Kate Lockwood Harris

‘I’m not sexist, but . . .’: How ideological dilemmas reinforce sexism in talk about intimate partner violence

In order to extend knowledge about the communicative aspects of intimate partner violence (IPV), we ask how those who talk about IPV frame the relationship between gender and power. How does their framing account for the role of gender in IPV perpetration? A critical discourse analysis of conversations from focus groups and interviews reveals that when participants talk about IPV, they rely on ideological dilemmas in available understandings of the relationship between gender and power. As participants use disclaimers, competing interpretive repertoires, and extreme case arguments to navigate these dilemmas, their talk closes space for a critique of gender and power that considers systemic factors and benevolent sexism. Instead, participants focus more on individual pathology and the most overt forms of sexism. The tensions that produce this closure may also reveal contradictions that provide opportunities for reshaping public conversations about IPV and its relationship to gender and power.

“Maybe She Was Provoked” Exploring Gender Stereotypes About Male and Female Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence

The current study is concerned with the different types of gender stereotypes that participants may draw upon when exposed to news stories about intimate partner violence (IPV). We qualitatively analyzed open-ended responses examining four types of gender stereotypes—aggression, emotional, power and control, and acceptability of violence. We offer theoretical implications that extend past research on intimate terrorism and situational couple violence, the gender symmetry debate, and how stereotypes are formed. We also discuss practical implications for journalists who write stories about IPV and individuals who provide services to victims and perpetrators.

Reflexive voicing: a communicative approach to intersectional writing

Intersectionality has increasing traction in interdisciplinary inquiry, yet questions remain about qualitative intersectional methods. In particular, scholars have yet to consider how to write qualitative research in the service of intersectionality. Drawing upon my disciplinary training in communication studies, I argue that the field’s theoretical grounding offers useful resources for advancing intersectional writing. Because communication theory posits that symbols both reflect and make reality, it resonates with an intersectional desire to simultaneously describe and transform the world through critical analysis. Using exemplars from communication scholars, I highlight how this interplay of approaches can advance identity politics and trouble identity categories. Furthermore this approach can help qualitative writers to link what some perceive to be distinct ‘levels’ of analysis. By discussing techniques for coupling reflexivity and voice, I make communication theory intelligible for intersectional writing and also invite communication studies to become more intersectional.

(De)stabilizing Sexual Violence Discourse: Masculinization of Victimhood, Organizational Blame, and Labile Imperialism

Following calls to center nation, we analyze sexual violence discourse in the US Peace Corps. The texts we consider deploy three typical dichotomies—public/private, self/other, and agent/victim—that, in this case, reveal inconsistencies at the intersections of race and gender. We argue that these inconsistencies are evidence of lability, counterintuitive discursive shifts necessary to maintain white heteromasculine dominance. Instead of blaming individual victims of rape and assault, the masculinization of victimhood shifts culpability to the Peace Corps. This organizational blame maintains the moral position of the US and legitimates imperialism. By marking these instabilities, we trace the solidity and vulnerability of sexual violence discourse as it organizes global power.

Show Them a Good Time: Organizing the Intersections of Sexual Violence

Engaging with calls from organization scholars, I analyze the communicative mechanisms through which individuals, rather than organizations, become the focus in discussions of violence. Reading a legal decision regarding rape at the University of Colorado, I argue that organizational conceptualizations of sexual violence are marginalized as (a) noncommunicative, container models of organization are prioritized and (b) violence is understood as an action rather than one element in a system of meaning. On the basis of this analysis, I offer a feminist rereading of the case that identifies the organization as a participant in sexual violence. To recognize not only individual, but also organizational sexual violence, I suggest that scholars problematize the racialized gendering of organization. Further, I show that a communicative approach that articulates complex relationships between meaning and action is central for highlighting the intersectionality of sexual violence and for unmooring sexually violent agency from individuated physicality.

Performing reflexive caring: rethinking reflexivity through trauma and disability

ABSTRACT You care about difference. In this exigent mood we begin to rework reflexivity through disability and trauma studies. Using performative writing, we trouble you, me, and we in order to uncouple analytical rigor from individual bodies and identities. As we consider violence, injury, and ability, we complicate an imperative for personal disclosure. While continuing to insist on accountability to privilege, we highlight queer vulnerabilities, alternative representation, and non-normative emotion. We draw together readers and writers in a recursive textual process, a feminist ethic attentive to inequality and suffering. We call this methodological presence with others reflexive caring.

