ABSTRACT

Cultural understandings of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault have shifted considerably since the 1960s in the United Kingdom and more widely. This article investigates how changing discourses around sexual abuse, harassment and assault are navigated by British women in later life when they narrate experiences that occurred in their youth in the 1960s and early 1970s. It identifies six sites of youth that are relevant to understanding how women narrate experiences of sexual violence: home; school; local outdoor places; workplaces; heterosexual intimacies; independent travel. These sites are associated with different points on a ‘girl to woman’ register, tracing a pathway from the immaturity of girlhood, through the liminal state of young womanhood, into maturity. How interviewees positioned themselves on this register reflects how they understood their youthful selves in different sites, and their past experiences of unwanted sexual attentions. While gender inequality is understood to have limited women’s education and employment opportunities in youth, it is surprisingly absent from narratives of sexual violence. In attending to this absence, we argue that what is at stake for the women in how they navigate shifting cultural discourses is narrating a version of themselves that is agentic and morally responsible.

摘要

自 20 世纪 60 年代以来，英国乃至更广泛的地区对性虐待、性骚扰和性侵犯的文化理解发生了很大变化。本文调查了英国女性在晚年讲述 20 世纪 60 年代和 1970 年代初年轻时的经历时，如何引导有关性虐待、骚扰和性侵犯的不断变化的话语。它确定了与了解妇女如何讲述性暴力经历相关的六个青年场所：家；学校; 当地的户外场所；工作场所；异性间的亲密关系；独立旅行。这些网站与“女孩到女人”登记册上的不同点相关联，追踪了从少女时代的不成熟，经过年轻女性的临界状态，到成熟的路径。受访者如何在这个登记册上定位自己，反映了他们如何理解不同地点的年轻自己，以及他们过去遭受不受欢迎的性关注的经历。虽然性别不平等被认为限制了妇女在青年时期的教育和就业机会，但令人惊讶的是，性暴力的叙述中却没有性别不平等。考虑到这种缺席，我们认为，对于女性来说，在如何驾驭不断变化的文化话语方面，最重要的是讲述一个具有能动性和道德责任感的自我版本。