Almost every woman or girl who I know on a personal level has been sexually harassed or assaulted. Me too. This is the reality we live in because it’s been normalized and policed with stigma, including external and internal victim-blaming, that survivors experience.
I argue that as an extension of the dominant society’s mindset, gender-based violence, including sexual assault and murder, has been structurally supported by the Canadian criminal justice system. This happens when the system classifies cases into distinct categories and sustains myths surrounding sexual assault, while ignoring the intersectionality of gender, race, and socio-economic class.
Intersectionality is vital to understand the power hierarchies involved in the the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis that the dominant, white Canadian society is largely unaware of. This ignorance is occurring not because the issue was not there and not because it is not widespread since estimates of the MMIWG are between 1,017 to 4,000. Then, why is the dominant, white, post-colonial Canadian society unaware about the MMIWG? What is the role of institutions like the justice system in allowing this to occur?
In order to understand these questions, I will first briefly discuss some myths surrounding rape, and then focus on the intersectionality of gender-based violence and the MMIWG.
In “Young Women’s Experiences with Reporting Sexual Assault to Police”, Dr. Vicki Vopni criticizes the police for being more likely to take rape cases seriously if they fit the category of “real” rape. The dominant mindset defines it as rape done in a public location by a stranger who threatens or uses force, leaves physical injuries, and in which the victim fights back.
The idea of “real” rape comes from myths about rape. It undermines survivors’ experiences, since most rape cases do not fit the strict definition of this “ideal” rape, and tries to justify the violence. As Vopni shows, the idea that there is an “ideal” rape case makes it harder for rape survivors to recognize the assault, report their experiences, and get legal justice. Vopni explains that many of her study’s participants felt that the police minimized the impact of sexual assault on them. This was done, for example, through direct victim-blaming statements.
“[The police officers] were both brutal and mean and kept coming out with all these question and they thought I was lying to them,” one participant explained. As a result, many survivors felt further traumatized by the process of reporting their assault to the police. Some also experience internalized victim-blaming. Another participant of Vopni’s study stated, “To make someone re-live something over and over again is not always the best thing. That is when you get confused because you start getting scared that they are not going to believe you and then you start doubting yourself. You are like, ‘Well, maybe I did do something wrong.’”
While Vopni considers gender hierarchy to be a major factor in this violence, she does not discuss other intersectional variables like race and socio-economic class, which cause certain demographics of women and girls to be disproportionally affected. In “Perspectives on Rape in the Canadian Sex Industry”, Dr. Elya Durisin notes the effect of class hierarchies: women most vulnerable to experience violence in the sex industry are those who live in poorer areas and are struggling financially.
Considering gender hierarchy, the presence of sexual assault myths, victim-blaming, and class is important as it could explain why the justice system fails people like Cindy Gladue, an Indigenous woman who died bleeding out in a bathtub after a paid sexual encounter with Bradley Barton. During Barton’s trial, lawyer Jean Teillet stated that Gladue was objectified and dehumanized: the Crown presented her pelvic tissue as evidence and used her history of sex work to suggest that Barton had Gladue’s consent. Gladue was also referred to as a “prostitute” or “native” more than 50 times. Barton was found not guilty. Gladue’s case shows that unfortunately it is also significant for the justice system that Cindy Gladue was Indigenous.
In her dissertation, Dr. Sarah Hunt demonstrates how the colonialscape mindset—which views the Canadian landscape through a colonial lens of terra nullius— causes the justice system to erase violence experienced by Indigenous women and girls by naturalizing or failing to witness it.
Dr. Amber Dean agrees on the role of colonialism in relation to the violence Indigenous women and girls face. In “The Present Pasts of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside”, Dean adds that during the European settlement of British Columbia, a method for discouraging mixed-race relationships was the conflation of “Indigenous woman” with “prostitute”; furthermore, to justify violence against them, Indigenous women were victim-blamed and perceived to be immoral and dangerous. This victim-blaming mentality is strikingly similar to what happened during Barton’s trial.
Dean also notes that protestors can create a haunting presence of colonialism’s relation to the present by increasing their visibility. I witnessed this at the 28th annual Women’s Memorial March for the MMIWG, which occurred on February 14 in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). I watched the community of DTES residents — whose daughters, sisters, mothers, cousins, and friends continue to go missing or murdered— make noise and persevere.
By the end of the march, one of the speakers asked people to shout out some names of the MMIWG. An Indigenous man who was standing next to meet quietly repeated, “My daughter.” This stayed with me. The March helped humanize the MMIWG for me and I encourage everyone to attend it and allow their assumptions to be challenged.
However, it is also important to remember that as a white, European female who hasn’t been personally affected by the MMIWG crisis, I will never be able to fully understand what it is like.
My analysis of this topic is limited because of my position in what Margaret Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins call the “matrix of domination”. This is one’s place in the intersectional hierarchies of gender, race, and class. While I am female, I am also white, privileged to attend UBC, and have lived in Canada for less than a year.
Although I want to be an ally and help spread awareness about the MMIWG, it is also important to leave space for Indigenous people to speak for themselves.
Does this mean that if one is not Indigenous and has not been touched by the MMIWG crisis, one can simply ignore it and expect Indigenous people to stop the crisis on their own? If one knows about this crisis and their privilege in relation to it, is one indirectly involved in allowing the violence to continue? Then, what could a non-Indigenous person do to become an ally?
Non-Indigenous people could begin by listening to others’ lived experiences and reflecting on their own assumptions and position within the matrix of domination that has caused them have societal privileges and ignore the violence Indigenous women and girls experience.
We (non-Indigenous, white, post-colonial people) can educate ourselves and attend events like the Women’s Memorial March. We can help spread awareness about this issue and recognize the structural causes, including the justice system, that need reforming. We have plenty of options for what we can do. The real question, then, is what will you do?
