Rethinking sexual violence labels: exploring the impact of ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’ discourse

ABSTRACT

Background: Universities’ responses to sexual violence have faced scrutiny for their lack of proactiveness and their failure to address campus socio-cultural norms that contribute to rape myth acceptance. The labels victim and survivor play a crucial role in shaping attitudes toward sexual violence, but there is limited research on how university students perceive these labels.

Objective: This paper explores sexual violence labels and their role in perpetuating rape culture. Undergraduate university students’ beliefs on using the label survivor instead of victim to describe someone who has experienced sexual violence were examined to consider how these labels create societal discourse on sexual violence.

Method: The study draws on qualitative data collected from undergraduate students in Canada and the United States through open-response questions in an interactive textbook. Data were analysed and interpreted using a multi-method approach that combined principles of Critical Discourse Analysis and Feminist Poststructuralism. Direct quotes and word clouds from participants’ responses are used as evidence and to visually display discourse.

Results: Findings revealed that participants recognised the negative societal discourses associated with the label victim and supported using survivor to challenge perceptions of sexual violence. Despite this, participants expressed hesitancy to adopt the label survivor because of the potential negative implications, such as the label promoting the allocation of individual blame, increasing barriers to justice, and reducing the perceived severity of sexual violence.

Conclusions: This study underscores the complexities of sexual violence labels, the influence of language in shaping societal perceptions, and the need for a more comprehensive and equitable approach to responding to sexual violence.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Dichotomy of Labels and Nuanced Perceptions: Sexual violence labels shape identity perceptions. Participants dichotomised the labels victim and survivor, associating one with negative attributes and the other with positive attributes. However, nuanced views of how people perceive and identify with these labels challenge distinct categories. Victims being negatively perceived, while survivors are admired for their resiliency highlights complexities in societal expectations that may not fully address the underlying determinants of sexual violence.

• Role of Language in Reproduction of Rape Culture: Poststructuralist theories emphasise the role of language in the production and maintenance of discourse. The study shows that victim discourse is steeped in rape myths. The historical discourse surrounding the label may contribute to the perpetuation of negative attitudes and behaviours toward victims of sexual violence. The emergence of the label survivor reflects a societal shift, but findings suggest this may lead to societal complacency towards sexual violence.

• Spectrum of Severity and Societal Empathy: Participants’ understanding of sexual violence as a spectrum of severity may lead to unequal levels of empathy and support. This discourse creates positions of dominance and oppression, potentially marginalising certain groups who are disproportionately affected by sexual violence. The study highlights how severity discourse can influence institutional agendas and may result in political and institutional neglect of sexual violence.

Antecedentes: Las respuestas de las universidades a la violencia sexual han sido objeto de escrutinio por su falta de proactividad y su incapacidad para abordar las normas socioculturales del campus que contribuyen a la aceptación del mito de la violación. Las etiquetas de víctima y sobreviviente desempeñan un papel crucial en la formación de actitudes hacia la violencia sexual, pero hay pocas investigaciones sobre cómo perciben estas etiquetas los estudiantes universitarios.

Objetivo: Este artículo explora las etiquetas de violencia sexual y su papel en la perpetuación de la cultura de la violación. Se examinaron las creencias de estudiantes universitarios sobre el uso de la etiqueta ‘sobreviviente’ en lugar de ‘víctima’ para describir a las personas que han sufrido violencia sexual con el fin de considerar cómo estas etiquetas crean un discurso social sobre la violencia sexual.

Método: El estudio se basa en datos cualitativos recogidos de estudiantes universitarios de Canadá y Estados Unidos mediante preguntas de respuesta abierta en un libro de texto interactivo. Los datos se analizaron e interpretaron utilizando un enfoque multimétodo que combinaba principios del Análisis Crítico del Discurso y del Postestructuralismo Feminista. Las citas directas y las nubes de palabras de las respuestas de los participantes se utilizan como pruebas y para mostrar visualmente el discurso.

