communication homework, week 8

This week were going to examine a rather serious topic: power imbalance, sexual assault, victim blaming, and communication. The language we use to communicate relations between genders, sexes, religions, cultures, and politics, as well as many other topics, demonstrate power relations and attempts at leveraging power. Language itself can be used to lower somebody, creating a power imbalance, in order to justify actions, cultural systems, and so on and so forth. In our culture, we have seen a lot of debate lately regarding "victim blaming" in relation to sexual assault and sexual harassment.

IMPORTANT - Trigger Alert - content this week refers to sexual abuse: If you personally have a tough time with having this discussion in class, please email me personally and we can talk one-on-one.

Before participating in this discussion thread, please read these two articles regarding communication, sexual assault/sexual harassment, and victim blaming:

• Yoffe, Emily. "College Women: Stop Getting Drunk." Slate.com  October 15, 2013. Web. October 17, 2013. <http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html> (Links to an external site.)
  
  Hess, Amanda. "To Prevent Rape on College Campuses, Focus on the Rapists, Not the Victims."  Slate.com  October 15, 2013. Web. October 17, 2013. <http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/10/16/it_s_the_rapists_not_the_drinking_to_prevent_sexual_assault_on_college_campuses.html> (Links to an external site.)

In your initial discussion post, answer the following questions using your text book for a resource and a way to back up all claims:

• Between the two authors who offer very extreme positions, these two authors are debating each other, which opinion do you generally tend to agree with regarding sexual abuse, and college women?  Why?
• What type of communication aggression (see pages 196-207) does Victim blaming fall into and why?short quotation needed
• How do you suggest that we as a society re-frame this dialogue? That is, how can we actively encourage competent communication so that victims are not blamed, and  aggressors are held responsible for their actions?
• Remember to practice competent communication responses to your classmates!