Sexual assault in Australia

Many Australians are survivors of sexual assault. An estimated 1.3 million women and 362,400 men experienced an incident of sexual assault since the age of 15, according to results from the Personal Safety Survey 2005 (ABS, 2006a). This approximately translates to 1 in 6 women and 1 in 20 men. (Tarczon & Quadara, 2012, p. 7)

            The above quote demonstrate sexual assault as an issue with high incidence within Australian community. This report will explore and discuss sexual assault as the important issue (amongst many other issues) identified within the author’s community. This report will use sociological imagination; represent government reports and professional research information, to examine sexual assault within two sociological paradigms, Postmodernism and Feminism. Commencing with definition of sexual assault, followed by definition of Postmodernism, this report will present connections, issues of power and authority between sexual assault and postmodernism. Subsequently, the report will examine sexual assault with Feminism and also consider power and authority issues within the paradigm. In the final section of this report will be dedicated to present Christian perspectives, specifically, how Christians view and response to sexual assault.

In the introduction, statistics quoted to demonstrate the high incidence of sexual assault in Australia. However, one needs to consider the full definition of sexual assault, in context, to fully comprehend and evaluate the sociological implication and how important sexual assault is Australia. This report will attempt to present the definition of sexual assault by examining working definitions and social implications.

Efforts to define the sexual assault are not easy, especially when Australia does not have consistent definition of sexual assault. (One wonders if the lack of consistent definition of the word is a phenomenon that can be explained by postmodernism. This issue will be revisited in later section alongside examination of postmodernism.) However, there is general consensus by authorities (Personal Safety Survey, Crime Victimisation Survey and Recorded Crime – Victims data collection, ABS, 2012a) that sexual assault refers to a sexual act (sexual harassment; sexualized bullying; unwanted kissing and sexual touching; sexual pressure and coercion; and rape) performed against the will of a person above the age of 15 and above. Different organization provided different age benchmark (age 18 and above for Crime Victimisation Survey and 15 years and above for State and Territory criminal law, ABS, 2006c). (Tarczon & Quadara, 2012)

Zoë Morrison, Antonia Quadara and Cameron Boyd (2007) enumerated harmful effects of sexual assault to the victim and society as a whole. The effects are numerous and serious, including, psychological, emotional, physical, relational, societal, economical etc. They also established that sexual assault has “ripple effects” extending beyond victims to the entire society and is therefore a major social issue.

In this section, the report will examine the postmodernism paradigm. Carl, Baker, Scott, Hillman & Lawrence () defines Postmodernism as “ separate from and yet obviously linked with postmodernity, describes a philosophical position especially in literary or cultural studies”. In addition, postmodernism emphasize “exchange value over use value” and is “skeptical about universal truths”. Jean-Francois Lyotard referred to postmodern as “incredulity towards metanarratives” where metanarrative, or worldview, is a story with truths that can be generalized to the greater population or other parts of the world. Postmodernism places high regards on cultural diversity, particularity, as main influence to how one response to others. (Wilken & Sanford, 2009, p. 145-146; Sire, 2009, pp. 216-217).

This emphasis on particularity has serious implications such as; truth is socially constructed and not universal; wellbeing is determined by integration into one’s tribe; individuals or marginalized groups ignore dominant culture to get social recognition. The phenomenon that postmodernism described can be seen in multiple perpetrator rape. Year 2001, in Sydney, fourteen Lebanese men committed group rape offences on several young Australian whites women. Although this incidence occurred more than ten years ago, the reasons and behaviour of the perpetrators were uncannily postmodernist.

Understanding social phenomenon is important and useful, postmodernism has perhaps, fulfilled that purpose by examining the possible causes of sexual assaults. Postmodernism offer the distrust in absolute truths and need to exert power and control over dominant culture as the plausible causes to perpetuation of sexual assault. In addition, postmodernism emphasis on significance of cultural diversity encourage victim service providers to take consider cultural differences in order to formulate the most effective therapy for the individual or groups. Group therapies can also be seen as postmodernism in practice, where individuals who had been victims of sexual assaults can group together and find consolation and recognition from other individuals who have been through similar experience.

