Misconceptions and myths — or “frames” — around rape and sexual assault are a global phenomenon and have been around forever. Unfortunately, some of them were created and/or are perpetuated by news, entertainment, and social media.

Writing my book, Hear #Metoo in India: News, Social Media, and Anti-Rape and Sexual Harassment Activism, exposed me to several sexual-assault frames prevalent both in the U.S. and India. Their similarities were a teachable moment for me, especially after I read the New York Times’ coverage of the gang rape of a Texas girl in 2011. All the frames were there: the victim-blaming, the stereotypes of her “asking for it,” and many others.

My personal insight into the cross-cultural sexual-assault framework came from conversations with feminist activists in marginalized communities in India. Among other things, they wanted to know if sexual assault/harassment was an issue in the U.S. — since they never heard about it in Indian news media — and whether Americans had conversations about sexual assault outside of the #MeToo movement.

These exchanges reminded me of a classroom discussion I’d had several years ago, when I asked my college students to tell me what they did to avoid sexual harassment and assault. I divided the class by their stated gender identity and asked them questions developed by anti-sexism educator Jackson Katz. Most students who identified as female answered “yes” to the following statements:

1. “I keep someone on auto-dial.”
2. “I avoid going through dimly lit areas.”
3. “I call someone while walking.” 
4. “I look behind me to check if anyone is following.”

However, the students who identified as male acknowledged that they’d never considered altering their behavior in the name of safety like their female peers did. I shared that I, too, had taken the precautions mentioned by the women when I was an undergraduate decades ago, albeit on a different continent! 

But despite such similarities between how women in the Global North (higher-income countries) and Global South (lower-income countries) seek to protect themselves, the realities facing victims of sexual assault are not the same in both regions. And the ability to share stories of one’s assault via a hashtag — often trumpeted in the Global North’s media narrative — can be a privilege. It can also be precarious, depending on where the victim resides.

For instance, even if girls and women in the Global South know about the social-media movements that exist to validate them, engaging with those movements can have consequences. In some rural and semi-rural parts of India, especially, girls and women who share sexual-harassment or assault stories via #MeToo risk limiting their access to public spaces (and Wi-Fi). Further curtailing their freedom, they may forfeit the option of going out at all unless accompanied by a male relative.

Yet when news, entertainment, and social media in the Global North report on sexual-assault victims in the Global South, such realities are often ignored, making the hesitation of these women and girls to embrace things like #MeToo seem inexplicable. The failure of the media to provide proper context is just one more way in which sexual-assault victims in the Global South are “othered,” if not outright dismissed.

By contextualizing women’s stories — and emphasizing the similarities among sexual-assault victims everywhere — the media, as well as authors like myself, can build a stronger, more accurate narrative around sexual assault, one that is respectful of victims regardless of where they live.

Pallavi Guha, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of journalism at Towson University in Maryland and a former journalist with BBC News and the Times of India.

comments powered by Disqus