Making a Difference
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Author: Claudia J. Ford
Presenting Author: Claudia J. Ford (Ms.)Postal Address: #25 Private Bag X9, Melville 2109
Email Address: [email protected]
Telephone: 27-11-717-8070
Fax: 27-11-717-8061Infant Rape and the Deconstruction of Predatory and Impulsive Masculinity
Theme: Sexual Violence Against ChildrenAudio Visual Requirements: PowerPoint
Abstract:
This paper looks at the causes and consequences of the extremes of male impulsive and predatory behaviors as evidenced by a recent spate of high profile child rape cases in South Africa, especially focusing on the rape of infant girls under two years of age. The paper refers to the disciplines of psychology, history, psychohistory, psychiatry and traumatology to support two main hypotheses. First, that the ‘virgin myth’ is an historically potent example of the ‘poison container’ construct, which has been responsible for violence perpetrated by adults against children for hundreds of years. Lloyd De Mause’s studies of psychohistory and historical childrearing practices support this view. Second, that male predatory or impulsive violence is a function of the slow evolution of empathetic parenting, with specific reference to the intergenerational role in transforming and reshaping expressed masculinity to be culturally and socially functional. The literature on intergenerational violence and trauma is used to support this premise.INTRODUCTION
The heinous crime of child rape shocks us as no other. The recent spate of highly profiled infant rape cases in South Africa have galvanized us to undergo a more thorough and extremely painful search – through the discourses of psychology, social theory, criminology and politics, and by examining the social politics of HIV/AIDS, and the issues of gender, power and violence. The result has been an increase of studies and a cacophony of voices. Now, it is this author’s feeble attempt not to add to the din, but only to contribute in a small way to answering that question – whispered or shouted – WHY? Why do (mostly) men, rape infant (defined here as under two years of age) girls? This paper – which should be properly called an exploration – attempts an answer by simultaneously looking at an under explored area of research – the role and importance of parenting, especially boys; and by asserting the power of constructing a cultural and personal narrative about the rape of a five-month-old infant within an academic text.
Let me begin by declaring my incompetencies, not in the usual attempts at academic hubris disguised by protestations of inadequacy and feigned ignorance, but for the purposes of a real disclosure of my lack of academic authority on the subject of infant rape. I’m not a sociologist. I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a criminologist and I’m not an anthropologist. I’m just a mom.
By training I’m a biologist, by profession I’m a midwife, by career I’m an international development specialist. I’m studying for a doctorate in economics at Wits, and I lecture and practice in rural and urban business economics. I’m a Renaissance Woman. A highly educated, First Nations and African American woman, born and raised in the Bronx, transplanted to South Africa by way of the rest of the world. My passion remains with the concerns, fears and aspirations of women, and with my four children, and at core – I’m just a mom.
Why are these attributes part of this exploration of infant rape or part of my disclaimer about my suitability to be speaking on the subject? Because it was as just a mom that I found myself the caretaker of a five-month-old South African girl who had, 11 days before she found herself a part of my household, been brutally raped here in Johannesburg. And it was my personal exploration of her trauma and my task in healing her that led me to this line of research.
In the midst of the antriretrovirals, the colostomy bags, the hospitalizations, the arguments with the pediatric surgeons, the care of her torn perineum and her wounded spirit, I spent months on the internet, in email conversations with the world’s true academically and professionally defined authorities on infant trauma, and on international message boards with the parents of emotionally or physically vulnerable children. I began to search for and read journal articles. (And we all know when an academic starts reading journal articles a paper has been thus impregnated!)
I undertook this search for a number of reasons. First, the effort at research was a good vehicle for an intellectually gifted person to heal her own trauma of the rape of her daughter – for the instant I took this baby girl into my arms she was and always will be as much my child as if I had given birth to her.
Second, this research was my way of rising to the challenge that was issued by the first question that came to the lips of every person who met us in those initial few months – WHY?
As well, this exploration was my attempt to rationalize the emotional reactions of my three, adult sons – all of whom have reached sexual maturity – the oldest of which, now at age 28, was physically ill when he was told of the particular cabbage leaf under which his new sister had been found. How could I dare to be 99.99 percent sure that I had raised three men who would not even dream of defiling an infant girl, even as the very fact of my outrage in those early days was a heightened suspicion of all men, ALL MEN!? What had I done, as a single working mother, to raise non-violent, non-predatory, non-impulsive men, especially against all the sociological odds within my strange family that is definitively categorized as “other” “ non traditional” “not intact” and even “pathological” in all mainstream social and psychological treatises about the family (Bilblarz and Raftery 1999).
