Season 2, Episode 7: Danielle Tumminio-Hansen - Part 2

Hagar's Voice

Thank you so much Danielle, for your time, insight, expertise, and generosity in today’s episode. We join you in your commitment to increase knowledge about rape and sexual violation and provide language so people can name sexual violation for what it is.

Here is the link to Danielle’s website which has a link to her book, “Speaking About Rape: The Limits of Language in Sexual Violations.”

https://www.danielletumminiohansen.com/

Listed below are the quotes from Danielle’s book which were read and discussed in this episode:
"Those who listen to testimonies of those who experience sexual violations may be unaware that the linguistic choices they make may cause the person who shared so vulnerably to feel misrepresented or discredited, and thus cause a listener to inflict unintentional linguistic harm"

"...from recognizing that most human beings - even including those who perpetuate harm - are nuanced and complicated. A person can charm, coach your daughter's basketball team, be married and professionally successful, publicly advocate for women, and still pin down a girl on a bed against her will, cover her mouth, and attempt to have sex with her. This is possible, though many believe it is not."

" ... this was a classic "he-said-she-said" case of sexual harm. It would not go to trial. It would not receive a conviction, rendering any kind of public accusation an emotional and expensive experiment in futility. Moreover, our justice system operates in such a way that it punishes an individual for what is considered to be an individually perpetrated crime against another individual. However, if what I propose in this book is true - that sexual harm is a collective and not just an individual problem - then it follows that our individual system of retributive punishment requires re-examination, because meaningful accountability is needed on the part of both the person who perpetrated the harm and the wider society that enabled it"

: "...the definitional gaps that exist in matters of sexual harm will continue to function as forms of linguistic violence done to the individual by the collective. This linguistic violation becomes just one more component of the rape, one more way in which the person's body agency, and desire get disregarded, resulting in a toxic, symbiotic relationship between individuals and the collective in regard to the sexual harm done."

"One of the differences between a violating and non violating sexual encounter, then, is that the victimized party is denied co-authorship, so that the person who causes the violation alone writes the key plot points, overexerting narrative agency in a way that attempts to write the victimized person's story and have a lasting impact on that person's self. What separates those who inflict sexual harm from those who are on the receiving end of it, then, is that the latter group did not consent - irrespective of what they said or did not say during the encounter - to becoming the selves that the former tried to narrate them into being.”