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WNET graphic
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Title Slate: The Eleventh Hour #206, Rape. Rec: 6/6/89
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Blank
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Funding for program by announcer and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.
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The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener.
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Host Robert Lipsyte in studio welcomes viewers to the show and introduces himself.
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Host Lipsyte talking about the topic of today's program - sexual assault and the renewed discussion about something in the conditioning of men that condones the brutality. He cuts away to recent alarming rape statistics.
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Frightening Statistics scroll about Rape in America and in New York City as Host Lipsyte narrates.
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Host Lipsyte introduces his guests: Elizabeth Holtsman, Brooklyn District Attorney; Susan Xenarios, Dir. St. Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital Rape Intervention Ctr.; Michael Kimmel, PhD Sociology Professor SUNY
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INTERVIEW
Elizabeth Holtzman: possibly encourage men to think of themselves as becoming men only through sexual violence against women, Robert Lipsyte 4:29 Susan, from an anecdotal point of view have have women that you've counseled reported, or young boys or more? Susan Xenarois 4:36 Absolutely, I mean, we are. I would say that I think that there is an incredible increase in reporting although they're still saying that it's one in eight women do report. We are experiencing a lot more adolescents reporting, but also adult women who are indeed attacked and assaulted by adolescent boys. I'm not saying that that You know, this is a real increase in reality. But I do think that the reporting does reflect this, Robert Lipsyte 5:06 Michael, if these statistics are indeed as accurate as they seem to be, is something going on in the male mind of America? Michael Kimmel 5:15 I think that we that that's the hidden meaning behind these cases is in fact that the gender training, fit socialization of young men in this culture is really, really teaches them to devalue women, to the point in which I believe in fact that many men find themselves absolutely confused about what it means to be a man and men some of these is confusion and feeling of powerlessness is a way that men in that rape becomes a way that men, in fact, put women down and and maintain a sense of themselves. Robert Lipsyte 5:50 Is there any reason why it should be happening, being acted out by younger and younger man? Michael Kimmel 5:56 I think I think that two things are happening, one of which is that the number of younger women are probably reporting it more often. Secondly, I think that the pressure on young men to prove that they are real man, that they are real men themselves, is in fact increasing. So I think that that those might be two reasons why we're seeing more of it. And I think also, the average age of, of sexual behavior has gone down consistently. Robert Lipsyte 6:21 There's in terms of this conditioning, that you've been talking about this barrage? Do you do have a sense that it's getting worse, or it's affecting the more poor kids were reacting to it? Or what are you seeing coming through your office? Elizabeth Holtzman 6:37 Well, I'm not sure that you can deal with rape as an issue of poverty. And I think this is an issue of gender. And it goes deep and broad in this society, whether you want to look at gang rapes in colleges, you can look at what happens in fraternity houses all over this country. And that's, like that book. No, we don't have too many fraternity houses in Brooklyn, in comparison with some other places. But no, that's not. But acquaintance rate is a serious problem in Brooklyn justice, it is everywhere else. And it's extremely difficult to prosecute, because you still have attitudes in the society that blame the woman for the rape, Robert Lipsyte 7:15 okay, I'd like to do not to move and to watch something with me. In this tape that we'll see we're going to meet some rapists and some victims were training so they will never be raped again. |
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Interview concludes and Host Lipsyte cuts to a pre-taped segment with two convicted rapists, and two women who have been raped.
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Women in boxing ring, wearing helmets, training in self defense class. They kick and punch each other, falling to the ground. Other women watching clapping. Lipsyte narrates many of the women have been victims of assault and rape.
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INSERT PRE-TAPED INTERVIEW WITH RAPE VICTIMS:
Janet Jackson (rape victim) 7:56 I could have said, No, I won't take you but it would have been kind of rude. I thought well just be nice. It doesn't he says it isn't far away. Well, he ended up giving me directions to a vacant lot. And he was very cruel, very sadistic, you know, kept telling me. He has other friends that are on the way. And they're all going to, you know, getting right me. Robert Lipsyte 8:20 Claire was raped eight years ago by a man who picked her up in a neighborhood bar. She went to his house willingly. But then he turned violent. Claire (rape victim) 8:30 You know, I felt like, you know, a deer that has a predator, two feet away, and it just freezes and it just waits. You know, I was just waiting. Janet Jackson (rape victim) 8:42 When I tried to fight. I did try to fight because once you know, I know what was gonna happen. I tried to, you know, kick him between the legs and open the car door. And he just wasn't, I just wasn't able. Claire (rape victim) 8:59 I wasn't gonna play stupid. I mean, I was gonna get the hell out of there alive and I was gonna do anything that he wanted me to do. Janet Jackson (rape victim) 9:06 That's when he pulled a knife. And then he just kept me in the car all night. away I felt told this rapist that there's no excuse for what he did. There's no reason there's nothing in his past that excuses it. There's no attitude that excuses it. I just hate it. But also, another part of me is curious, why would someone do what would make somebody do something that's so cool, and so hurtful to another person that it changes their life. |
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Women in self-defense training class, intensively practicing defense moves in boxing ring
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Exterior The Adult Diagnostic Treatment Center in Avenel, New Jersey. Pan up on brick building surrounded by chain link fence and barbed wire.