However, the fundamental reason for this exploration is that I immediately realized that in taking on the care and healing of this bruised little girl, I was also taking on the responsibility to answer her when she asked that question – WHY? Her courage demanded my thoroughness. My hubris is in sharing what I am learning, what I suspect, and what I am hypothesizing with all of you today. Thank you for putting up with this – I hope it adds something to your understanding of the subject of infant rape. (And because I am just a mom I also hope it adds something to the resolution of this issue of raising non-violent men, and in seeing that no other parent has to face the tragedy of healing a raped child.)
My interests, and the following observations of my research, focus on raising non-violent men. Therefore, I am attempting to deconstruct violent masculinity – predatory and impulsive. I will begin by clarifying my definitions. I will then look at the issues of parenting and infant rape – especially the virgin myth - from a psychohistorical perspective. I will briefly look at the functionality of masculinity and an examination of the neurobiology of violence and trauma. I will end with some comments on parenting as an exercise in intergenerational transformation.
I should also now declare that this research is in a highly unfinished state, and is definitely an ongoing literature review. This is not empirical research, except perhaps in the ways that as a feminist single mother I have experimented on my own sons for the last three decades.
DEFINITIONS
Most of the concepts used in this paper are non-controversial in their definitions, with the exception of the constructs of masculinity. For the term ‘infant’ I use a common dividing line of age 24 months or two years. To explain masculinity I refer to Brian Doss’ work on masculine ideology, which, based on research up to the late 1990s divides the construct of masculinity into male role norms and masculine ideology. Male role norms are culturally constructed expectations about behavior and traits considered appropriate for men. Masculine ideology is an individual’s internalized adaptation of these male role norms (Doss 1998). I also review Tina Sideris’ work on constructs of masculinity in villages in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Tina Sideris looks at the ways in which internalized definitions of masculinity – ideology – are socially reinforced and the consequences for individual men of defying these social pressures (Sideris 2003).
I understand, and construct my arguments on this understanding, that the task of masculinity is the social, psychological and political integration of an individual ideology/identity that minimizes gender role conflict or strain. Research shows that to the extent that an individual man needs to define himself as such, his task is to combine stereotypes, behaviors, traits, cultural expectations and the “rules’ of his childhood household into an integrated self concept of himself as a man. I argue later that there is a ‘crisis’ in masculinity that is precipitated by the psychological and physical maladaptiveness of male stereotypes and role norms, and reinforced by inappropriate societal, community and family socialization processes (Doss 1998; Sideris 2003). I conclude that this crisis is an opportunity to be both progressive and transformative in countering hegemonic masculinity in theory and in praxis (Sideris 2003; Snider 1998).
I define feminism, when the term is used in this paper, to be a transformative social movement with humanistic values, posited as the radical idea that women are fully human (Haniff 1998; Snider 1998). In particular I note that the feminist construction of rape goes back to Susan Brownmiller’s seminal work in 1975, and defines rape as an act of power and violence against women, and as an integral part of patriarchy, male domination and female exploitation (Brownmiller 1975; Anderson and Swainson 2001).
PSYCHOHISTORY
While this section looks extensively at the work of Lloyd de Mause, it is not only de Mause who notes that the concept of child abuse is one of recent history, even while the actions of child abusers go back at least to antiquity (Bilblarz and Raftery 1999; Chisholm 1993; de Mause 1993; Hacking 1988; Miller 1998; Perry 2001; Schapiro 1999).
The recognition of cruelty to children was a late Victorian issue. In 1912 the issue was infant mortality and after World War II the issue was juvenile delinquency. The concept we call child abuse began with the introduction of pediatric x-rays, as was first documented in July 1962. Among currently reported cases of child abuse nearly all perpetrators are from within the family or surrogate family, and the vast majority of incidents involve inappropriate touching. Many of these cases would not have been recognized even as much as a decade ago (de Mause 1993; Hacking 1988).
