http://sllufnconsumerwatch.blogspot.com/
The SL Left Feminist Network is excited to announce the launch of a new blog focused upon feminist issues and Second Life, the “SLLU Feminist Network Consumer Watch.” The “Consumer Watch” will highlight and analyze products available for sale in Second Life that tap into the lucrative market for violent pornography and role play.
Why have we decided to create this new information source?
At one time, “Your World, Your Imagination” was the sales pitch, and indeed, philosophical underpinning for Second Life. Thousands of residents took this mantra to heart, and sought to make this virtual world a place to explore their own expansive imaginations, and transcend the narrow limits of our everyday physical existence. One result has been the creation within this virtual world of unparalleled new forms of art, of landscapes of breathtaking beauty and scope, and of liberating experiments in social organization and personal identity.
But there has always been, of course, a darker side to Second Life, epitomized in the subcultures that have chosen not to see the boundless potential of this virtual world as a way of imagining something better for human kind, but rather as a means of indulging in the some of the very worst instincts that still prey upon our culture. Nothing embodies this retrograde approach to the potential of Second Life more than those varieties of role play that fetishize and indeed celebrate sexual violence. Dolcett, Vore, snuff and rape role play, sexual age play, Gor, and some of the more extreme fringes of BDSM have parasitically infested Second Life for nearly as long as the application has existed, ensuring that this virtual world reflects not only the very best that the human imagination can conjure, but also, sadly, the very worst that human civilization has wrought.
If Second Life truly were nothing more than a mere “fantasy world,” and the borders between it and “real life” as impermeable as some like to pretend, the existence of grotesquely violent sexual role play here would be offensive, but not necessarily worrisome. But Second Life is, in truth, an extension of “real life”: those who enact scenes of violence against women here are indulging their real life predilections, while those who immerse themselves in such role play are carrying those experiences and their emotional and psychological consequences with them back into the physical world. What happens in Second Life DOES matter; it both reflects and impacts upon the real world.
And for this reason, it is time to shine a little light upon the darker corners of this, our virtual world.
"The SLLU Feminist Network Consumer Watch" is committed to doing just this. Features will focus upon animations, skins, clothing, and furniture available for purchase that normalize and trivialize gender violence, or otherwise reinforce dangerous and harmful misogynist attitudes. In addition to providing an overview of such content, usually highlighting the work of an individual content creator, each blog article will include a feminist analysis of the reviewed products.
Through its examination of these products, "The Consumer Watch" will offer a frank and often deeply disturbing insight into those subcultures within Second Life that role play explicit and extreme scenarios of sexual violence. It will demonstrate that rape, snuff, and other violent forms of sexualized role play are expressions of harmful and deep-seated misogynist attitudes, and it will argue that such role play, far from being harmless "fantasy," does impact negatively upon real life perspectives on and approaches to gender equality and social justice.
Because the most democratic and effective means of responding to the sale of violently misogynist content is the consumer boycott, "The Consumer Watch" will also maintain a running "Boycott Notification" list of content creators.
We invite you to visit the “Consumer Watch,” and join in the conversations there.
The first two blog posts for the "Consumer Watch" are now online:
"Battle Royale Redivivus"
http://sllufnconsumerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/battle-royale-redivivus.html
An analysis of the unresolved "Battle Royale" skin controversy that swirled around Gala Phoenix's *Curio* skin line in October of last year.
[
WARNING: Contains mild images of violence that may be triggering]
"In Which We Dipp into the Dark Side"
With images:
http://sllufnconsumerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/every-once-in-while-one-runs-across.html
Text only:
http://sllufnconsumerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-which-we-dipp-into-dark-side-text.html
An examination of a few of the snuff, rape, and bondage devices offered for sale by Dipp Canning's *Dip Dexines*.
[WARNING: Contains language and images of extreme violence.]