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Hand locking door of prison cell.
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Man with long brown hair shot from behind walking into office, woman seated at desk he takes a seat across from her.
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Clasped hands, tattooed forearms.
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Host Lipsyte narrates. Prisoner (shot from behind to protect identity{ seated across from woman at desk. Lipsyte states sexual abuse by male prisoner's mother contributed to his becoming a rapist.
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Close up hand holding pen writing on white legal pad.
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Convicted rapist (face darkened to protect identity) speaking with unseen unknown interviewer about being sexually abused by his mother.
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Prison guard patting down prisoner outside of prison cell.
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African American male (shot from behind to protect identity), convicted rapist serving 15 year sentence (as narrated by Lipsyte), sitting at table with woman taking notes.
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INTERVIEW INSERTED - CONVICTED RAPIST TELLING HIS STORY
"Ralph" (convicted rapist) 10:57 there were times where I used to cry for affection. But I didn't know how to get affection. You know, affection was something that was it wasn't spoken too much of you know, you had to be a man. So to say. Robert Lipsyte 11:20 As a teenager, Ralph turned to gangs, for the acceptance he felt lacking at home. His first sexual encounter was watching a gang bang. "Ralph" (convicted rapist) 11:30 They started to go grab her and follow her. They kept on encouraging all of us to join. I was really reluctant. I just stayed to the side. They took me to a vacant house. And they're they raped her from the street. The message? The message was a woman. They ain't shit. They all bitches fuck 'em we do what we want with them. Robert Lipsyte 12:10 During the model, mugging course, women can recreate their own rape scenario. For many, it's a way of coming to grips with their own worst memory. Claire (rape victim) 12:20 I think it's like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean, if you're not elated, you know, if if, if a person you know is feeling so small and so vicious and so angry, for whatever reasons, they feeling vicious, small and angry. It's the best way to feel big. You know, it's the best way to like, you know, get rid of whatever you're feeling onto somebody else. And to me, I feel like I felt like that guy was nuking me. You know, he was annihilating me and he knew it and it was making him feel better he was watching me be reduced to nothing |
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African American male prisoner, darkened so as not to reveal identity, talking about his experience growing up with no affection.
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African American male prisoner walking down hall of prisoner, stopping to get patted down by prison guard, before entering prison cell.
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Back to self-defense training. woman pinned to the ground by male in helmet - practice in boxing ring, recreating "rape" scenario as others watching.
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INTERVIEW
Claire (rape victim) 12:20 I think it's like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I mean, if you're not elated, you know, if if, if a person you know is feeling so small and so vicious and so angry, for whatever reasons, they feeling vicious, small and angry. It's the best way to feel big. You know, it's the best way to like, you know, get rid of whatever you're feeling onto somebody else. And to me, I feel like I felt like that guy was nuking me. You know, he was annihilating me and he knew it and it was making him feel better he was watching me be reduced to nothing "Ralph" (convicted rapist) 12:57 It was me saying hey, you hear you my victim now your shit like me because I'm thinking of myself as this worthless total non entity of a human being so I want to make sure that you feel when I'm feeling convicted rapist 2 13:24 it do her because the pain I'm going now they got it got through same you know, like for me, I was not trusting woman they had the same problem maybe not trust man. Because one of my victims she begged me for not raping her but she was getting married the same way you know I destroyed whatever vision she had, you know, is hurt a lot. Claire (rape victim) 13:51 That rape experience did not turn me off to man. It turned me off to people and turned me off to love like someone I mean, I think someone really just loving me just loving me and who I was inside that that that whoever that person was was such a terrible person that would didn't deserve to be loved. And I think that i've i've had enormous problem letting people know that person. |
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INTERVIEW