While postmodernism is useful for analysing the plausible causes of the perpetrators’ behaviour and encouraging suitable practices for service providers, it does not offer explanation to important and controversial issues such as why women experience significantly higher incidence of sexual assault as compared to men and what could be some possible prevention measures the society, state and individual can take to thwart sexual assault. In these areas, feminism offers some valuable arguments and suggestions for consideration.

Feminism offers three main positions; liberal feminism, socialist feminism and radical feminism. Liberal feminism works within established social structures to reform society, socialist feminism focus on conflict and power struggles. Radical feminism, perceiving women as being oppressed by men, focuses on examining and managing patriarchy (Sargent, 1994). Radical Feminism also “theorised gender as the basis of power”.  “Susan Brownmiller in Against Our Will described rape as ‘nothing more nor less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear’ (Jureidini & Poole, 2000, p. 181; Gruber, 2009).

Jureidini & Poole (2000) suggested two main feminist connections between sexuality and male domination. The first connection is the overwhelmingly higher emphasis of importance of male sexual pleasures and privileges compared to women. Feminists believe that the society applies ‘double standard’ of sexual behaviour. Using sociological imagination to apply this feminism perspective on sexual assault assimilates situations where male perpetrators deem their sexual needs as higher than the safety and humanness of women. This higher prioritisation is also evident in the basic societal unit, home.

Most assaults against women are perpetrated by a partner or family member; almost half (46%) of women physically assaulted since the age of 15 were assaulted by a current or ex-partner and 37 percent by a family member (ABS 2006b).

The second connection is the assertion that “male domination in the sexual arena is an instance of male domination in general”. This assertion is further demonstrated by the phenomenon of “rape culture” where Australian women are significantly controlled by the fear of rape. Feminism also argues that rape is not about sex, but power (Jueridini & Poole, 2000, pp. 379-380; Gruber, 2009). However, what feminism does not take into consideration is that males have greater natural biological propensity for aggressive assaults (Sabates, 2012).

Another view of feminism is that the society has indoctrinated women to be “victims of men’s sexuality” (Jueridini & Poole, 2000, pp. 379-380). Interestingly, Feminism’s work in this area seems to be yielding results. Bricknell (2008) report demonstrated an increase in Australian women’s propensity to report sexual assault over the years. She presented victimization survey data from the period of 1990s to 2005 and made comparison that showed an increase from 15 to 19% of women who claimed report of most recent sexual assault incidence and 9 to 16% of women who experienced sexual assault since age 15. (Bricknell, 2008)

This increase in propensity could be seen as the result of community acceptance and empathy towards women sufferers; greater empowerment of women to report wrong done to them; greater recognition of their rights and greater awareness of personal boundaries. Gruber named some government and court responses towards feminist efforts such as awareness of inaccuracy of resistance requirement in demonstrating psychology of rape victims and how resistance requirement caused serious injury; and removal of legislative hurdles (Gruber, 2009).

Overall, feminism has fought and achieved significant changes towards dealing with the issue of sexual assault. Although feminists hold varying views on sexual assaults and what solutions should and could be, they continue to proactively work towards reducing marginalisation of sexual assault victims. These contributions should not be dismissed and should be greatly encouraged.

So far, this report has established some of the views of postmodernism and feminism on the issue of sexual assault in Australia. Due to word limitation, the report is unable to uncover all the important perspectives available. However, the report has attempted to present major perspectives on causes, legislation, changes and societal implications. In this following section, the report will present Christian perspective on the issue of sexual assault. The essence of Christianity can be summarised as upholding Christ centered and Bible based worldview. Hence, this report will refer largely to the Bible scripture for Christian view on the causes, implications and other important issues, such as prevention and solution towards sexual assault.

