Women's truths and institutional truths

It is very common for rapists to claim that their victims are lying. This is one of the ways their criminal behaviour continues to be hidden.  The institutions of the law, medicine, church and the media hold a great deal of power to determine what is "truth" and what is "real". Beliefs that women Rmake up storiesS about rape support a culture that denies women's experiences of sexual violence and the prevalence of rape within our society. Often women's experiences, stories and truths do not match up with these institutional truths. This is often what feminists mean when they talk about structural violence.

Medical "truths"
Structural or institutional violence, upholds or reinforces the violence of an individual abuser. The violence of a particular medical "truth" may add to and reinforce the violence of the actual abuse. For example women may believe or be told that it is their own "paranoia" that is to blame for the constantly recurring fears of sexual and physical abuse: that there is something wrong with them if this fear surfaces again years after the abuse has ceased. Women may even be told that their fear is based on fantasy, rather than on reality. Because paranoia and fantasy discount the truth or reality of women's fears, these medical "truths"are experienced as violations in themselves. It is very unlikely that paranoia, or fantasy, are to blame for recurring fears of sexual violence. Fear related to being raped often does not simply go away. These fears are real and based on having experienced sexual abuse and can work to maintain women's silence. The health system should adopt a holistic model which includes social factors that effect women's lives.

Legal "truths"
There are many difficulties associated with recounting stories of sexual violence. For example, recalling details of time and sequence of events. Yet these difficulties are often misunderstood, or taken as evidence of lying. When recounting rape experiences in law courts, where "facts" must be recited in a rational, linear or logical fashion, women's truths are terribly disadvantaged. This is another example where institutional violence upholds and reinforces the violence of the abuser.

Structural Oppression
Almost all institutions are organised in a hierarchical (boss/worker) structure including business, government, religion, medicine, law, education, the media, the family and so on. Hierarchies can be argued to be oppressive structures since they rely on the structurally legitimated power of a few over others. This power has the potential to be exercised in exploitative and tyrannical ways over those with less legitimised power. Feminists refer to hierarchies where men have more access to power than women as a social organisation called "patriarchy". Historically, in most Western cultures, those who have access to power in almost all spheres of society are white, privileged men. It is important when looking at power and who has it, to take into consideration class, race, gender, ability and sexuality.

Organising in ways that are based on collectivity, consensus and reciprocity rather than on hierarchies of oppression and subordination, contributes to stopping structural violence. Organisations which adopt a flatter, less hierarchial structure are beginning to see the benefit of valuing worker input into decision making.

Sexuality