Robert Lipsyte 14:24 We're back with Elizabeth Holtzman and Susan scenarios and Michael Kimmel. Susan, you work with primarily with with rape victims. Did you have any feelings of emotion or even sympathy for the perpetrators in that tape? Susan Xenarois 14:39 Well, I I think we need some perspective. I it's true. I think what that tape brings out is that there's a high percentage of inmates of rapists that we know of that have histories of sexual abuse in their lives. My concern, you know, with these two rapists, and interviewing is That, even though to women may have been contributing to their lack of self esteem and their anger and their rage toward women, most children who are sexually abused or abused or neglected do not become rapists. And and I think that we need to look at and keep that perspective in sight, because that does concern me. And I think that's a dangerous statistic and a dangerous issue. Robert Lipsyte 15:26 The dangerous to do that no, no, I understand that the danger being that the fact that these two men may have been brutalized by women, gives an excuse to their brutalizing other words, Susan Xenarois 15:36 I think it is used, and I think that we know that violence is intergenerational, and there is a continuum of violence, and there was a cycle of violence. It's learned behavior. And I think we know that much. Now. Robert Lipsyte 15:48 I understand what you're saying. But let me let me ask that question again. Did you have any particular feeling of sympathy for them? And second of all, did you see any value in this attempt to rehabilitate them? Susan Xenarois 15:59 I did not have that much sympathy for them personally. But that I think is my bias. I do not think we rehabilitate Well, you know, there are a number of sex offender programs and treatment programs throughout the country. And and I may be going out on a limb with this, but I do not think that it, we've done it we've succeeded. If we did succeed, we would not have high recidivist rates with rapists. I would like to see if we're going to put money and energy and expertise into sex offenders, I would like to see it directed toward children. First time sex offenders with children no matter what age latency age, pre adolescent age, early adolescence, I'm not so sure we can really rehabilitate adult sex offenders Robert Lipsyte 16:42 before we move on, what would you have done with those two would you keep, just keep them in jail, and not spend money on the 12 therapists and Susan Xenarois 16:52 there's been a lot of money spent. And indeed, many of these people and treatment programs do come out much earlier than their sentencing time. And they do get parole earlier. We're talking not just social issues and societal issues, we're also talking interest, psychic issues of pathology. And every rapist has a different pathology and a different story. We can't control them after they're out of prison. We just our program just experienced three women who were victimized in a park by serial rapist who was on work release, for instance, and a price prisoner. So we have and I think people in our field have a lot of skepticism with our system Robert Lipsyte 17:34 . Is that anecdotal? Liz is is there a pattern of risks? I can't even say that word. Is there a pattern of rapists repeating? Elizabeth Holtzman 17:44 Sure. rapists often commit serial rapes. And we have many, many unfortunately, tragic situations where one man will go out and rape many, many women and not only rape them, but torture them in other ways, brutalized them in other ways, stab them, shoot them. They may be killings involved. You're talking about very brutal, very dangerous people. Robert Lipsyte 18:09 What value do you see in rehabilitation or that kind of rehabilitation? Elizabeth Holtzman 18:13 Well, I agree that we need to start young. Maybe if we considered rape a series of crimes it is we would spend much more time in the society, paying attention to research on how to deal with it. Maybe there are no answers. But we don't have adequate programs for young people look at what happens in family court when I first became da, juvenile offenders would go out on probation if they were I mean, 12 year olds or 13 year old 12 11 years will go out on probation. Because there were no programs for them. Maybe we have one program in New York City to deal with them. We have an astronomical increase in the Lisa reporting of teenage sex abuse. So obviously, our so our criminal justice institutions and haven't begun to respond adequately, Robert Lipsyte 18:56 well, in terms of starting early is is there. This is a reach perhaps Is there a profile? I mean, other than a young male being sexually abused, is there a profile of someone who will become a rapist? Susan Xenarois 19:14 I can give you one. Okay. Recently, we had a case of an eight year old boy, who ain't only penetrated a kindergartener in a school. And because of the age of the eight year old perpetrator and this is a young child, an eight year old is young analy penetrating and sodomizing a kindergartner, there was no doubt that this did not happen. We do know that this child has experienced some sort of sexual violence. He knew what to do this is learned behavior. Yet there was no place this was not going into court. There were really no treatment facilities for him other than a mental health. And and there was no way to assure that the family was also going to get treatment. |
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Host Lipsyte back in studio with guests Elizabeth Holtzman, Susan Xenarios and Michael Kimmel.
