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A Queer of Color Critique of Neoliberal Anti-Rape Victim Advocacy
Chen, Melinda
Chen, Melinda
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Abstract
The “neoliberal turn” of the U.S. anti-rape movement in the 1990s extended the state’s power over victim advocacy for survivors of sexual assault and created challenges for, and at times has harmed, victims. Following a sexual assault, survivors today must cooperate with systems professionals, such as law enforcement officers, and comply with stringent and conditional policies at the neoliberal rape crisis center to gain access to emotional support and resources from advocates. Anti-rape scholarship in the last two decades has pointed out that these legal requirements placed on survivors can re-traumatize survivors while further preventing them from accessing post-rape services apart from criminal legal systems. These “secondary” harms are inadvertently caused by victim advocates, who serve at the frontlines of the anti-rape movement and must on the one hand negotiate with the state for funding and on the other hand support rape victims in a trauma-informed, healing manner. Although there has been a renewed interest in supporting victims outside of the neoliberal state’s purview, there remains a gap in understanding the effects of neoliberalism in anti-rape work for marginalized rape victims (defined as people of color, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and those who are otherwise socially oppressed). Queer women of color feminists have long decried the effects of systems for their disproportionate and sometimes violent treatment of marginalized people. Yet the scholarship on neoliberal victim advocacy continues to ignore and overgeneralize the disparities in post-rape treatment on victims by advocates. This dissertation sought to remedy this gap by offering an in-depth analysis of neoliberalism’s effects on marginalized rape victims. Informed by queer of color critique, I interviewed sixty-three victim advocates from multiple and diverse rape crisis centers across the U.S. to evaluate the ways in which neoliberalism has changed anti-rape services for marginalized rape victims. I find that neoliberalism has (1) transformed the rape crisis center organizational structure in ways that subsume marginalized advocates’ voices, (2) erased intersectional violence (such as racism and transphobia) experienced by marginalized rape victims through the commodification of empowerment, (3) categorically defined victim identities in the documentation of survivors for funding, which discounts the fluidity of victims’ identities, and (4) pre-affixed survivors to carceral temporalities, forcing marginalized victims to present normatively to achieve carceral justice. These findings show that neoliberalism is responsible for creating and sustaining disparities in rape crisis response. In response to these findings, I propose preliminary queered, inclusive solutions to each of the sources of neoliberal harm in each chapter and in my conclusion. I wish to spark a dialogue about re-radicalizing advocacy for the betterment of all survivors.
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Date
2022-08-31
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
Women's studies, Social work, Public policy, Advocacy, Neoliberalism, Queer of Color Critique, Rape, Sexual Violence, Welfare