Feminist Alliance Against Rape
Who Will Speak for the Children?
Part I
by Claudia Wayne and Laureen France
For several months, women from Aegis and the D. C feminist community met to
discuss incest. Some women in the group had been victimized as children. Others had
escaped sexual assault. Our tall's affected both our political analysis of incest and our
perceptions of personal experiences. The following statement of our views on child
sexual assault in the family emerged from these discussions.
However, we are not satisfied with this limited analysis of the problem. We are
frustrated by the lack of reliable facts about child sexual assault and by the
scarcity of feminist theory capable of trans-forming facts into understanding.
Those who survived incest and those who offer support and counsel to child and adult
survivors are uniquely suited to remedy these deficiencies. In particular , we would like
to publish discussions of alternatives for victims and strategies for ending incest. We
also encourage people to assess the needs of male victims of incest.
Child sexual assault in the family is a widespread phenomenon that appears from
most indications to be perpetrated primarily against young girls by their fathers
or male guardians. No national statistics indicate the true extent of this crime. Even the
FBI's annual Uniform Crime Report fails to classify crimes by the age of the victims.
Those working in social service agencies who have tried to compile reliable statistics
generally agree that reported cases represent merely the tip of the iceberg. Yet the
extent of child sexual assault in the family is rarely acknowledged and its occurrence
barely touched on as an issue of concern. Children are warned only of strangers lurking
in dark corners of the playground. Informing girls of the potential for sexual abuse by
their fathers, uncles, grandfathers or older brothers is a neglected responsibility. People
act as if the taboo is so strong and the crime so repugnant that only society's
most perverse members can be considered suspect. Just as with wife and child
abuse, society chooses to remain ignorant of sexual assault of children within families
for as long as possible, thereby avoiding the responsibility for stopping it. Who is
protected by the blinders society has donned? Certainly not the female victims.
As women, and through a political analysis as feminists, we are highly sensitized
to the power men hold, the relative powerlessness of women, and the rather
unrestricted liberty men have to abuse their power as they see fit. The relationship
of father to daughter perhaps epitomizes this dynamic of our patriarchal society as well
as any. For what woman is as powerless in relationship to a man as a daughter is to her
father? Thus when a father eroticizes the relationship and molests his daughter, he is
acting out the extreme on a continuum of men's abuse of power in this society.
For these reasons, child sexual assault in the family is a feminist issue. Even if
some of us escaped sexual victimization by our fathers, it is, like rape, not because we
made a choice to avoid victimization, but rather because the men who were our fathers
or guardians chose not to abuse their power.
Therefore, we were at one time, and our younger sisters are now, all potential victims.
Even though many of us are no longer in a position where sexual assault by our
fathers is a threat, we must claim this issue much as we have identified with the
problem of battered women. While some of us (who have had the opportunity to do
so) have designed our lives to avoid the possibility of ever being a battered wife, we
realize our connectedness and responsibility to women who are. To make the struggle
against child sexual assault in the family our struggle is to fight the source of the same
oppression, the same violence that begets rape and battering. The magnitude of this
crime further insures that many of us and many of the women we work with, live with,
and meet daily have suffered the agony of sexual molestation by fathers. The insights
gained in fighting rape, sexual harassment and women abuse show clearly the
inadequacy of leaving the problem for individual victims to cope with alone.
None of this is to say that child sexual assault in the family is the same as sexual
harassment or rape or battering. Each of these are unique and complex forms of
oppression which require their own analyses and separate strategies to fight them. But
all are ways of controlling women through violence and should be part of what we fight
as feminists.
This article attempts to show the ways our society misperceives and fails to deal
with child sexual assault in the family (much the same way it has failed in the areas
of rape and woman abuse), and to point out some of the unique horrors associated with
this form of abuse.
Child sexual assault can encompass various sexual acts ranging from "exhibitionism to
fondling to cunnilingus, fellatio, sodomy and intercourse. The type of activity itself is not
as important as the manner and atrnosphere in which it is conducted.
We are focusing primarily on child sexual assault committed by fathers although the
term "father" as used here includes father, stepfather, guardian, a mother's live-in
boyfriend, or any other man playing a similar role in a girl's family.
The article emphasizes the father role, although we nonetheless recognize that the
same power relations, abuse of authority, and subsequent emotional damage to a girl
may exist when the abuse is committed by a grandfather, uncle, or older brother. The
important factors remain; a girl suffers victimization by a man who has significant power
and authority over her in a physical, emotional and economic sense; he has the power
to destroy her self- concept, her sense of well-being and to redefine the essence of her
life.
Child sexual assault traumatizes children regardless of their sex;* however, in this
article, we choose to focus on the abuse of girls because we believe that the effects of
the abuse are qualitatively different for boys and girls. The distinction springs in part,
from the differing ways girls and boys are taught to view their roles and sexuality. The
threat of sexual assault and victimization pervades the experience of women -- so
much so that many women consider it their inherent burden as women rather
than the gross injustice it is. Furthermore, this article deals with the sexual assault of
girls because we need to bear witness to the crime as we know it best. However, clearly
much of what is said here regarding the dynamics and injustice of child sexual assault in
the family applies equally to boys as well as girls.
Finally, since the assault occurs within the family setting, the victims of this
assault, like some battered wives, cannot escape and receive support and
security from what is often considered our final refuge. It is in the family where she
is most endangered, but because society refuses to take responsibility for what goes on
in families, the most likely response to a child who says she is being abused by a
member of her family is disbelief. Since the family is the primary unit of society, her
alternatives to staying in the family are few and, for reasons discussed later, can be as
tortuous as the sexual assault.
Like the problems of battered women and rape, society has too long derived
comfort from stereo-typing the perpetrator of this crime by class, race, etc. Seeing
the crime as one committed by perverted, alcoholic or poor men in isolated, rural
communities is safer because it avoids the radical analysis necessary to discover real
causes and recognize the implications or that discovery. The Child Sexual Abuse
Treatment Center in Santa Clara, California reports that fathers seen there are mostly
white professionals, semi- professional or skilled blue collar workers from middle or
upper-middle class families. Fathers who commit child sexual assault are members of
all classes and races. Stereo-types of offenders shield most men from suspicion no
matter how loudly the signs of it scream. They also serve to sacrifice girls and women in
the process.
* Controlled by a certain class of males.
** Statistics indicate that abuse of girls by fathers is the most prevalent form of sexual
assault in the family. However, Statistics often mislead and some credible sources
speculate that the sexual abuse of boys may be greatly underreported.