For a general introduction to the “Consumer Watch,” see:
http://sllufnconsumerwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/welcome-to-sl-left-unitys-consumer.html
Questions and comments regarding the “SLLU Feminist Network Consumer Watch” can be sent to:
sllufn.consumer.watch@gmail.com
Showing posts with label violence against women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence against women. Show all posts
Monday, 26 July 2010
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory Applied to Violence Against Women
I recently wrote a paper for my Advanced Theories of Personality course to apply a personality theory to a current social issue. I chose Bandura's theory in regards to violence against women. It made a lot of sense after hearing the lecture on it and connected so well in my mind. I also thought some of you might enjoy reading it so I decided to share. Enjoy! -Indy
Violence against women is defined as an act or threat of physical, sexual, or mental harm towards women. This is a global problem that spans all countries, races, classes, and cultures, and it is not as rare as people might think. A ten-country study found that up to 71% of women reported physical violence, sexual violence, or both (World Health Organization, 2005). In the United States, it is estimated that women are the victims of about 4.8 million instances of intimate partner violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2009). This problem is not isolated to adult women, as one in five high school girls have also been the victims of physical or sexual intimate partner violence (CDC, 2008a). The CDC (2008b) also found that 10.6% of women are the victims of rape, up to 25% of which are college age and 60.4% of which occurred before the age of 18. Those statistics do not include the unknown number of incidents that are not reported. What could possibly be the cause of such a widespread form of violence? Albert Bandura might argue that this behavior is caused by a combination of learning, cognitive, and environmental factors.
Bandura stated that behaviors can be learned by observation alone without having to perform that behavior first. Observational learning requires paying attention to a model’s behavior and retaining those observations, having a motivation to reproduce the behavior, and the act of reproducing that behavior. This process of modeling is more likely to occur if the observer puts more value on the outcome, the model is similar to or of higher status than the observer, or there is an opportunity to use the behavior. Consider a child who witnesses or experiences violence in the home. Children lack power compared to their parents and are likely to consider them important in their lives. Witnessing violence is a traumatizing experience and the memory of it is likely to remain vivid. It is common that perpetrators were witnesses or victims of violence as children (CDC, 2009). This demonstrates how children might learn about violent behaviors but does not explain why a child would reproduce that behavior as an adult.
Bandura also stated that people pay attention to the consequences, good or bad, of the behavior they observe. They then evaluate those consequences in order to guide their own behavior. If an observed behavior could bring about a desired consequence it is more likely the person will perform that action, thereby reinforcing that behavior and completing the process of enactive learning. While children witnessing violence maintain vivid and traumatizing memories of abuse, they also maintain and think about what resulted from the violence. Violence is often used in order to maintain control and in a relationship. If the victim of violence complies with demands as a result of the violence, the behavior is reinforced for the perpetrator as well as the observer. If the observer finds themselves in a similar situation they will evaluate that situation, their possible actions, and the possible consequences of those actions and act accordingly. The three factors of environment, behavior, and person or cognition interact and influence each other. Bandura referred to that constant process as triadic reciprocal causation. A person can control their behavior and guide their cognitions but it is not always possible for them to control their environment. Behavior can be encouraged and normalized due to observational learning and if a person has not learned that non-violent actions are possible in those situations, they are likely to continue reproducing that violent behavior.
However, that does not mean that violence is automatic or has to remain cyclical. Bandura believes that behavior is the result of human agency or the ability for people to maintain a degree of control over their lives. The concept of human agency takes into account the intention of behavior, forethought of consequences, ability to adjust behavior to changes, and self-reflection of motivations, actions, and consequences. In order for a person to control their behavior they require self-efficacy or the belief that they are capable of controlling their behavior. Self-efficacy is raised due to past successful experiences, observing successful social models, receiving believable social persuasion, and favorable physical and emotional states. For example, a violent person can adjust their repertoire to include non-violent actions by observing non-violent methods, attempting and successfully reproducing non-violent behavior, receiving encouragement to behave in a non-violent way, and reducing anger, anxiety, and other negative feelings.
It is easier to outline the path towards higher self-efficacy than to actually raise it but part of self-efficacy is understanding the amount of effort that is necessary to perform the desired behaviors. People with high levels of self-efficacy eventually increase their ability to self-regulate, reducing the disparity between accomplishments and goals and raising those goals. Self-regulation is the result of observing our own behavior, evaluating it, and our own reactions to our behavior. There are violent offender rehabilitation programs available but the success rate is dismal due to short duration of treatment, often as little as six weeks, and the unwillingness on the part of the offender to change their violent behavior. Rehabilitation would be more successful if offenders were treated for underlying problems in order to relieve negative emotions that may be impairing their openness to observe and learn from positive modeling. Rehabilitation rates would also benefit from increased duration of the programs since personal changes and observational and enactive learning can take a long time, often years.
