“I’m Going Out There and I’m Telling This Story”: Victimhood and Empowerment in Narratives of Military Sexual Violence

Abstract

Storytelling has been central within the movement against military sexual violence. Among communication scholarship on narrative, there are both studies demonstrating that narrative begins to assuage sexual violence trauma and studies demonstrating that narrative reinforces gendered social norms that exacerbate sexual violence. I integrate this research with scholarship on rape culture to develop a typology of the characteristics of sexual violence stories that empower survivors and apply that typology to military sexual violence narratives. These characteristics include: 1) linking sexual violence to systemic/cultural norms through narrative’s ability to establish causality, 2) representing survivors as empowered experts by positioning storytelling as healing, and 3) modeling paths toward overcoming adversity. When used together, these strategies counter the harmful effects of stories that emphasize gendered norms of vulnerability.