Re-situating organizational knowledge: Violence, intersectionality and the privilege of partial perspective:

Scholars have called repeatedly for more nuanced understandings of power and organizational knowledge, but researchers have yet to integrate available critical frameworks that could link these concepts. Moreover, existing analyses of power in organizational knowledge tend to focus on role differences but do not yet consider how social differences – including gender, race and sexuality – shape knowledge. Working from a practice-based approach, I draw upon standpoint theory and intersectionality to show how whiteness, masculinity and heteronormativity are embedded in organizational knowledge. I construct this argument using a case study at a US university known for having some of the best systems for building organizational knowledge about sexual violence on campus. I argue that the university’s practices – specifically those related to interpretation and definition – mask heterogeneity in knowledge across the university. I also show how practices give the university’s knowledge the appearance of neutrality and, subsequently, can unintentionally defer important organizational actions.

News Stories of Intimate Partner Violence: An Experimental Examination of Participant Sex, Perpetrator Sex, and Violence Severity on Seriousness, Sympathy, and Punishment Preferences.

ABSTRACT This study experimentally examines the effects of participant sex, perpetrator sex, and severity of violence on perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV) seriousness, sympathy toward the victim, and punishment preferences for the perpetrator. Participants (N = 449) were randomly assigned to a condition, exposed to a composite news story, and then completed a survey. Ratings of seriousness of IPV for stories with male perpetrators were significantly higher than ratings of seriousness for stories with female perpetrators. Men had significantly higher sympathy for female victims in any condition than for male victims in the weak or strong severity of violence conditions. Men’s sympathy for male victims in the fatal severity of violence condition did not differ from their sympathy for female victims. Women had the least sympathy for female victims in the weak severity condition and men in the weak or strong severity conditions. Women reported significantly higher sympathy for female victims in the strong and fatal severity of violence conditions. Women’s ratings of sympathy for male victims in the fatal severity of violence condition were statistically indistinguishable from any other group. Participants reported stronger punishment preferences for male perpetrators and this effect was magnified among men. Theoretical implications are presented with attention provided to practical considerations about support for public health services.

Forum Introduction: Queering the “Closet” at Work:

Queer theory has an important and consequential presence in communication studies (e.g., Brouwer, Ferderer, Gamboa, Kramer, & Mistretta, 2012; Chávez, 2013; Chevrette, 2013; Moreman & McIntosh, 2010; Yep, 2003). It has prompted research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) identities across the field’s subdisciplines, challenged normativity, and pursued questions about deviance, desire, gender, and performance. Organizational communication, however, has been somewhat reticent about queerness, perhaps even a bit resistant. For example, in this journal—the flagship outlet for organizational communication scholarship—the word queer has never appeared in the title, abstract, or keywords for an article prior to the publication of this forum. Passing mentions of the word have occurred fewer than 20 times, usually in forum essays rather than featured articles and never as a central theoretical framework. As some scholars have argued, organizational research—and organizational life—is straight (Bruni, 2006; Spradlin, 1998). Nevertheless, organizational communication scholars are beginning to queer the subfield (e.g., Compton, 2016; Compton & Dougherty, 2017; Dixon & Dougherty, 2014; Harris & Fortney, 2017; McDonald, 2015, 2017). They work in concert with critical management scholars who increasingly use queer theory to interrogate constructs such as leadership, identity, and diversity (e.g., Bendl, Fleischmann, & Walenta, 2008; Harding, Lee, Ford, &

Yes means yes and no means no, but both these mantras need to go: communication myths in consent education and anti-rape activism*

ABSTRACT For decades, feminists have intervened in a sexually violent culture. Many public health professionals, educators, and activists who design these interventions have called for complex conceptualizations of communication, yet communication studies scholars have not written extensively on consent. Moreover, researchers outside the field rarely rely on insights from the discipline. Accordingly, I offer a critical review of consent activism and research, and I highlight disciplinary assumptions that could enhance existing knowledge. I argue that many feminist academic/activist interventions use false ideas about communication, what I call communication myths: discourse merely reflects reality, and local discourse is disconnected from larger social Discourse. I show how these communication myths resonate with rape-supportive arguments. By suggesting communication should be unambiguous during consent, anti-violence educators/activists lower the standard for communicative competence, disconnect it from historical-cultural context, and miss opportunities to politicize consent. I argue feminists can challenge communication myths to build on existing interventions while more fully dismantling rape culture.