Resultados: Los resultados revelaron que los participantes reconocían los discursos sociales negativos asociados a la etiqueta de víctima y apoyaban el uso de sobreviviente para cuestionar las percepciones sociales de la violencia sexual. A pesar de ello, los participantes se mostraron reticentes a adoptar la etiqueta de sobreviviente debido a las posibles implicaciones negativas, como que la etiqueta promueve la asignación de la culpa individual, aumenta las barreras a la justicia y reduce la gravedad percibida de la violencia sexual.

Conclusiones: Este estudio subraya las complejidades de las etiquetas de violencia sexual, la influencia del lenguaje en la formación de las percepciones sociales y la necesidad de un enfoque más integral y equitativo para responder a la violencia sexual.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• rape culture
• rape myths
• university students
• poststructuralism

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Violencia sexual
• cultura de la violación
• mitos de la violación
• estudiantes universitarios
• postestructuralismo

1. Introduction

University campuses are one of the most prevalent settings for sexual violence to occur (Quinlan et al., 2016). Sexual violence is an overarching, non-legal term encompassing an array of unwanted sexual conduct including verbal harassment, forced penetration, and sexual coercion (World Health Organization, 2012). The health implications of sexual violence are severe. People who experience sexual violence commonly face significant physical, emotional, and psychological effects (Tarzia et al., 2017). Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, universities must address and prevent sexual violence on their campuses, as the federal civil rights law prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational institutions (Cruz, 2021). Despite this, current statistics suggest that one in four women in North America will experience sexual violence during their time at university (Senn et al., 2014), and women enrolled in university between the ages of 18–25 are three times more likely to experience sexual violence compared to women of the same age range who are not enrolled in university (Fantasia et al., 2015; McDaniel & Rodriguez, 2021). These rates have remained nearly unchanged since the 1980s (Koss, 1985), with virtually no signs of improvement.

The unrelenting rates of campus sexual violence is argued to be caused by institutional support of rape culture (Ricci & Bergeron, 2019). Rape culture is a theoretical construct that describes a social system where rape is condoned, normalised, and excused through normative attitudes and practices (Buchwald et al., 1993; Herman, 1988). Scholars have argued that sexual violence needs to be addressed as a ‘cultural, political, and historical problem that pervades the same legal, social, and educational institutions seeking to eliminate it’ (Garcia & Vemuri, 2017, p. 3). Universities fail to consider the underlying socio-cultural norms prevalent on their campuses in their sexual violence responses, such as high levels of hypermasculine norms and rape myth acceptance (Muehlenhard et al., 2017), that hinder effectiveness and contribute to the perpetuation of rape culture.

Campus socio-cultural norms have also been shown to promote the endorsement of rape myths among university students (Carroll et al., 2016). Rape myths were first described by Burt (1980), who defined the phenomenon as false beliefs about rape, which primarily serve to justify rape by shifting the blame from the perpetrator to the individual. The Illinois Rape Myth Scale (McMahon & Farmer, 2011) outlines four primary rape myths: (1) She lied, (2) She asked for it, (3) He didn’t mean to, and (4) It wasn’t really rape. Rape myths change and adapt to social norms, so while rape myths such as the She lied narrative are becoming less societally accepted, which views women’s accusations of rape to be false and used to punish men (McMahon & Farmer, 2011), these narratives have adapted and more subtle rape myths prevail, particularly among university students. For example, the rape myth She asked for it includes beliefs about intoxication level and the type of clothing someone was wearing, while He didn’t mean to supports the idea that men’s sexual aggression is natural, causing rape to be normalised and viewed as an inevitable experience (Herman, 1988; McMahon & Farmer, 2011).

1.1. Sexual violence labels

The production of rape myths can also be seen by the language we use to describe someone who has experienced sexual violence (Williamson, 2023). Historically, victim was used to refer to someone who has experienced sexual violence and was often associated with negative characteristics such as weakness, powerlessness, and vulnerability (Papendick & Bohner, 2017; Thompson, 2000). While this negative imagery helped social movements by eliciting sympathy for people who have experienced sexual violence, the negative societal connotations of victims was often internalised (Williamson, 2023). Consequently, women were forced to assume the role of a stereotypical victim to demonstrate that they were worthy of social support and intervention but struggled to understand and construct their identity (Leisenring, 2006). In response, the label survivor emerged from feminist theorists’ rejection of framing the oppression of women in terms of victimhood, and instead highlighting women’s resistance and agency (Kelly et al., 1996). Research has shown that the label survivor elicits imagery of strength, recovery, and overcoming trauma (Papendick & Bohner, 2017), and that identifying as a survivor is associated with better outcomes, such as improved well-being and overall functioning, compared to identifying as a victim after experiencing sexual violence (Levy & Eckhaus, 2020).

