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Break the Silence: How Violence and Trauma Affect Young Women
A quick check of the days headlines consistently reveals the systemic violence that
women face in our society. Over the past several years, allegations and lawsuits against Bill
Cosby, Woody Allen, Bill OReilly, Donald Trump, and, most recently, Harvey Weinstein have
underscored the pervasive issue of male entitlement toward female bodies. Although violence
against women is an issue across demographics, young women are at particular risk. For
instance, RAINN (2016) notes that sexual assault survivors in America are disproportionately
female and under the age of 35. Moreover, statistics from the Department of Justice (2006)
illustrate that women between the ages of 16 and 24 are most likely to suffer physical or
emotional violence at the hands of an intimate partner. Thus, young people of all genders are
likely to have some personal experience with the trauma of a female survivor during their high
school or college years. With this culture in mind, educators must cultivate a climate of empathy
for young female survivors and women in general in their classrooms. Classes must examine the
following question: How do violence and trauma affect young women? This multi-genre inquiry
project pursues that question through a diverse array of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Laurie Halse Andersons novel Speak develops the themes of the trauma of sexual
assault, the silence surrounding violence against young women, and the importance of
storytelling to counter such violence. Speak follows Melinda Sordino during her freshman year
of high school after she is raped at a summer party. Moore and Begoray (2017) note that Speak,
like the other texts in this essay, is a work of trauma literature, or stories about individuals or
groups who have experienced profound loss or fear (p. 173). Melinda shows classic symptoms
of posttraumatic stress disorder (Moore and Begoray, 2017, p. 177) after her ordeal, evident in
HOW VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA AFFECT YOUNG WOMEN 2
her social withdrawal. As a result of her trauma, she refuses to speak in public. Meanwhile, her
rapist remains in school with her because of the communitys silence about his reputation for
sexual violence. Yet the book also presents Melinda combating this silence through her attempts
to represent her pain via her artwork and testimony. Scholars have explored the novels use of art
therapy and storytelling as a means for survivors of sexual assault to heal (Moore and Begoray,
2017; Snider, 2014). Melindas sharing of her experience demonstrates how the power of story
helps survivors cope and raises awareness about violence against women.
Like Speak, Thomas Hardys novel Tess of the DUrbervilles explores the isolation that
young female survivors feel and the resistance to stories of violence against women in a male-
dominated society. After her romantic interest Alec Stoke-DUrberville rapes her, Tess
Durbeyfield attempts to start her life over by moving away from her home to a dairy farm. In her
new dwelling, Tess marries Angel Clare. Tess feels so much guilt about her assault that she
confesses it to Angel, who refuses to accept what he sees as her lack of chastity and leaves her.
As a result of her isolation after Angels betrayal, Tess murders Alec in revenge. Hardys story
serves as a powerful counterpoint to Andersons novel; Angels resistance to Tesss story adds to
Tesss trauma and galvanizes her to wreak violence on Alec, the man who first violated her.
Like Tess of the DUrbervilles, the works of trauma literature 13 Reasons Why and The
Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis illustrate how the climate of permissiveness and
silence surrounding sexual violence against women can begin a cycle of violence. In Jay Ashers
novel 13 Reasons Why, protagonist Clay listens to his schoolmate and crush Hannah as she
unfolds the story of her suicide over a series of tapes. The cause of her own death stems from her
classmates gossip about her, torment that leads her to believe her assault at the hands of a serial
rapist is her fault. She herself is haunted by the trauma of witnessing this same man assault her
HOW VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA AFFECT YOUNG WOMEN 3
classmate Jessica, an incident that Jessicas boyfriend helps bring about and cover up. Such
silence about sexual assault also drives the plot of The Female of the Species, in which
protagonist Alex deals with the legal systems refusal to convict her sister Annas rapist and
murderer. Much like Tess in Tess of the DUrbervilles, the traumatized Alex takes revenge,
killing the man who violated Anna. She continues the cycle of violence begun with the brutality
against her sister through a campaign of vigilantism against perpetrators that ends in her death.
These works of trauma literature have in common the fact that each woman knows her
assailant, and in some cases, she is seeing him. The poems Porphyrias Lover and Rape Joke
both speak to the culture of male privilege that fosters such aggression against female
acquaintances and lovers. In Robert Brownings work Porphyrias Lover, the speaker is
jealous of the fact that Porphyria is not entirely committed to him. When she approaches him
romantically, the speaker takes advantage of Porphyrias openness and kills her, enjoying her
silent acquiescence. Patricia Lockwoods piece Rape Joke also discusses the problem of male
entitlement and the silencing of young women as its speaker recounts how her former boyfriend
assaults her while she is intoxicated. The entire poem deconstructs any attempts to turn rape
survivors stories into jokes and thus to silence them, with the speaker demonstrating how humor
In dialogue with the themes of young female survivors silencing and the need to break
this silence is Maya Angelous memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which recounts both
Angelous experience of growing up African-American in the Jim Crow South and her sexual
abuse. In addition to her sexual assault, Angelou must face her family members murder of her
assailant, dual traumas that leave her unable to speak. Andersons novel alludes to Angelou as
HOW VIOLENCE AND TRAUMA AFFECT YOUNG WOMEN 4
one of Melindas role models, and both heroines are able to overcome the silence surrounding
trauma, several sources about recent sexual assault cases provide insights. The first is the visceral
letter a survivor wrote to and read aloud to Stanford rapist Brock Turner (abridged for graphic
content). The second is the plea that Turners father wrote about his son being punished too
harshly for 20 minutes of action (Cleary, 2016). These valuable, contrasting perspectives on
modern rape culture illustrate the courage of a survivor despite attempts to silence her and the
mindset that enables such acts of violence, respectively. Survivor Emily Yellins article for The
New York Times, Waking Up to the Enduring Memory of Rape, contextualizes these themes
within Yellins take on the recent high school sexual assault trials in Steubenville, Ohio.
Columbia University student Emma Sulkowiczs senior art thesis, Mattress Project (Carry That
Weight) is also relevant to current accounts of survivors speaking out. Sulkowicz carried a
mattress representing her trauma wherever she went at the university her senior year to protest
In the words of Caruth (2016), trauma imposes itselfin the nightmares and repetitive
actions of the survivor (p. 4). Indeed, many of the young women mentioned in this essay are
haunted by continual reminders of the violence done to them or to their loved ones, violence that
is often sexual in nature. Yet trauma literature can provide the opportunity for readers to take a
stand against the threats that face young women each day and to empathize with survivors. Such
an educated public can help survivors cope with the disorder and vulnerability (Becker,
2014, pp. 15-16) of life after trauma and help them give voice to their stories. English teachers
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have the responsibility to break the silence about how violence and trauma affect young women,
References:
Baker, K. J. M. (2016, June 3). Heres the powerful letter the Stanford victim read to her
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Becker, E.M. (2014). Trauma studies and exegesis challenges, limits and prospects. In E.M.
Becker & J. Dochhorn (Eds.), Trauma and traumatization in individual and collective
dimensions: Insights from biblical studies and beyond (pp. 15 29). Gottingen, Germany:
Hubert.
Caruth, C. (2016). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Baltimore: JHU Press.
Cleary, T. (2016, June 8). Read: Full letter to the judge by Dan Turner, Brocks father. Heavy.
full-letter-statement-stanford-rapist/
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice and Statistics. (2006). Intimate partner violence in the
Moore, A., & Begoray, D. (2017). The last block of ice: Trauma literature in the high
Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). (2016). Victims of sexual violence:
Snider, J. (2014). Be the tree: Classical literature, art therapy, and transcending trauma in