Lloyd de Mause is a psychoanalyst and historian who defines psychohistory as ‘the science of historical motivation and the primal, unconscious reasons why society level events happen.’ To study the ultimate causes of historical shifts, de Mause studies the history of childhood (Speyrer 1982).
de Mause believes that the history of satisfying children’s needs have gone through six phases or modes since recorded history. These psychogenic stages show the evolution of emotional closeness of the child to its parents. de Mause posits that as parent-child relationships evolve, they are ultimately translated into historical movements, and that the evolution of parenting relationships is not occurring at the same rate throughout the world. de Mause takes care to examine major adult-group fantasies of each historical period, spending considerable time on antiquity (Pacific Islands and Greece), the Holocaust, the World Wars, and 21st century terrorism (de Mause 1993; Speyrer 1982).
de Mause’s six childrearing modes are:
1. Infanticidal
2. Abandoning
3. Ambivalent
4. Intrusive
5. Socializing
6. Helping or EmpatheticA central tenet for de Mause (1993) is,
“I concluded that rather than the incest taboo being universal, it is incest itself -- direct and indirect – that is universal for most children in most cultures in most times, and that a childhood more of less free from adult sexual abuse is in fact a very late historical achievement, limited to a few fortunate children (original emphasis)…”This hypotheses served to make Lloyd de Mause highly unpopular and controversial with his colleagues in history and anthropology, although his review of their own ethnographic and historical work is painstaking and thorough.
Another of de Mause’s (1993) central positions about the psychology of parenting is, “The main psychological mechanism that operates in all child abuse involves using children as what I have termed poison containers….” de Mause contends that “sexual intercourse with the pure was an antidote to the impure.”
Lloyd de Mause (1993) is emphatic in his description of the ‘virgin myth.’
“As late as the end of the nineteenth century, men who were brought into Old Bailey (prison) for having raped young girls were let go because ‘they believed that they were curing themselves of venereal disease.’ Raping virgins was particularly effective for impotence and depression; as one medical book put it, ‘Breaking a maiden’s seal is one of the best antidotes for one’s ills.’ Thus British doctors in the nineteenth century regularly found when visiting men who had venereal disease that their children also had the same disease – on their mouths, anuses or genitals.”Championing empathetic parenting is the ultimate goal of de Mause’s work, as well as other researchers (Chisholm 1993; de Mause 1993l; Perry 2001; Schapiro 1999). With a conviction that society’s child rearing practices are “not just one item in a list of cultural traits, but the very basis for the transmission and development of all other cultural traits” de Mause (1993) takes an unambiguous stand for supporting parenthood and protecting the crucial mother-daughter relationship (de Mause 1993).
DYSFUNCTIONAL MASCULINITY
What does it mean to be “a man?” It is my contention, supported by a considerable body of lived experience and research, that current constructs of masculinity are based on the subordination of women and children, with violence and aggression seen as appropriate vehicles to maintain that subordination (Doss 1998; Sideris 2003). There remain widespread norms of the need to dominate, the need to have ‘strictly male’ spheres of control, and the sexualization of women, portrayed as simultaneously weak and emasculating (Sideris 2003; Snider 1998). This construct has become increasingly dysfunctional in an evolved and ‘modern’ world.
The dysfunctionality of masculinity is a complex issue. On one hand, men’s economic power, imperative to impregnate, and the need to defend through superior physical strength continue to be accepted and created by both men and women, thereby reinforcing the stereotypic constructs (Chisholm 1993; Posel 2003; Sideris 2003; Snider 1998).
On the other hand, male violence is rending the social and emotional fabric of all communities. While not taking a deterministic view that the structures of patriarchy and capitalism ‘cause’ behavior, I do maintain that the social context of the individual and family allow reference points for identity formation, and men construct notions of masculinity by choice. The degree to which any individual man buys into these global ideologies varies by the extent to which they are internally impelled to conform to or rebel against context (Haniff 1998; Snider 1998).
We are aware that when masculinity is linked by social norms and a powerful media industry to sexual prowess or economic success, it is difficult to foster identity formation that rejects violence and aggression in men (Posel 2003; Sideris 2003; Snider 1998 ).
In South Africa, as elsewhere, sexual violence “constitutes one of the main threats to the mental and physical integrity of women and children.” In Sideris’ study of non-violent men in the Nkomazi communities of rural South Africa, she describes her subjects as having internalized definitions of masculinity as “head of household, father, husband and sustaining authority” with the maintenance of masculine identity being the individual’s commitment to occupy and preserve this definition, and with violence or the threat of violence – for the purposes of female subordination – expected as the means of enforcement (Sideris 2003).
Sideris (2003) looks at how men and boys can construct masculine ideologies that reject violence in the face of powerful pressures within their communities to maintain masculinity through aggression.
What do we know then, about changing behavior and building less violent social orders? At the macro level we know that less violent cultures have comparative homogeneity, low levels of economic inequality, and superior social safety nets. In “rape-prone” societies force becomes a means of achieving both goods and status, and competition and violence are key concepts of manhood (Snider 1998). All this bodes ill for supporting a non-violent society in the “Rainbow Nation” with its extremes of cultural diversity, the highest Gini coefficient in the world, and with its structurally deficient social service system.
