Chapter 7 Unpacking Male Sexualized Trauma: Rights and Resistance from a Feminist Perspective
In: Where To From Here? Examining Conflict-Related and Relational Interaction TraumaSearch for other papers by Anka D. Mason in
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Abstract
Male survivors of rape and other sexualized trauma in conflict and post-conflict communities around the world are stepping forward to end the stigmatization, isolation, shame, and silence around their victimization. As they do so, socially constructed taboos and mistaken awareness around male victimization are challenged. By framing their trauma alongside the language of rights, this chapter addresses the lacuna in knowledge and practical application of rights-based frameworks and the consequent harm and re-victimization that arise as a result. Importantly, I demonstrate how the trauma-to-rights path for male survivors of conflict-related sexual violence upends: (1) fabricated notions of the impossibility of male victimization; (2) the positioning of males as perpetrators only; and (3) global conventional standards of masculine behaviour, practices, and expression that strongly discourage any or all indications of vulnerability. I use the common threads of trauma, resistance, and rights in the works of Tarja Väyrynen (War and Trauma in Finland), Muneer Ahmad (Rights and the Dehumanization of Guantânamo Detainees), and Chris Dolan (Male Rape Survivors within the Ugandan Refugee Population) to reveal how traumatic experiences in the male body tell a story, as Arthur Frank describes, ‘in order to construct new maps and new perceptions of their relationships to the world.’ Observing, as some have, that the specific issue of male sexualized trauma is also a feminist one, I argue that these ‘new maps’ and ‘new perceptions’ implicate and urge the development of a new feminist discourse on gender, power, violence, and rights. This emerging discourse must in turn, effectively interrupt and resist the antiquated dichotomy of ‘female/victim’ and ‘male/perpetrator’ in order for the global community to actualize a more just application of mechanisms aimed at protecting the fundamental human rights of all persons.