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Daniel Horowitz Garcia,
"Contradictions of Discourse: Evaluating the Successes and Problems of a Batterer Intervention Program"
(page 2 of 4)
Frameworks
Linda Alcoff and Laura Gray are two feminist thinkers who adapted
Foucault's ideas on speech and the confessional to evaluate the
implications of survivors of incest and sexual abuse going public with
their stories. The authors point out that Foucault's thoughts on speech
seem contradictory. By speaking out, we can make it acceptable to talk
about the unacceptable; we may even change the relations of power, but
we may also reinforce the dominant structures of society. Alcoff and
Gray seem to believe that rather than a contradiction, these two points
are a challenge. It is possible to meet this challenge through
intentional, thoughtful action. They probe the how, who, and what of
survivors speaking out in various forums including television talk
shows, meetings, events, and anonymous writing on bathroom walls to show
that the act of speaking out can be helpful to survivors, or it can
refigure the experience into
domination.[1] The authors conclude by
suggesting that survivors work to gain autonomy over the context and
content of their speech. To that end, they put forward shifting the
frame of discourse from confession to witness. As they explain, "A
witness is not someone who confesses, but someone who knows the truth
and has the courage to tell it".[2]
Alcoff and Gray developed their ideas specifically for female
survivors of incest and sexual abuse. They caution that it may not be
possible, or desirable, for these ideas to be used with men, let alone
male aggressors. I recognize and respect the need for caution here.
However, I believe this framework could be beneficial to the MSV class.
Government officials, from judges to prosecutors, want a program focused
on individual acts of violence. More importantly, the criminal court
system centralizes the needs of the State, not the survivors. We can
already see government asserting control over the content and context of
the BIP classes. The criminal court system wants individual men to
confess their misdeeds to the State. The alternative would be men
witnessing each other's violence and the connection to institutional
forms of violence with women controlling, or at least heavily
influencing, how that is done. Alcoff's and Gray's ideas allow MSV to
resist interpellation by the State because it shows how the process is
proceeding. Presently, MSV doesn't have a framework that distinguishes
between confession and witness.
To support the idea of witnessing, the MSV class needs to support the
autonomy of survivors regarding speech. While this orientation already
exists at MSV, modifications are needed in order to avoid the creation
of a confessional and to support the idea of witnessing. One aspect of
the confessional Alcoff and Gray discuss is the expert mediator of
women's experiences. The confessional needs an "objective" authority
that can interpret the "raw experiences" of women's violence. As a
contrast, in witnessing, the survivors can and should serve as their
experts.[3]
The MSV class has facilitators, and those facilitators are
men. Even though women's experiences are brought into the class through
writing, video, and other methods, because women are not bringing these
experiences themselves, the facilitators tend to serve as expert
mediators. Is the class then a place for confessing or witnessing? It
contains both dynamics. That in and of itself may not be a problem.
Because the ultimate aim of the class is to create allies for the
destruction of patriarchy, there must be some way to interrupt and
challenge the workings of patriarchy within the class. Facilitators are
not there to be friends with men; they are there to challenge. It is
probably not necessary that women survivors bring experiences before the
class. However, it is a problem that there is no clear idea how to
balance these dynamics.
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