Is, as Sideris posits (2003), South African male’s behavior the result of their confrontation with rapid, large-scale political and social change? And in post-apartheid South Africa, where are the mines in the minefield of the intersection between the discourses of masculinity and race? (Posel 2003)
How can we socialize young black men to be non-violent when private acts of aggression appeared to be the only outlet their fathers’ had for expressing their anger against legalized social denial and dehumanization? How can we socialize young white men to be non-violent when public acts of aggression were sanctioned as the essential expression of the myth of their fathers’ superiority of gender and race? In both cases, either removing the boot of oppression off your neck, or taking those same boots off your feet are personal and political actions that challenge masculine (and racial) identity formation.
Deborah Posel (2003) points out that, “…one of the more striking features of the post apartheid era has been the politicization of sexuality, and more specifically, the heated controversy and proliferation of popular protest that has attached to two sets of issues: HIV/AIDS and rape, particularly ‘baby rape’.”
Transforming dysfunctional patterns of aggression requires almost heroic acts of agency on the part of individual men in creating new ideologies of masculinity and individual parents in the discouragement of aggression in their male children. Either of these achievements must take place in the face of overwhelming positive community and media reinforcement for rewarding and maintaining male stereotypes.
As in Haniff’s study (1998) of gender violence in urban Jamaica, I reject the argument that poverty is a cause of crime and violence – it is a correlate not a determinant.
TRAUMA AND VIOLENCE
Time and again well-meaning adults have said to me, “but at least, thank god, she won’t remember.” I understand the impulse to hide behind this fallacy as a measure of reassurance for the adults who ‘witness’ acts of inexplicable violence against helpless infants. I am aware, however, that the literature does not support this easy solution to infant trauma.
While ‘a significant controversy’ remains as to the construct of preverbal traumatic experiences and recovered memory of those experiences, it is widely accepted that traumatized children from the age birth to 2 years can show behavioral memory of their traumas (Baldwin 1996; Perry 1997; Share 2002).
The highly simplified neurobiology of infant trauma involves two significant brain events. First, the amygdala is the center of primitive emotional reactions and triggers emotional reactions independent of the hippocampus, which triggers cognitive reactions. As the amygdala is more fully formed during the first year of life than the hippocampus, precognitive emotional signals may be registered and neuronal memories of those signals may be stored in the brain from earliest infancy.
Second, brain development is characterized by both sequential development from brainstem to cortex (or from primitive regulation to higher order thinking), and by use-dependency or activity-dependency (Perry 1999).
What then constitutes infant neurological memory? Pediatric neurosurgeon Bruce Perry (who I must take this opportunity to thank for encouraging email words of support during the first few weeks of my trauma parenting experience), describes brain memory as,
“All nerve cells ‘store’ information in a fashion that is contingent upon previous patterns of activity….to understand that the physical properties of neurons change with experience is crucial to understanding the concept of memory. Simply stated – the brain changes with experience – all experience, good and bad…use-dependent development and the resulting organization of the brain are ‘memories’ – stored reflections of the collective experiences of the developing child.”Perry (2001) goes further to describe the relationship of brain memory (cognitive and affective) to trauma,
“All areas of the brain and body are recruited and orchestrated for optimal survival tasks during a threat. This total neurobiological participation in the threat response is important in understanding how a traumatic experience can impact and alter functioning in such a pervasive fashion. Cognitive, emotional, social, behavioral and physiological residue of a trauma may impact an individual for years – even a lifetime… Simply stated, then, the fear response will involve a tremendous mobilization and activation of systems distributed through the brain: terror involves cortical, limbic, midbrain and brainstem-based neurophysiology…In each of these areas – mediating cognitive, motor, emotional and state regulation – elements of the traumatic event will be ‘stored.’ Memories of trauma have been created.”TRANSFORMATIONAL PARENTING
The crisis in masculinity is good news. That male identity formation is undergoing transformation and is currently quite fragile is a hopefully sign. This leaves open the door for a redefinition of roles and norms and the reinforcement of adaptive instead of maladaptive behaviors and traits. In many respects this paper is an attempt to answer the question: “What is the role of heterosexual women in recasting male identities?” (Snider, 1998).
Snider (1998) in her examination of criminalization of gender violence, believes that both structure (macro level) and agency (individual level) provide opportunities for action. The necessity of transformational action is made more critical by the lack of evidence that criminalization has made “the female complainant safer or the male offender less violent, even in the short term,” (Snider, 1998).