While survivor can be seen as a form of personal empowerment, societal inequities are produced through the perpetration of language, causing survivor discourse to be up against strong societal influences and normative beliefs, such as rape myths and rape culture Parker and Mahlstedt (2010). Labelling theory states that labels are societally shared ideas about an experience that creates mental representations of people; Consequently, people who have been assigned or operate under the conditions of these labels internalise these representations, causing the label to become a part of their identity (Moradi et al., 2012; Thoits, 2011). As such, negotiating how to refer to oneself after experiencing sexual violence is complex because labelling has social, cultural, and political consequences (Parker & Mahlstedt, 2010). For example, labelling theory can provide insight into unacknowledged sexual violence, a phenomenon where someone, by definition, has experienced sexual violence but does not define their experience as such (Wilson & Miller, 2016). By acknowledging their sexual violence, they would be forced to incorporate the stereotypes of the labels into their identity (Williamson & Serna, 2018). Even when someone defines their experiences as sexual violence, distinctions are often made between being victimised and being a victim to avoid assuming characterises of a victim into their identity (Parker & Mahlstedt, 2010).

2. Current study

While previous literature has explored the impacts of self-labelling, research on the societal perceptions of sexual violence labels is lacking. In their paper, Williamson and Serna (2018) called for more research to ‘determine the nuanced effects of labelling … as labelling theory proposed that people internalise, and exhibit behaviours thought to be typical of labels’ (p. 678). This study addressed a significant gap and examined the impact of sexual violence labels on societal perception and conceptualisation by examining current discourses surrounding victim and survivor among undergraduate university students. There is a scarcity of literature on sexual violence labels among university students, despite the high levels of rape myth acceptance amongst this population and the unrelenting rates of sexual violence on university campuses (Potter et al., 2018). Understanding how sexual violence labels are perceived by university students can provide insight into how labels contribute to social and institutional discourse, such as rape myths and rape culture, which can help improve university sexual violence response and prevention efforts.

3. Methodology & method

The theoretical paradigms of this research are situated within Foucault’s works on poststructuralism (Foucault, 1980, 1995), which were used to understand current discourses surrounding sexual violence labels. Broadly defined, poststructuralism is the study of how knowledge and knowledge systems are produced and reproduced (Doering, 1992). Research using a poststructural worldview aims to examine the way that language and discourse work to construct reality (Aston, 2016; Cheek, 2000). Poststructuralism argues that language, or the words we use, do not have permanent meaning, but is shaped by our understanding of the world based on our social, historical, and institutional contexts (Arslanian-Engoren, 2002; Weedon, 1987). From this view, discourse is shaped through the reproduction of language which causes specific ways of knowing to become normalised and provides significance to the meaning we attach to our language.

This paper draws on qualitative data from a large mixed-method study exploring undergraduate students’ beliefs on a wide range of human sexuality topics, including sexual orientation, gender, and sexual practices. Data were collected in Fall 2019 from undergraduate students attending two similar mid-sized universities in Canada and the United States. Both were public institutions located in urban settings, offering both undergraduate and graduate programmes. Students at both universities were enrolled in an elective sexuality course that used the same interactive textbook, hosted by the online platform Top Hat. Both elective courses attract a diverse undergraduate population from various disciplines, years, and backgrounds, with class sizes often exceeding 500 students. Study recruitments were led by the head teaching assistants who conducted verbal recruitment in class and utilised the online course management systems (D2L, Brightspace) for online outreach. Details about the research project were also included into each course’s syllabus. Participation in the research study did not influence student’s course outcomes. A total of 603 students from both universities consented to participate in the full research project, and ethical approval was obtained from each institution. Despite data being collected at two post-secondary institutions, the purpose of this study was not to compare the two data sets, instead, the goal of this study was to have a holistic view of North American university student’s beliefs and examine discourse in the large student sample.