The Bible offers the fall of man, through the Genesis story of Adam and Eve as the cause of sin. It also list numerous acts as sin, sexual immorality is one of them. Although the Bible does not directly reveal sexual assault as sin, one may infer through the stories such as the story in 2 Samuel chapter 13 of the bible, Amnon, son of David how Christian views sexual assault. In the story, Tamar, the victim warns Amnon that she will be disgraced and that such acts do not happen in Israel. Although, one could not tell from the scripture whether she meant that rape was not common in Israel or that rape was not permitted in Israel, one may safely infer that the sexual assault was socially unacceptable.

Subsequent chapters in the book of Samuel from 14 to 18 were used to describe the repercussions of the assault. The repercussions were numerous and affected the entire nation over a period of years. Taking cue from this story in the Bible, it may be safe to assert that Christianity warns about the serious implications of sexual assault.

Apart from warnings about the grave implications of sexual assault, the Bible also provides strict warnings about the personal consequences of sexual assault. Ephesians 5:5, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 warns about being divorced from kingdom of God. This perhaps is the most serious biblical consequence, considering the biblical view on how important it is to seek first the kingdom of God before everything else. In addition, the Bible advices to “put to death… sexual immorality…” in Colossians 3:5, “abstain from the passions of the flesh…” in 1 Peter 2:11.

Unlike the other two paradigms discussed, Christianity does not direct address the causes of the issue. Christianity offers warnings and awareness of the implications of sexual assault. While Feminism offers solution primarily for the victims, Christianity offers resolution for the perpetrators as where as the victims. In the same verses that warns of the serious implications, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 offers Jesus Christ as the solution for restoring the broken relationship between perpetrator and God.

There are evidences of Christians extending this offer of resolution through Christ in Australia. Churches offer support such as, crisis hotlines, counselling services, shelters, forums and research (Project Anna) in the areas of sexual assault. Examples of organisations providing such support are Lifeline, Uniting Care Wesley, Towards Healing etc.

In conclusion, sexual assault is multifaceted complex issue that faces problems such as incomplete data collection. While postmodernism and feminism are able to shed some light on some parts of the issues, such as causes, treatment, legislation, solutions etc., there remain many other important parts that warrant exploration. Christianity focus on prevention through warning and after trauma services provides support and hope towards the profound issue. However, more need to be done and can be done in the prevention and the after services of sexual assault. One hope that the church will be able to take up the cross and be more proactively involve in the issue of sexual assault in Australia and around the world.

References :

Bricknell, S. (2008) Trends in violent crime from Trends & Issues in crime and criminal justice, no 359. Retrieved 7 October 2013, from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/341-360/tandi359/view%20paper.html. Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology.

Carl, Baker, Scott, Hillman & Lawrence (2012). Think sociology. Australia : Pearson.

Gruber, A. (2009) Rape, feminism, and the war on crime from Washington Law Review, 84(581), pp. 581-658. Retrieved 7 October 2013, from http://digital.law.washington.edu/ dspace-law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/175/ Gruber_Author%20Copy.pdf?sequence=1. USA : Washington Law Review Association.

Jureidini, R. & Poole, M. (2000). Sociology: Australian connection (2^nd ed.). Australia : Allen & Unwin.

Morrison, Z. Quadara, A. & Boyd, C. (2007) “Ripple effects” of sexual assault from ACSSA Resource Sheet. Retrieved 7 October 2013, from http://www.aifs.gov.au/ acssa/pubs/sheets/rs5/index.html. Australia : Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Sabates, A. M. (2012). Social Psychology in Christian Perspective: Exploring the human condition. Illinois, Downers Grove : IVP Academic.

Sargent, M. (1994). The new sociology for Australians. Australia : Longman Cheshire.

Sire, J. W. (2009). The universe next door: A basic worldview catalogue (5th ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Tarczon, C. & Quadara, A. (2012) The nature and extent of sexual assault and abuse in Australia from ACSSA Resource Sheet. Retrieved 7 October 2013, from http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/sheets/rs5/index.html. Australia : Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Wilkens, S. & Sanford, M. L. (2009). Hidden Worldviews: Eight cultural stories that shape our lives. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.Sargent, 1994