Speaking into Silence: Intersections of Identity, Legality, and Black Women's Decision to Report Sexual Assault on Campus
Porter, Kamaria
2022
Abstract
Black women experience higher rates of unwanted sex, assault, and harassment, yet rarely report these incidents to police or campus officials (Slatton & Richard, 2020; Washington, 2001). To date, most research on campus sexual assault reporting focuses on white, heterosexual, cis-gendered women at elite institutions (Brubaker et al., 2017; Sabina & Ho, 2014). Further, most research attributes low reporting rates to individual, micro-level processes of survivors feeling shame, minimizing the incident, and internalizing rape myths (Harris et al., 2020; Ryan, 2011; Sabina & Ho, 2014). Research on Black women’s reasons for not reporting identify structural racism and sexism, pressures to protect the Black community from sexualized stereotypes, and identity related expectations to be the “Strong Black Woman” (Harris, 2020; McGuffey, 2013; Washington, 2001). In this study I examined factors that influenced Black women and non-binary students’ decision to report sexual assault to police and/or university officials. I used a conceptual framework that combines intersectionality and the theory of legal consciousness. Instead of examining the effects of racism or sexism in isolation, intersectionality holds that these systems of power interlock and shape each other (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). Black women, being marginalized by anti-Black racism and sexism, experience particular forms of exclusion at the intersection of racism and sexism (P. H. Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991). The theory of legal consciousness explores how people perceive the legal system and use concepts associated with the law to interpret everyday experiences, particularly when they are harmed (Ewick & Silbey, 1995; Marshall, 2003). I conducted 46 trauma informed narrative interviews with Black women and nonbinary survivors of sexual assault during college or graduate school. I found gendered racism pervaded Black women’s experiences of higher education. In their everyday experiences, Black women and non-binary students were made to feel invisible and unwelcome by white institutional members. This gendered racism manifested in frequent experiences of racialized sexual harassment in the form of unwanted sexual touching, advances, and coercion. Gendered racism on campus and racialized sexual harassment structured the sexual vulnerability Black women and nonbinary participants experienced, leaving them unprotected from sexual assault across campus contexts. Participants described sexual assault exposure in their attempts to date, find social support, in academic departments, and at parties. Participants anticipated two possible and devastating outcomes from reporting sexual assault: being dismissed by police or activating an overly punitive legal process against a Black man. Black women described a legal narrative in their communities that demanded they protect Black men from sexual assault allegations but found no legal narratives that supported their need for protection. This double bind silenced 34 participants by discouraging them from reporting or disclosing assaults. Some Black women and nonbinary students conflated university Title IX responses with the legal system, finding both untrustworthy. Five out of six participants who reported to police were blamed by officers using gendered racist assumptions to invalidate them. University complaint and hearing processes re-traumatized the eleven participants who tried to use them. This dissertation contributes to the literature on intersectionality and sexual violence, finding Black women and non-binary students evaluated reporting options through an intersectional lens. This research offers recommendations for keeping survivors in school, promoting spaces where Black women and non-binary students feel safe, and devising strategies for combatting gendered racism and assault on campuses.Deep Blue DOI
Subjects
campus sexual assault Black women college students Title IX
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