I differ with Snider (1998) when she indicates that women can only play minor roles to create and define less violent masculinities. I envision the potential for parenting to be transformative, as the withdrawal of rewards for violence and toughness in sons (or the rewarding of emotionality and vulnerability) create valuable reinforcement of non-violent masculinity.
Women’s main private role is that of socializing the young. Says Snider (1998) “Mothering is (among other things) a controlling role, whereby children learn to conform, restrain antisocial impulses, and accommodate the discipline demanded of contributing adults in that society.” Most of the time, however, “parents simply reinflict upon their children what had been done to them in their own childhood.” (de Mause 1993).
I am, then, defining transformation in terms of changing beliefs and patterns of behavior. I am, therefore, defining this non-custodial aspect of involved and empathetic parenting as an act of conscious social control. In this regard I see social control as the discouragement of antisocial actions and the creation of individual discipline (Carlo 1999; de Mause 1993; Snider 1998).
Criminal violence, in the form of raping children, is undisciplined behavior – it is impulsive, aggressive and uninhibited. In many families it is also predatory (Snider 1998). Sideris (2003) found, however, that even within pervasively male-aggressive communities, individual commitments exist to progressive responses in the face of social change.
As described by Snider (1998):
“However, there is profound cultural resistance to wholesale and unqualified discouragement of individual aggression, particularly in the rearing of sons. Mothers as well as fathers, terrified of boys becoming ‘wimps’ send contradictory messages about the acceptability of bullying and aggression…. The price of questioning hegemonic masculinities can be high, producing feelings of uncertainty about one’s own masculinity, rejection by peers, or even physical attacks…. When you can partake of an identity that allows you, by the simple fact of gender, to see yourself as stronger and smarter than half the world, entitled by birthright to deference and power if not wealth, why would you question such beliefs?”In accepting the challenge of transformative parenting of both sons and daughters we are moving, as de Mause (1993) states “from projection to empathy, from discipline to self-regulation, from hitting to explaining, from incest to love, from rejection and over control to independence.”
The conclusion? We are challenged to teach our sons that notions of responsibility and care define the construct of masculinity, and that the modern cultural diet of consumerism and violence works by creating and reinforcing dangerous personal and social insecurity (Snider 1998). This requires no less than revisioning the responsibilities and privileges that define masculinity.
INFANT RAPE & FURTHER RESEARCHSays Pamela Scully (1995) in her study of rape in colonial South Africa, “We need to unite the previously disparate historiographic concerns with rape as a metaphor, or as an index of social tensions, with a study that takes rape seriously as an act of violence by men against women.”
According to pediatric surgeons Pitcher and Bowley (2002), “The motivations for rape are complex. Rape is associated with a close linkage between the concepts of sex and power…. Infant rapes seem to have several striking features. To penetrate the vagina of a small infant, the perpetrators first need to create a common channel between the vagina and the anal canal by forced insertion of an implement.”
I echo criminologist Mike Earl-Taylor (2002) in his request:
“From both criminological, psychological and sociological perspectives, there exists an urgent need for comprehensive and sustained research into the incidence of child/infant rape and its underlying causes, as well as that of its perpetrators alongside the effective implementation of both strategies and deterrents in order to protect our most vulnerable members of society – our children.”Ultimately, in constructing a narrative around the rape of my five-month-old South African daughter I have chosen to become conversant with my multiple roles as mother, mentor, midwife and therapist. I have consciously chosen a feminist social work practice as the framework within which to live this narrative with my daughter. I refer to Wood and Roche ‘s (2001) description of feminist social work practice, especially understanding and modifying for our own requirements the following central principles:
1. Rape inflicts brute violence, and attributes blame, resulting in a silencing of the voice of survivors. A refusal to accept blame or shame is critical to providing the space for a pre-verbal child to find her own voice or silence on this issue.
2. It is not necessary for survivors to retrieve or relive the pain and horror of their experience, but it is essential that they take back their right to interpret that experience.
3. Along with the personal care and healing comes an obligation to undermine oppressive beliefs and the ‘pervasive cultural discourse about gender that devalues, blames and subjugates women and girls.’ That violence in the home and on the streets are local versions of broader oppressive texts and myths that serve to control women’s behavior (Wood and Roche 2001).
4. That refusing shame and silence is a essential component of honoring my daughter’s courage and heroism.de Mause (1993) posits, “When mothers love and support particularly their daughters, a series of generations can develop new childrearing practices that grow completely new neural networks, hormonal systems and behavioral traits.” Given that traits of masculinity show a more stubborn resistance to change, I would extend this plea to the love and support of our sons.
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