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Break the Silence: How Violence and Trauma Affect Young Women

Elizabeth Davis, Wake Forest University

A quick check of the days headlines consistently reveals the systemic violence that

women face in our society. Over the past several years, allegations and lawsuits against Bill

Cosby, Woody Allen, Bill OReilly, Donald Trump, and, most recently, Harvey Weinstein have

underscored the pervasive issue of male entitlement toward female bodies. Although violence

against women is an issue across demographics, young women are at particular risk. For

instance, RAINN (2016) notes that sexual assault survivors in America are disproportionately

female and under the age of 35. Moreover, statistics from the Department of Justice (2006)

illustrate that women between the ages of 16 and 24 are most likely to suffer physical or

emotional violence at the hands of an intimate partner. Thus, young people of all genders are

likely to have some personal experience with the trauma of a female survivor during their high

school or college years. With this culture in mind, educators must cultivate a climate of empathy

for young female survivors and women in general in their classrooms. Classes must examine the

following question: How do violence and trauma affect young women? This multi-genre inquiry

project pursues that question through a diverse array of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Laurie Halse Andersons novel Speak develops the themes of the trauma of sexual

assault, the silence surrounding violence against young women, and the importance of

storytelling to counter such violence. Speak follows Melinda Sordino during her freshman year

of high school after she is raped at a summer party. Moore and Begoray (2017) note that Speak,

like the other texts in this essay, is a work of trauma literature, or stories about individuals or

groups who have experienced profound loss or fear (p. 173). Melinda shows classic symptoms

of posttraumatic stress disorder (Moore and Begoray, 2017, p. 177) after her ordeal, evident in
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her social withdrawal. As a result of her trauma, she refuses to speak in public. Meanwhile, her

rapist remains in school with her because of the communitys silence about his reputation for

sexual violence. Yet the book also presents Melinda combating this silence through her attempts

to represent her pain via her artwork and testimony. Scholars have explored the novels use of art

therapy and storytelling as a means for survivors of sexual assault to heal (Moore and Begoray,

2017; Snider, 2014). Melindas sharing of her experience demonstrates how the power of story

helps survivors cope and raises awareness about violence against women.

Like Speak, Thomas Hardys novel Tess of the DUrbervilles explores the isolation that

young female survivors feel and the resistance to stories of violence against women in a male-

dominated society. After her romantic interest Alec Stoke-DUrberville rapes her, Tess

Durbeyfield attempts to start her life over by moving away from her home to a dairy farm. In her

new dwelling, Tess marries Angel Clare. Tess feels so much guilt about her assault that she

confesses it to Angel, who refuses to accept what he sees as her lack of chastity and leaves her.

As a result of her isolation after Angels betrayal, Tess murders Alec in revenge. Hardys story

serves as a powerful counterpoint to Andersons novel; Angels resistance to Tesss story adds to

Tesss trauma and galvanizes her to wreak violence on Alec, the man who first violated her.

Like Tess of the DUrbervilles, the works of trauma literature 13 Reasons Why and The

Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis illustrate how the climate of permissiveness and

silence surrounding sexual violence against women can begin a cycle of violence. In Jay Ashers

novel 13 Reasons Why, protagonist Clay listens to his schoolmate and crush Hannah as she

unfolds the story of her suicide over a series of tapes. The cause of her own death stems from her

classmates gossip about her, torment that leads her to believe her assault at the hands of a serial

rapist is her fault. She herself is haunted by the trauma of witnessing this same man assault her
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classmate Jessica, an incident that Jessicas boyfriend helps bring about and cover up. Such

silence about sexual assault also drives the plot of The Female of the Species, in which

protagonist Alex deals with the legal systems refusal to convict her sister Annas rapist and

murderer. Much like Tess in Tess of the DUrbervilles, the traumatized Alex takes revenge,

killing the man who violated Anna. She continues the cycle of violence begun with the brutality

against her sister through a campaign of vigilantism against perpetrators that ends in her death.

