“I Didn’t Ask for It”: Balkan Women vs. the Invisibility of Rape

Ana Maskalan is the author of the chapter “I Didn’t Ask for It”: Balkan Women vs. the Invisibility of Rape. The chapter is a part of the collection “Beauvoir and Politics: A Toolkit”, published by Routledge, New York.

The author offered a philosophical-feminist analysis of the evolution of the “I Didn’t Ask for It” initiative, as a kind of a belated Balkan version of the “Me Too” movement that was followed by a silencing backlash, within the socio-cultural and political context that made it unique. The author concentrated in more detail on several aspects that seem characteristic of “I Didn’t Ask for It” that she considered to be closely related to the socio-cultural and political context of the region. These are the victims’ resignation and need for anonymity, as well as the fierce backlash (response) of sections of the public to the actions of the initiative itself and to its leaders. Although aware that resignation, anonymity, and backlash can be recognized in the “MeToo” movement as well, the author does not consider them to be its dominant features; nor does she understand them as being connected to the same social phenomena. As a philosophical point of departure, Simone de Beauvoir’s theoretical framework was employed, especially her understanding of the myth of femininity and the ideas of complicity, solidarity, violence, and those regarding sex and sexual autonomy. Beauvoir’s elaboration of the concept of the Other serves here as an ontological foundation of the epistemic problem of not recognizing another’s experience, discussed through Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic injustice, as well as an explanation of why victimization in the case of rape victims does not stop at the sole act of rape.

More: http://idiprints.knjiznica.idi.hr/1108/.