Qualitative data were collected via open-response questions placed at the beginning the sexual assault and sexual orientation chapters in the course’s interactive textbook. All textbook chapters began with open-response questions to allow students the opportunity to reflect on their personal beliefs surrounding the contents of the chapter and were for participation marks only. Student responses were not graded or reviewed by the instructor or teaching assistants, allowing for personal reflection on the questions without influence. Responses were submitted electronically via the interactive textbook and could not be viewed by other students. This paper reports on the qualitative findings from one open-response question posed at the beginning of the sexual assault chapter: ‘What is your view about the use of the word “survivor” instead of “victim” to describe those who have experienced sexual coercion or sexualized violence?’.

Informed consent was collected after students electronically submitted their response using an automated question box asking students if they would be interested in having their response used for research purposes. If the student clicked yes, a new window opened and provided study details, and asked for their verified consent for their response to be included in the study. In total, 219 (101 American, 118 Canadian) students consented for their responses to be included, which comprise the study data.

4. Data analysis

Data were analysed using a multi-method approach, adopting from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 2001, 2013), and Aston’s (2016) guide to discourse analysis informed by Feminist Poststructuralism (Weedon, 1987), and was titled Critical Feminist Poststructuralism (CFPS). Elements of CDA were used to analyse the data and view linguistic patterns to uncover discourse activated through the text, in conjunction with analysing the data for participants’ beliefs and values as outlined in Aston’s (2016) framework. After participants beliefs and values were identified, data were analysed to establish connections between the social and institutional discourses present in their responses. Rape myths and rape culture were used to as an interpretative and theoretical lens to examine how labels contribute to social and institutional discourse. Data analysis was conducted by the first author, who developed preliminary discourses and brought them to the full research team to engage in collaborative analysis. Discourses were reviewed, discussed, and revised until finalised. Table 1 outlines the steps of CFPS.

Table 1. A guide to critical feminist poststructuralism.

1. Analyse the Text as Discourse	Read the transcript and highlight/make notes of how the text is put together linguistically. Make notes on features of the text e.g. participants grammar, vocabulary being used, flow of ideas (where they start and where they end), and associations. Consider how discourse is activated through the text.
2. Identify Important Issues	Read the transcript and mark quotations you feel represent an important issue. Name the issue as you see it.
3. Identify Participants Beliefs & Values	Provide the quotation (cut and paste) and write something about the Belief & Value presented with the quotation.
4. Discursive Practices	Write about the discourses the author relies on (social and institutional discourses) to create the text. Consider how this this informs the important issues you identified.
5. Responding to Relations of Power	How does the discourse reproduce social order and how does it cause a rupture in it? Consider how it restructures social order and what the social consequences of this are.

Participant quotations are used to support the presented findings. Because this research is rooted in CDA methodology, word clouds were chosen as a tool to visually highlight the language used by participants in their written responses to depict how language contributes to discourse. The size of each word indicates the number of times that word was used in participants’ written responses, with larger words being used the most frequently. Word clouds were created after the data were analysed and key discourses were formed based on the steps outlined in Table 1. Data were organised by discourse and separated by sexual violence label. Once organised, quotes that comprised each discourse were imported into an online word cloud generator. Word clouds are organised by sexual violence label to display the difference in language used for each label. The generated word clouds represent the repeated language that participants used that formed the discourses, aligning with CDA methodologies (Fairclough, 2001, 2013).

5. Participants

The 623 students who consented to participate in the larger research project completed an online demographic questionnaire with prompts about their age, gender, sexual orientation, and relationship status. These descriptive statistics were anonymized, so specific demographic information about the 219 respondents included in this study is unknown. Below is a summary of the demographics from the larger survey, giving insight into the socio-demographic details of the participants in this study.

