By Makalay Saidiatu Sonda
Hear me out before you lash out. Many NGOs working in the gender equality and equity space including around SGBV prefer using the word “survivor.” The term survivor has become the norm in referring to victims of various sexual and gender-based violence. I have many bones to pick with the use of this term.
My foremost critique of the term is that it glorifies suffering and in the process, there is a refusal of acknowledging a problem. How is this so? We live in a society where victims of sexual and gender-based violence are increasingly shamed and blamed. Women and girls are blamed for being raped, harassed, assaulted and molested. This is rooted in sexism and gender stereotypes. What was she wearing? Didn’t she seduce him? Why did she go to his house in the first place? Wasn’t she being disrespectful to him when he punched her? Isn’t she supposed to do what he says? He is her husband after all. Comments like these are what we frequently hear whenever there is a case of sexual and gender-based violence. The attitude is that women are to protect themselves by covering up and when they do not, it is their fault if they are harassed, assaulted or abused. The responsibility is shifted from the perpetrators to the victims. So, women and girls are shamed after facing sexual and gender-based violence because it is perceived as they asked for it. They are viewed as loose, unchasten etc. Referring to them as survivors does not take away the fact that this is the attitude of society towards them. I see using the word survivor as circumventing the problem.
Instead of using survivor as a preferred alternative to victim because of all the negative connotation of “victim”, why can’t victim blaming be challenged and discarded as it should? Using survivor does not stop the victim blaming, it rather gives a pseudo reality that one is a ‘survivor’ of a violence that is obviously life changing in unimaginable ways. That one is a conqueror of a violence that scarred you. Even though these are nice euphemism, they take away the realties victims face. Some die. Some lose their selves completely and their life can never be the same again. It takes away the reality that a grave crime was committed and that there was a perpetrator. It takes away the reality that the victim does not choose this in any way. Euphemising and down toning does not take away the deep-rooted patriarchal culture and misogyny that fuel and sustain violence against women and girls.
Recently on TikTok, I came across several posts with heading “meeting medusa.” On some posts, it was “meeting medusa at 9 and my life has never been the same”, or “meeting medusa in my marriage but no one takes you seriously because you are his wife”. On others, it was “meeting medusa thrice and it changed me forever”. I was curious to know what this phrase “meeting Medusa” meant. I rushed to the comment section to see. In the comments, many others were talking about the same thing with cry emojis and with texts like meeting medusa and nobody believed them or meeting medusa as a child but their family said never to talk about it. What broke my heart was when I found out that the phrase “meeting medusa” means being raped. In that comment section I saw brokenness, scars, unhealed trauma, pain. I did not see “survivors” but victims. Women that those perpetrators turned into victims.
The Medusa phrase led me on a journey to researching on “Medusa” to better understand the analogy and why it is used. Medusa’s life was marked by isolation, fear, and the burden of a deadly curse but she also symbolises resilience, female power and rage.
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