criminal justice and health systems and are barely discernible as objects of human science knowledge. Despite the accent on vulnerable populations and human rights in the contemporary world, there is very little work on precisely why these victims remain invisible. This article therefore aims to explore the role of gender, sexuality and power in shaping the conditions of (im)possibility for the construction of FSA victimhood. This will be achieved by reviewing the current literature in circulation concerning FSA specifically and gender and sexuality more broadly. The key objective of this review will be to identify the intersections between FSA victimhood and gender, power and sexuality in order to illuminate the discursive coordinates that limit FSA victims from occupying a victim subject position. Consequently, this article will expose power relations operant in society and, in turn, call for a more complex, variable and dynamic understanding of both gender and sexuality as instruments and effects of modern power.

Indonesian Christian Young People Resisting the Dominant Discourses of Men as Desiring/Dangerous and Women as Non-sexual/Vulnerable

“…Below is her narrative about her experience of sexual coercion by her girlfriend, which might challenge the heteronormative foundation of this binary. As previous studies have noted (Kramer 2015;Malinen 2013), same-sex sexual violence has disrupted the heteronormative assumptions behind the binary of men as desiring and women as non-sexual. Same-sex sexual violence is difficult to comprehend through this binary (Braun et al 2009;Gilroy and Carroll 2009), such as the confusion among police officers regarding whom to arrest when they arrived at a scene after receiving a report of same-sex domestic violence (Knauer 1999).…”

Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences

“…This chapter is based on a larger study conducted by Kramer (2014) in which the primary objective was to demonstrate how constructions of gender and sexuality interact at the interface of modern power to produce the conditions of possibility for FSA victimhood. This was achieved by interviewing FSA victims to identify and interrogate the ways in which they construct victimhood.…”

“…While some global work has provided broad overviews of general female sex abuser characteristics, occurrences and circumstances and, to a lesser extent, specific case studies, to date there is very limited academic information about FSA victims (McMahon, 2011). Likewise, the media is currently peppered with images and stories of women who have committed a variety of sex crimes; however, the victims of these women remain invisible (Kramer, 2015).…”

“…In the overall study by Kramer (2014), victimhood was constructed through various discursive strategies and coordinates employed by the self-identified FSA victims. In line with Butler's (1989Butler's ( , 1999Butler's ( , 2004) theories on performance, the participants mobilised discourses on gender, sexuality, criminality and victimhood in producing the conditions of possibility for taking up victim subject positions.…”