1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910780187403321

Titolo

New versions of victims [[electronic resource] ] : feminists struggle with the concept / / edited by Sharon Lamb

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, 1999

ISBN

0-8147-5291-8

0-585-42505-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (230 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

LambSharon

Disciplina

362.88/082

Soggetti

Women - Crimes against

Victims - Psychology

Women - Psychology

Feminist theory

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Contributors -- Introduction -- Chapter One. Heretical Texts The Courage to Heal and the Incest Survivor Movement -- Chapter Two. The Challenge to Feminism Posed by Women’s Use of Violence in Intimate Relationships -- Chapter Three “I Wasn’t Raped, but . . . ” Revisiting Definitional Problems in Sexual Victimization -- Chapter four. Recasting Consent Agency and Victimization in Adult-Teen Relationships -- Chapter Five. Constructing the Victim: Popular Images and Lasting Labels -- Chapter Six. In the Line of Sight at Public Eye: In Search of a Victim -- Chapter Seven. Trauma Talk in Feminist Clinical Practice -- Chapter Eight. Victims, Backlash, and Radical Feminist Theory (or, The Morning after They Stole Feminism’s Fire) -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life. While the debates rage



between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do. Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash. Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.