Bandura, Ross, and Ross conducted a study in 1963 that offered evidence that modeled violence can result in further violence, rather than acting as a catharsis for aggressive tendencies. The original study involved modeling recorded adult violence against an inflatable clown known as a Bobo doll. Bandura and his colleagues went on to conduct studies involving recorded violence by a child, recorded violence with the aggressor wearing a cat costume, and violence by live adult models. They discovered that all children exposed to aggression increased their own aggressive behavior but more so after observing a live model. It was shown that boys were more aggressive than girls and that the effect was more powerful with a male model. In addition, boys were noted to have come up with new aggressive behaviors than the ones that were modeled.
Since then there have been numerous studies done using Bandura’s social cognitive theory to explain and modify behavior. This may be due to the benefit that it uses the same principles to explain and understand behavior as it does to change it. This factor offers very practical, specific guidelines to follow. In addition, it can be applied to a wide range of behaviors including basic, seemingly autonomic ones like driving a car to more complex behaviors such as violence against women. The present article only focused on children as witnesses to violent behavior as a cause of future violence against women but Bandura’s theory can be applied to other causes such as violence against women in media, pornography use, and rape culture. Since the theory is capable of generating more hypotheses to test and there is an innumerable amount of behavior realms to explore, there is an increase in the probability of falsifying the theory. Finally, Bandura’s theory takes a rather optimistic view of human behavior and personality. As a result, changing behavior may seem easier than it really is which may discourage people if immediate results are not achieved. But it does honestly offer the opportunity to understand and reduce the instances of violence against women.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008a). Intimate partner violence: Dating violence fact sheet. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/intimatepartnerviolence/datingviolence.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008b). Sexual violence facts at a glance. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/SV-DataSheet-a.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2009). Understanding intimate partner violence fact sheet. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/IPV_factsheet-a.pdf
World Health Organization. (2005). WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women: Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html
Violence against women is defined as an act or threat of physical, sexual, or mental harm towards women. This is a global problem that spans all countries, races, classes, and cultures, and it is not as rare as people might think. A ten-country study found that up to 71% of women reported physical violence, sexual violence, or both (World Health Organization, 2005). In the United States, it is estimated that women are the victims of about 4.8 million instances of intimate partner violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2009). This problem is not isolated to adult women, as one in five high school girls have also been the victims of physical or sexual intimate partner violence (CDC, 2008a). The CDC (2008b) also found that 10.6% of women are the victims of rape, up to 25% of which are college age and 60.4% of which occurred before the age of 18. Those statistics do not include the unknown number of incidents that are not reported. What could possibly be the cause of such a widespread form of violence? Albert Bandura might argue that this behavior is caused by a combination of learning, cognitive, and environmental factors.
Bandura stated that behaviors can be learned by observation alone without having to perform that behavior first. Observational learning requires paying attention to a model’s behavior and retaining those observations, having a motivation to reproduce the behavior, and the act of reproducing that behavior. This process of modeling is more likely to occur if the observer puts more value on the outcome, the model is similar to or of higher status than the observer, or there is an opportunity to use the behavior. Consider a child who witnesses or experiences violence in the home. Children lack power compared to their parents and are likely to consider them important in their lives. Witnessing violence is a traumatizing experience and the memory of it is likely to remain vivid. It is common that perpetrators were witnesses or victims of violence as children (CDC, 2009). This demonstrates how children might learn about violent behaviors but does not explain why a child would reproduce that behavior as an adult.
