The Resurgence of Victim-Blaming

Content note: this episode addresses gender-based violence.

“Is #MeToo Over?”, headlines are asking. There’s been a resurgence of victim-blaming narratives in the media and popular culture. Why is this happening? What can we do about it?

The deeper story is grounded in our contradictory cultural imagination when it comes to gender-based violence like intimate partner abuse and sexual assault. A recent survey by the Canadian Women’s Foundation found that most people in Canada believe we all have a role to end this violence, but nearly half are hesitant to act and 23% say “intimate partner violence is none of my business if it doesn’t directly involve me.” We may see statistics that prove how common this abuse is, but it’s hidden. We seem unable to fathom just how widespread it is. And we say we believe survivors, but we easily blame them, question their motivations, and worry about the impacts of their allegations on abusers.

Nicole Bedera joins us to dig into these dizzying contradictions. She’s a sociologist who studies how social structures, organizations, and culture create a world where violence is predictable and ordinary. Over the past decade, she has studied sexual violence in contexts like college campuses and has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Time Magazine and more. She’s a fellow at the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism and an Affiliated Educator at the Center for Institutional Courage.

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