Participant ages ranged from 17 to 50, with a median age of 20 and an average age of 20. Participants identified as female (n = 381; 63.2%) and male (n = 222; 36.8%). Most identified as heterosexual/straight (n = 493; 81.8%), others identified as bisexual (n = 42; 7.0%), gay/lesbian (n = 29; 4.8%), asexual (n = 7; 1.2%), queer (n = 3; 0.5%), and other (n = 28; 4.6%). Over half were single (n = 354; 58.7%), while the rest were in a relationship (n = 249; 41.3%). Participants self-identified their race and selected all options that applied, so the following percentages are greater than 100. Participants identified as White (n = 316; 52.4%), Asian (n = 267; 44.3%), Hispanic/Latin American (n = 29; 4.8%), Pacific Islander (n = 28; 4.6%), Black (n = 21; 3.5%), Arab/Middle Eastern (n = 13; 2.2%), Aboriginal (n = 10; 1.7%), and other (n = 4; 0.6%).

6. Findings

6.1. Identity

Beliefs on sexual violence labels were often centred around personal attributes that were associated with victims and survivors. The discourse of Identity suggests that sexual violence labels can support or disrupt the belief that one’s identity is linked to, or defined by, an experience of sexual violence.

Participants often used labels as a tool to identify, characterise, and define people, and held specific connotations based on the label one would choose to identify with. Overwhelmingly, participants believed that survivors held greater positive characteristics than victims. Participants frequently used positive language such as strong, resilient, powerful, and brave to describe survivors, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Linguistics patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Identity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Identity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Strength, Move On, Empowering, Brave, And Believe.

Contrasting this, participants frequently used negative language such as weak, powerless, helpless, and pity to define victims as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Linguistics patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Identity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Identity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Weak, Powerless, Helpless, Ill, Negative, Pity, and Suffers.

Many participants recognised the negative societal perceptions towards victims, and acknowledged this caused their unconscious negative biases towards that label. One participant described this and wrote: ‘I unconsciously associate the word “survivor” with strength and empowerment, and the word “victim” with weakness and sympathy’. Participants noted how the label victim framed people who have experienced sexual violence, causing them to be stigmatised by society. As said one participant:

The use of “victim” when it comes to describing people who have experienced sexual coercion or violence makes it sound like they should be pitied, treated as if they're made of glass, unable to function properly and makes them sound weak.

Because of this, participants wanted to use alternative language to negate harmful narratives and challenge societal views. Wrote one participant: ‘I think it’s a small change in language that can make a very big difference in how people think and feel about people who have been involved in sexual assault’. Not all participants shared this belief. One participant described how altering the language we use should not be the objective, instead, the societal narrative towards victims should shift:

In reality, I think victim is a fair term for individuals who have experienced sexual coercion or sexualized violence, as concerning the judicial system, they have absolutely been victims of a crime – they have been unjustly attacked and drawn into a situation they should not have been in. Rather, I think it is the victim narrative that should change; people need to realize that victims are not weak. They are strong and stand together to work towards change.

These findings give insight into how society continues to view people who have experienced sexual violence and how labels can reproduce and combat negative societal perceptions.

6.2. Blame

The discourse of Blame centred beliefs that sexual violence labels can amplify or resist victim-blaming ideology. Many participants believed that victim supported rape myths and placed people at-fault for their sexual violence, and used language such as Fault, Trick, Imply, Happen, and Blame to describe their perceptions of blame within the label victim, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Blame.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Blame. The words that were used the most frequently were: Fault, Trick, Imply, Event, Happen, and Blame.

Some participants used the dictionary definition of victim to support this idea, for example, a participant wrote that the definition of a victim is ‘someone who is tricked or duped’. The participant explained the consequences of using the label victim based on this definition:

I know that I personally wouldn’t want to be called a victim knowing that one of the definitions floating out there is that it was because I was tricked or duped. Sexual assault is not a trick, it is a serious offense and belittling it as a trick could make any person upset that they didn’t see it coming.

Another participant discussed how victim supports common rape myths, such as the She asked for it narrative: ‘They should not be given the satisfaction of the word victim to me sounds like they were a wounded or an easy target.’ Similarly, another participant noted that victim shifts the blame onto the individual, instead of the perpetrator: ‘Victim is more demeaning and makes it sound like it was their fault’.