Bandura also stated that people pay attention to the consequences, good or bad, of the behavior they observe. They then evaluate those consequences in order to guide their own behavior. If an observed behavior could bring about a desired consequence it is more likely the person will perform that action, thereby reinforcing that behavior and completing the process of enactive learning. While children witnessing violence maintain vivid and traumatizing memories of abuse, they also maintain and think about what resulted from the violence. Violence is often used in order to maintain control and in a relationship. If the victim of violence complies with demands as a result of the violence, the behavior is reinforced for the perpetrator as well as the observer. If the observer finds themselves in a similar situation they will evaluate that situation, their possible actions, and the possible consequences of those actions and act accordingly. The three factors of environment, behavior, and person or cognition interact and influence each other. Bandura referred to that constant process as triadic reciprocal causation. A person can control their behavior and guide their cognitions but it is not always possible for them to control their environment. Behavior can be encouraged and normalized due to observational learning and if a person has not learned that non-violent actions are possible in those situations, they are likely to continue reproducing that violent behavior.
However, that does not mean that violence is automatic or has to remain cyclical. Bandura believes that behavior is the result of human agency or the ability for people to maintain a degree of control over their lives. The concept of human agency takes into account the intention of behavior, forethought of consequences, ability to adjust behavior to changes, and self-reflection of motivations, actions, and consequences. In order for a person to control their behavior they require self-efficacy or the belief that they are capable of controlling their behavior. Self-efficacy is raised due to past successful experiences, observing successful social models, receiving believable social persuasion, and favorable physical and emotional states. For example, a violent person can adjust their repertoire to include non-violent actions by observing non-violent methods, attempting and successfully reproducing non-violent behavior, receiving encouragement to behave in a non-violent way, and reducing anger, anxiety, and other negative feelings.
It is easier to outline the path towards higher self-efficacy than to actually raise it but part of self-efficacy is understanding the amount of effort that is necessary to perform the desired behaviors. People with high levels of self-efficacy eventually increase their ability to self-regulate, reducing the disparity between accomplishments and goals and raising those goals. Self-regulation is the result of observing our own behavior, evaluating it, and our own reactions to our behavior. There are violent offender rehabilitation programs available but the success rate is dismal due to short duration of treatment, often as little as six weeks, and the unwillingness on the part of the offender to change their violent behavior. Rehabilitation would be more successful if offenders were treated for underlying problems in order to relieve negative emotions that may be impairing their openness to observe and learn from positive modeling. Rehabilitation rates would also benefit from increased duration of the programs since personal changes and observational and enactive learning can take a long time, often years.
Bandura, Ross, and Ross conducted a study in 1963 that offered evidence that modeled violence can result in further violence, rather than acting as a catharsis for aggressive tendencies. The original study involved modeling recorded adult violence against an inflatable clown known as a Bobo doll. Bandura and his colleagues went on to conduct studies involving recorded violence by a child, recorded violence with the aggressor wearing a cat costume, and violence by live adult models. They discovered that all children exposed to aggression increased their own aggressive behavior but more so after observing a live model. It was shown that boys were more aggressive than girls and that the effect was more powerful with a male model. In addition, boys were noted to have come up with new aggressive behaviors than the ones that were modeled.
Since then there have been numerous studies done using Bandura’s social cognitive theory to explain and modify behavior. This may be due to the benefit that it uses the same principles to explain and understand behavior as it does to change it. This factor offers very practical, specific guidelines to follow. In addition, it can be applied to a wide range of behaviors including basic, seemingly autonomic ones like driving a car to more complex behaviors such as violence against women. The present article only focused on children as witnesses to violent behavior as a cause of future violence against women but Bandura’s theory can be applied to other causes such as violence against women in media, pornography use, and rape culture. Since the theory is capable of generating more hypotheses to test and there is an innumerable amount of behavior realms to explore, there is an increase in the probability of falsifying the theory. Finally, Bandura’s theory takes a rather optimistic view of human behavior and personality. As a result, changing behavior may seem easier than it really is which may discourage people if immediate results are not achieved. But it does honestly offer the opportunity to understand and reduce the instances of violence against women.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008a). Intimate partner violence: Dating violence fact sheet. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/intimatepartnerviolence/datingviolence.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2008b). Sexual violence facts at a glance. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/SV-DataSheet-a.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2009). Understanding intimate partner violence fact sheet. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/IPV_factsheet-a.pdf
World Health Organization. (2005). WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women: Initial results on prevalence, health outcomes and women’s responses. Retrieved December 1, 2009, from http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/index.html
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