I think I'm in love! My exroommate and I watched the L Word last night and it was fabulous!!! We have decided to make it a weekly event until we have watched every episode. I am so excited. The show is just amazing. We watched the first two pilot episodes, and I was enthralled and the whole time I was either laughing or on the verge of tears. I love it! I am so sad that it wasn't airing when we had Showtime at my parents' house, but that's the amazing thing about the technological age we live in--everything eventually gets made into something that you can rent and watch whenever you want! I think that I am going to do some web surfing and see if I can find the seasons for sale for cheap. If not, then I guess renting will have to do.
Oh, and I feel like posting my CA, so here: (Oh, but before that: Contemplate this: Could my check book survive taking a two week leave of absence? Maybe. . .probably not)
Angels, Whores, Pimps, and Wusses: all terms that arose in a transnational study that asked male and female adolescents to discuss sexuality. This study, reported in the 2001 issue of the Journal of Sociology, throws into sharp focus a dichotomy which is present in Western Culture: women who have sex are whores, women who do not have sex are angels, men who have sex are pimps, and men who do not have sex are wusses. The study further revealed that the definition of power for men includes having heterosexual sex, and for women: refusing heterosexual sex. This power differential sets up a rape culture for Western Societies. The CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s official website, modified daily, explains that 1 in 6 U.S. women and 1 in 33 U.S. men experience attempted or completed rape at some point in their lives, and between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 women experience attempted or completed rape during college, now consider that less than half of all rapes are ever reported.
Hoping to reduce the incidents of violence, in May 2006, the Spouse Abuse and Sexual Assault Crisis Center, or SASA, put up this billboard. It is part of a nationwide campaign sponsored by national domestic violence organizations, explains a SASA representative in a personal interview on July 24, 2006. The caption reads: We’re not born knowing how to treat women. Teach us! And the sweatshirt is printed with: Awaiting Instructions.
From a rhetorical perspective, the billboard’s approach is different from previous campaigns which focused on how to get out of dangerous situations rather than how to prevent them. This approach—appealing to the responsibility of teaching young people--leads us to ask the question: is the SASA billboard effective at appealing to an individual’s sense of personal responsibility for domestic violence?
The answer to this question can be found by first, looking at the requirements necessary for personal responsibility appeals in health campaigns; second, delving into the responsibility appeals within the billboard; and finally, examining critical implications.
To begin, we will turn to Nurit Guttman and William Harris Ressler’s article, “On Being Responsible: Ethical Issues in Appeals to Personal Responsibility in Health Campaigns,” published in the 2001 issue of the Journal of Health Communication. Because domestic violence is linked to mental and physical health, and the billboard is designed to promote healthy relationship communication, an analysis of personal responsibility in health campaigns is warranted. There are three facets of personal responsibility that Guttman and Ressler focus on: first, assumption of causation and blame; second, obligation, duty, and integrity; and finally, agency.
Guttman and Ressler’s first facet of personal responsibility is the Assumption of Causation and the Attribution of Blame. In campaigns where there is an appeal to personal responsibility, the rhetoric assumes that their target audience is the cause of the unhealthy situation; furthermore, the audience is to blame for the unhealthy situation.
The second facet, Obligation, Duty, and Integrity, posits that individuals have an obligation to others not to become a burden on society. Guttman and Ressler explain that, “obligation connotes virtue, which implies service, responsiveness to others with special needs, [. . .] and promise keeping.” Simply, individuals have a duty not to focus solely on themselves.
The final facet, agency, refers to the individual’s ability to be responsible. Guttman and Ressler explain that, “being truly responsible requires having the necessary opportunities, resources, skills, and enabling environment.” In a health campaign, the audience is shown how they can be responsible for their actions.
By applying Guttman and Ressler’s three facets to the SASA billboard, we can better understand how the appeals to personal responsibility function. The first facet--Assumption of Causation and the Attribution of Blame--is twofold. First, the teenage boy is depicted as the cause of domestic violence, but is not blamed for it. Second, the blame lies with the audience--those given the responsibility to teach him. The billboard is saying to its target audience, “this teenager does not know how to treat women, teaching him is your responsibility.”
The second facet of personal responsibility present in the campaign is Obligation, Duty, and Integrity. With Guttman and Ressler’s belief that “virtue[. . .] implies [. . .] responsiveness to others with special needs”, we see a teenager with a “special need”. The implied “special need” is ignorance through the shirt that says “Awaiting Instructions”. The target audience has an obligation to teach this person how to treat women.
The final facet of appealing to personal responsibility in health campaigns is agency. This facet refers to a person’s ability to fulfill his/her obligations. Along the bottom of the billboard is “SASA Crisis Center” with their 24 hour hotline number where one can obtain lessons and tools to discuss the proper way to treat women. In this billboard, the third facet of responsibility is deeply tied in with the second facet: the parents have a responsibility to call the number to receive the tools needed to talk to their sons. Without these tools, agency is lost and thus the ability to be responsible.
The analysis of this billboard enables us to answer our research question: is the SASA billboard effective at appealing to an individual’s sense of personal responsibility for domestic violence? The billboard appeals to personal responsibility, but may not be effectively preventing violence. There are three critical implications to be drawn from our analysis, which must be taken to the health campaign community at-large.
First, the campaign ignores that the cycle of violence may be embedded in Western Culture as seen in the Angel, Whore, Pimp, Wuss dichotomy explained in the aforementioned 2001 issue of the Journal of Sociology. By putting forth appeals to a culture in which this dichotomy is prevalent, SASA may be motivating its target audience to pass on that abusive mindset to the youth—thus sending an unhealthy message and exacerbating the situation.
Second, the billboard misses that the target audience—friends, teachers, relatives—may lack the tools necessary to discuss these sensitive issues. Canadian Psychology in February 2006, explains that “much of the emotional and psychological harm created by [. . .] [violent] events emerges in the context of [. . .] future interpersonal and intimate relationships.” And while SASA provides agency with their 24-hour hotline, it may not be adequate. In National Education Association Today in April 2001, Dominic Cappello, explains that all parents need a little help talking about these issues. The billboard assumes that such mentors will ask for help, when in all reality they may not, or worse the hotline may not provide enough advice on how to talk to youth about domestic violence.
The final implication is the most detrimental to the prevention of all domestic violence. The billboard, focusing on a teenage boy, completely ignores men who abuse men, women who abuse men, and women who abuse women. The official website of the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network modified daily, explains that about 10% of sexual assault survivors are men. These cases are legitimate, leaving SASA with the potential to marginalize survivors and feed the cycle of violence.
Today, after analyzing the SASA domestic violence prevention campaign and its appeals to personal responsibility, we can see that while we appeal to personal responsibility for actions, the lessons taught are left up to the person doing the teaching. These lessons are taught through parents, friends, teachers, and the media, unfortunately the lessons of how to treat women are rooted within the false Angel, Whore, Pimp, Wuss dichotomy. Perhaps the best way to erase this dichotomy is to teach human beings how to communicate effectively and treat each other with respect.