Being labelled a victim was also believed to promote internalised blame. This was described by one participant who wrote: ‘[Victim] brings that someone down and makes them feel at fault for what has happened to them’. Similarly, another participant wrote that victim may cause people to ‘feel as though it was something they deserved’. Conversely, some participants believed that victim reinforced the belief that a person cannot be held accountable for their experience of sexual violence. One participant, for example, wrote: ‘In my opinion, I think the term victim is important to use to enforce the fact that they are not at fault and have been wronged’. Another participant suggested that referring to oneself as a victim may be healing and personally reassuring:

It may actually be reassuring to be referred to as a victim … it may actually introduce an element of sympathy for oneself and reassurance that the event was the abuser's fault and the victim is in no way responsible.

Participants typically held more positive views towards the label survivor, however, reproduction of rape myths surrounding individual fault were present in that label, too. Participants used language such as Survived, Reassuring, Empowering, and Believe to describe their perceptions of blame within the label survivor, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Blame.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Blame. The words that were used the most frequently were: Reassuring, Survived, Empowering, Way, Believe, and Through.

Alarmingly, some participants discussed how referring to oneself as a survivor suggests that the person has allocated blame onto themselves and acknowledged how they could have altered their behaviour to prevent the sexual violence from happening. This was described by one participant who wrote: ‘I think survivors give the notion that the person has overcome it and is aware of what happened so that they are less likely to have [sexual violence] happen to them again’. Another participant shared this belief by stating: ‘A survivor to me is someone who acknowledges what had happened, learns from it and how to avoid being in those situations’. While these findings are troubling, they point to the fact that university students continue to hold high levels of rape-myth acceptance and that rape myths are perpetuated through labels.

6.3. Severity

Some participants believed that the label victim continues to stigmatise and harm people after experiencing sexual violence, while others iterated that victim was necessary to demand for effective sexual violence response and prosecution. These beliefs and tensions formed the discourse of Severity.

The label victim is used in the judicial system because sexual violence is a criminal act, where there is typically a single victim and a perpetrator (Criminal Code of Canada, 1985). Due to victim being intrinsically linked to the prosecution, some participants feared that removing this label may reduce the perceived severity of sexual violence. This can be seen in the linguistic patterns for the label victim, with the words Violence, Crime, Assault, Rape, Better, Serious, and Legal used repeatedly by participants to describe their perceptions of severity, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Severity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Severity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Violence, Crime, Assault, Rape, Better, Serious, and Legal.

One participant described their hesitancy of using the label survivor due to the societal implications of reducing the severity of sexual violence: ‘Victim is powerful in conveying the criminal nature of their perpetrator's behavior while also keeping the message of what happened to these individuals clear, and thus is a better term in my opinion’. Participants emphasised that sexual violence was a crime, and thus, using the label victim was crucial. One participant described these concerns and wrote:

It is important to use the word “victim” in the sense that I am a “victim” of a crime, a crime that should be taken seriously but often isn’t, and in removing the term victim it almost seems like it’s making it seem like less of a serious crime.

While victim was believed to increase the perceived severity of sexual violence, the opposite was also believed to be true. Some participants believed that using survivor combatted rape culture and emphasised the severity of sexual violence more than victim. Survivor was believed to increase perceived severity because it suggests that sexual violence is something one must survive. For example, one participant wrote: ‘By using the word survivor it helps emphasize how big of a deal sexual violence is compared to just using victim. People who have experienced sexual violence are survivors.’ This quote suggests that because victim is commonly used in society, people do not consider the meaning behind it. In contrast, using the label survivor encourages people to consider what the label means, and why it has surfaced.

Despite this, tensions around the label survivor prevailed, primarily because some participants believed that the label only served to accommodate society's discomfort with sexual violence. For example, one participant wrote:

I do think words pertaining to rape should not be romanticized in any way. I think that the word “survivor” kind of is a euphemism and that no light should be brought to the topic of rape as it is a horrible thing.

The linguistic patterns of the label survivor show that participant responses contained words such as Romanticised, Situation, Demeaning, Serious, Situation, and Light to describe their perception of severity, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Severity.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Severity. The words that were used the most frequently were: Romanticised, Situation, Demeaning, Serious, Situation, and Light.

Here, survivor was believed to be a term created by society to frame sexual violence more positively, to avoid combatting rape culture and rape myths.

