Rape - Survivor or Victim?

By Sudharshan Raajkumar E

There is always the innate human tendency to categorize everything we come across. This is how our

brains are trained to store and retrieve information. We learn about our world by segregating every

little piece of information we receive into its designated little box, which in turn is linked to multiple

other boxes and an idea or thought is just a symphony of all this boxed information coming together to

create another new box. We believe and maybe even understand nature from the perspective of science

this way. Now, what does this have to do with rape survivors or victims? It comes down to one

particularly complex box labelled - ‘Language’.

Language is what shapes our world. The fact that our thoughts take their roots from our linguistics i.e.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, is sufficiently convincing and not terribly difficult to believe. We see the

world in the way we use our language to describe it. What this means is that language is linked to boxes

and boxes of emotions, objects, sensations, abstract concepts, politics, morality and possibly every

single thing that makes our body, mind and personality truly ours. And we, in turn, use this to create the

nuances of the society we live in. While this mechanism has worked wonders for science and civilization,

it has yet to reap any benefit in many other societal dimensions.

When we use the word ‘survivor’, our mind links boxes that denote the emotion of strength and

bravery, the action of struggle and persistence, and the personal quality of valor. The word ‘victim’, on

the other hand, can spark emotions of anger, sadness and sympathy, the action of seeking justice;

maybe bring to mind the picture of someone who is gullible and has been wronged or someone who

needs to be protected. The reason I speak about this is that the ‘word’ or ‘language’ we use to describe

an individual play an important role in how we categorize them and in turn treat them, in both our

minds as well as our society. Considering the manner in which I have described the two words, it would

definitely look more appealing to term someone as a ‘Rape Survivor’, because it seems to have a lot of

alluring emotions and favorable qualities associated with it, rather than a ‘Rape Victim’. But does this

mean that a ‘survivor’ does not require justice? Or that we shouldn’t be infuriated that someone who is

a ‘survivor’ had to undergo what they had to? Does a ‘survivor’ not require protection? In short, did a

‘survivor’ never have or could never be considered to have the qualities of a victim?

This highlights the dangerousness of categorizing -categorizing a word and its intended meanings in turn

categorizes the people we use the word for. Unfortunately, more often than not, this is how language

works. What we can change or help do better is to train ourselves to think critically about situations; to

help ourselves use the very cliched phrase - ‘think outside the box.’ Do not just stick to the emotions and

actions you are taught to associate with certain terminologies. Instead, reflect beyond the term given to

describe and perhaps label the person. It might seem like a simple case of just using our common sense,

yet many of us fail to truly look at people beyond the words we use to categorize them.

Rape is a violation of both the body and mind. While we can sit here for generations and debate on the

right words to use to describe the person who has undergone such a devastating ordeal; for the person

who has experienced rape, there is not enough language to truly emote the intensity of their

experience. And our empathetic capabilities, no matter how strong, will still fail to feel the true nature

and vast range of emotions undergone by them. We must remember that we are the kings who have

been given the luxury to ponder, while they are the true soldiers fighting the war on their chess

battlefield. Whether we choose to categorize them as a ‘survivor’ or a ‘victim’, their fight is more than

just those words. Their fight is every day. Their struggle is happening even as they fight and especially

when they don’t.

By Sudharshan Raajkumar E