These works of trauma literature have in common the fact that each woman knows her

assailant, and in some cases, she is seeing him. The poems Porphyrias Lover and Rape Joke

both speak to the culture of male privilege that fosters such aggression against female

acquaintances and lovers. In Robert Brownings work Porphyrias Lover, the speaker is

jealous of the fact that Porphyria is not entirely committed to him. When she approaches him

romantically, the speaker takes advantage of Porphyrias openness and kills her, enjoying her

silent acquiescence. Patricia Lockwoods piece Rape Joke also discusses the problem of male

entitlement and the silencing of young women as its speaker recounts how her former boyfriend

assaults her while she is intoxicated. The entire poem deconstructs any attempts to turn rape

survivors stories into jokes and thus to silence them, with the speaker demonstrating how humor

ultimately falls flat in the light of her own post-traumatic stress.

In dialogue with the themes of young female survivors silencing and the need to break

this silence is Maya Angelous memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which recounts both

Angelous experience of growing up African-American in the Jim Crow South and her sexual

abuse. In addition to her sexual assault, Angelou must face her family members murder of her

assailant, dual traumas that leave her unable to speak. Andersons novel alludes to Angelou as
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one of Melindas role models, and both heroines are able to overcome the silence surrounding

their traumatic experiences through the empathetic intervention of community members.

For a modern, nonfictional perspective on young womens experiences of violence and

trauma, several sources about recent sexual assault cases provide insights. The first is the visceral

letter a survivor wrote to and read aloud to Stanford rapist Brock Turner (abridged for graphic

content). The second is the plea that Turners father wrote about his son being punished too

harshly for 20 minutes of action (Cleary, 2016). These valuable, contrasting perspectives on

modern rape culture illustrate the courage of a survivor despite attempts to silence her and the

mindset that enables such acts of violence, respectively. Survivor Emily Yellins article for The

New York Times, Waking Up to the Enduring Memory of Rape, contextualizes these themes

within Yellins take on the recent high school sexual assault trials in Steubenville, Ohio.

Columbia University student Emma Sulkowiczs senior art thesis, Mattress Project (Carry That

Weight) is also relevant to current accounts of survivors speaking out. Sulkowicz carried a

mattress representing her trauma wherever she went at the university her senior year to protest

Columbias decision not to expel her rapist.

In the words of Caruth (2016), trauma imposes itselfin the nightmares and repetitive

actions of the survivor (p. 4). Indeed, many of the young women mentioned in this essay are

haunted by continual reminders of the violence done to them or to their loved ones, violence that

is often sexual in nature. Yet trauma literature can provide the opportunity for readers to take a

stand against the threats that face young women each day and to empathize with survivors. Such

an educated public can help survivors cope with the disorder and vulnerability (Becker,

2014, pp. 15-16) of life after trauma and help them give voice to their stories. English teachers
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have the responsibility to break the silence about how violence and trauma affect young women,

setting a precedent for future generations to carry with them.

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References:

Baker, K. J. M. (2016, June 3). Heres the powerful letter the Stanford victim read to her

attacker. Buzzfeed News. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-

the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her- ra?utm_term=.hslKB4eOv#.fk0ZQ

4w5m

Becker, E.M. (2014). Trauma studies and exegesis challenges, limits and prospects. In E.M.

Becker & J. Dochhorn (Eds.), Trauma and traumatization in individual and collective

dimensions: Insights from biblical studies and beyond (pp. 15 29). Gottingen, Germany:

Hubert.

Caruth, C. (2016). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Baltimore: JHU Press.

Cleary, T. (2016, June 8). Read: Full letter to the judge by Dan Turner, Brocks father. Heavy.

Retrieved from http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/brock-turner-father-dad-dan-turner-

full-letter-statement-stanford-rapist/

Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice and Statistics. (2006). Intimate partner violence in the

United States, 1993-2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Moore, A., & Begoray, D. (2017). The last block of ice: Trauma literature in the high

school classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(2), 173181.

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). (2016). Victims of sexual violence:

Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence

Snider, J. (2014). Be the tree: Classical literature, art therapy, and transcending trauma in

Speak. Childrens Literature in Education, 45(4), 298309.