6.4. Survival

It is important to note that all discourses are mutually informed and are co-constructed. While you can separate and examine discourses individually, they are part of a collective and can lose meaning and purpose if you restrict them and fail to acknowledge the interconnections that exist. This is especially relevant for the discourse of Survival. Beliefs about sexual violence labels were stepped in perceptions of survival, stemming from beliefs on the severity of sexual violence.

Many participants believed that survivor should not be used to refer to people who have experienced sexual violence because it implies the idea of death, which was deemed to be irrelevant. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor revealed that Survive, Life, People, Event, and Live were frequently used to describe perceptions of survival, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Linguistic patterns for the label survivor in the discourse of Survival.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label survivor in the discourse of Survival. The words that were used the most frequently were: Survive, Life, People, Event, and Live.

For example, one participant wrote: ‘Survivor sounds like you were about to die. Victim is a better word.’ Other participants believed that sexual violence is only life-threatening in some circumstances, causing the label survivor to be less generally applicable: ‘I guess it depends on the situation. “Survivor” seems more extreme and implies the possibility of death, which might apply to some cases of sexualized violence, but not all. I think “victim” can be applied in more cases.’ Similarly, another participant discussed how sexual violence is a spectrum with varying levels of severity:

I view these two terms as completely different things because when I see the word “survivor”, I think about people who have nearly died because of sexual violence. On the other hand, when I see the word “victim”, I believe it is someone who experienced some kind of sexual assault that isn't very extreme to the point of rape and abuse, but rather sexual touch.

Because the label survivor suggests that it is a departure from the norm to survive sexual violence, some participants believed that using the label victim is more appropriate. For example, one participant wrote: ‘I think that survivor may not be the right word in that most likely their life was never in danger. Most sexual assaults are not committed with the intent to kill or even seriously physically harm’. In stark contrast to the label survivor, linguistic patterns for the label victim revealed that Alive, Extreme, Appropriate, Pain, and Traumatic were used to described perceptions of survival, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Linguistic patterns for the label victim in the discourse of Survival.

A word cloud depicting the frequency of words used in participants quotes when describing their beliefs on the label victim in the discourse of Survival. The words that were used the most frequently were: Alive, Extreme, Appropriate, Pain, and Traumatic.

Some participants associated survivor with major historical events, so they did not believe that the label should be used to refer to sexual violence because other people, in their opinion, were more deserving of the label. This is shown by one participant who wrote: ‘When I hear “survivor”, I think about atrocities such as the holocaust, 9/11, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unless I am mistaken, most sexual assault victims do not die’. This belief was unlike other participants, who took issue with the label survivor because they believed it to be disrespectful to people who have lost their lives to sexual violence. One participant, for example, wrote:

Survivor can be considered insulting to individuals who have been killed due to sexual coercions and sexualized violence. It implies that these individuals did not fight their attacker; it implies that they lost a battle and were failures. This is not the case … Just because they did not survive, does not mean that they are not deserving of the heroism associated with the term ‘survivor’.

This, again, displays the complexity and nuance of sexual violence labels. Participants were conflicted on what label would be helpful, and what could be potentially harmful and cause the perpetuation of rape myths and rape culture.

7. Discussion

This study used rape myths and rape culture as a theoretical and interpretative lens to explore how sexual violence labels impact social and institutional discourses. Poststructuralist theories aim to examine the role of language in the production and maintenance of discourse (Weedon, 1987). Analysing data using CFPS, four discourses were identified that demonstrated how university students’ perceptions of the labels victim and survivor reproduced rape myths: Identity, Blame, Severity, and Survival.

Participant were aware of the impact labels had on personal outcomes and societal perceptions of victims and survivors. This can be seen through how the labels were perceived and dichotomised as distinct identity categories that opposed each other, with victims possessing negative characteristics and survivors possessing positive characteristics. These distinct perceptions of the labels demonstrate how rape culture is encouraged and reproduced. For example, the findings revealed that victims are negatively perceived by society due to the perception that they refuse to move on from their experience of sexual violence, and instead use their experience as leverage to receive pity, sympathy, and influence. As such, societal perception of the label victim reproduces rape myths by shifting the She lied rape myth, evolving from the belief that women lie about rape to punish men, to the belief that women use their experience of rape to gain influence and power over men. Conversely, participants highlighted that the positive societal perception of survivors was because of their resiliency, rejecting pity and sympathy from society. The term resiliency is used to describe one’s ability to adapt, cope, and tolerate social injustice (Prowell, 2019). While resiliency is an important trait to possess, too much resiliency can make people overtly tolerant to adversity, marginalisation, and stigmatisation (Chamorro-Premuzic & Lusk, 2017). Praising those who experience injustice while disregarding the social systems in place that caused their injustice in the first place enables oppression and the production of rape culture.

Tensions surrounding the label survivor demonstrate how survivor discourse is positioned against normative attitudes that support rape culture (Parker & Mahlstedt, 2010). Sexual violence was understood to be a spectrum of severity, and survivor was perceived to only be applicable in severe, or particularly violent, instances. This perception of survivor implies that some instances of sexual violence are more worthy of societal support and sympathy, reinforcing the rape myth It wasn’t really rape, for instances that are perceived to be less serious. Because we live in a sexist, heteronormative, and racist society, societal support and empathy often extends beyond the type of sexual violence someone experienced, to who experienced the sexual violence. This has significant societal consequences, particularly for marginalised groups, including women, 2SLGBTQ+ people, Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour, who are over-represented in sexual violence statistics (Conroy & Cotter, 2017).

7.1. Limitations

This study is not without limitations. Firstly, data collection relied on electronic text, which limited our ability to ask follow-up questions or seek clarifications during the data collection process. Second, the use of online methods, while advantageous in reducing disability bias, may have influenced participant responses due to the open-response question contended the labels victim and survivor. Additionally, demographic data collected as part of the larger research study was anonymized, making specific demographic characteristics of the 219 participants in this study unknown. Participants in this study consisted of undergraduate students enrolled in an elective course, potentially indicating a higher level of interest and awareness in topics related to sexual violence, including rape myths and rape culture. Lastly, the experiences of sexual violence among participants were unknown, which could potentially impact their views on sexual violence labels. These limitations should be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings of this study.

7.2. Future research

To gain a deeper understanding of the impact of sexual violence labels, further research is warranted. Future studies may benefit from employing traditional qualitative methods, such as interviews or focus groups, to delve into the discourses identified in this study. There is also a need for additional research on the perceived severity of sexual violence, the applicability of the label survivor, and what impacts this perception. While the present study focused on university students, future research should examine the influence of sexual violence labels in other social structures, such as the healthcare and judicial systems. Finally, it is essential to explore how socio-demographic factors and personal experiences shape personal beliefs about sexual violence labels, considering factors like social orientation, gender identity, and personal experiences of sexual violence. These research endeavours will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics surrounding sexual violence labels.

7.3. Implications

The findings of this study hold implications for the improvement of university sexual violence services and response measures. Given the societal perceptions associated with the label’s victim and survivor, it is advisable for university support services to avoid using these labels in their services. Instead, university administrators should consider adopting more neutral language that accurately reflects the purpose of the service, such as enhancing self-compassion or alleviating feelings of internalised blame. By removing labels from support services, universities can enhance accessibility for individuals who may not readily acknowledge their experiences of sexual violence, and those who choose to avoid victim and survivor labels to prevent the internalisation of their trauma or its association with their identity (Williamson, 2023; Williamson & Serna, 2018; Wilson & Miller, 2016).

Furthermore, this study sheds light on the broader societally impact of how victims and survivors are perceived and conceptualised. The findings align with prior research, emphasising the absence of a universally recognised definition of victim or survivor (Papendick & Bohner, 2017). This lack of a standardised definition raises important considerations for the language used in university sexual violence policies. For instance, participants in this study believed that the label survivor should be reserved for life-threatening instances of sexual violence, while victim should apply to those who have experienced less severe forms of such violence. Moreover, some participants associated labelling as survivors with acknowledging their own fault, while others felt that victims were to blame for their experiences of sexual violence. In the absence of a clear definition, these varied conceptualizations of both labels could significantly impact the understanding and compliance with university policies related to sexual violence. The findings and implications of this study should be considered when revising university sexual violence prevention efforts, responses, and policies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author ([email protected]), the data are not publicly available due to ethical restrictions and the data containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Nova Scotia; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.