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INTERVIEW CONTINUES:
Robert Lipsyte 19:56 And there was no reason to think that anything was going to happen after That's correct. And so Except that it would probably happen Susan Xenarois 20:01 again. Now this is a profile of a young boy that I can see that with the message to him at that point is that's okay, that behavior is okay. And nothing's going to happen. Robert Lipsyte 20:11 Michael, let me pass that back on to you. In terms of that, that, that profile who who are we looking at? Michael Kimmel 20:17 I think that there are two, there are two questions in that question. The first is the psychological profile. And I think that there is some evidence that there is the cycle of violence, and that that tends to be intergenerationally reproduced, but I don't think we can stop there. I think that the the social profile, this the cultural profile, if you will, is that we live in a culture that supports and condones and accepts this. When you asked earlier, us, Susan, what her emotion was when she was watching that I thought, well, maybe you'd asked me that. So I thought I'd tell you. My emotion was not so much what when I watched the rapist, but when I was listening to the women talk about their experience, and I felt an overwhelming sense of shame that I live in a culture in which this kind of systematic destruction of women's lives happens. That last woman, particularly was particularly poignant talking about feeling annihilated. And I thought to myself, what is it that makes men so angry at women, that they would seek to do this? Because none of the rapists that we heard interviewed and very few rapists, in fact, who are working victim rapists, talk about feeling lost, and that's why they committed the rape. Both of those men said they felt rage, they felt anger, they said that they felt they felt like like pieces of dirt, they felt powerless. Now, I think that's the cultural profile. We live in a culture in which men are in fact in power, in which men have power over women. And yet, most men individually feel utterly powerless. And it's in that space between the expectation of being powerful, and the feeling of powerlessness, that I think a lot of men get very angry at women, very angry in general. And I think that that, in fact, provokes a lot of the rape as retaliation or revenge. Robert Lipsyte 22:06 Also, maybe I hear you also saying that and stop me if I'm using this word incorrectly. But there's a kind of a psychic rape by, by more powerful men, on other men, whether it's in their jobs or exploitation. And in a sense, they're they're passing this this rape on, in fact, Michael Kimmel 22:23 let's just take a look at what the common denominator is, in the glenridge. case, as well as the Central Park case, we're talking about gang rape, we're not only talking about individual rapists, what is it about those gang rapes, it's about male bonding, it is about the experience of young adolescent boys demonstrating their manhood not even with the woman as much as with each other. think Robert Lipsyte 22:44 of when you think it's sexual among the boys as well as social, Michael Kimmel 22:47 I think that there is what I would call a homo social element in there. That's what male bonding is about whether there's an erotic component in that or not, I don't want to speculate. But I do think that homo sociality, proving to other other boys that you are in fact a real man that you're more of a man than they are. Think of the consequences for a minute, if any one of those boys in Central Park says, This is not a good idea, I want to go home now. I don't like this idea. In fact, the response the responses, these would be such ferocious, such ferocious as to the person who said that it might let the woman off the hook for a minute. I think I think we you and I could experience that in an everyday level. If we're walking down the street, and we watch a woman being verbally harassed on the street. Imagine if you were to say to those man, Hey, guys, leave her alone. I don't think she likes this. She can, you can see she's really uncomfortable and afraid. Think about the ways in which those men would then turn on you. So I think there's two things going on, aside from the actual rape. There's the male bonding of the men, and the terrorism that some men use over others. And secondly, there's the complicity, that that everyday men experience because we feel powerless to stop it. Because we know what the consequences will be. Robert Lipsyte 24:05 Which which leads us all perhaps to the question of education. How do you teach men that this is, you know, totally inappropriate behavior? How do you teach men not to rape? Susan Xenarois 24:18 Well, it's interesting, we're just going into the high school and junior high schools now and doing workshops and sensitivity groups with students. And it's and it's fascinating to me, because we are really understanding more and more how ingrained and deeply seated these old social myths and value systems are. And, and I think that what we're really saying is that we've got a long job ahead of us. We still have the majority of junior high school and high school kids saying that the girls saying, if he paid for me, and if I'm in his girl, then he can do what he wants to me sexually and I have no rights. Robert Lipsyte 24:57 That's very discouraging, because that's 50's that's what I came out, Michael used the word, shame. He felt some shame list. And what has always struck me is that and I'm sure this has passed through your office, that rapists don't feel shame. Yet the victim so often feel shame and the fact that newspapers don't print her name to protect her in a sense protects her from shame. I mean, it's not even her shame. Elizabeth Holtzman 25:24 Well, I'm not sure that rapists don't feel shame. They many cases they don't feel any remorse, they have no understanding that they hurt somebody. These cases, they seem to indicate that they knew they were hurting somebody. But in many cases, they feel there's also the myth that women really want violence, they want to be raped, that women want to be degraded. I think the point that was made before that rape is not an act is only surface a sexual act is really an act of humiliation and degradation. I think for us to begin to get attitudes that deal with women, as full human beings in this society and also deal with attitudes in which men can prove themselves without having to subordinate degrade another human being that they can prove their validity without violence without putting somebody else to have. Those are very deep and tough issues. Robert Lipsyte 26:15 And where would you Where would you start? Oh, Elizabeth Holtzman 26:16 I think you have to start everywhere. To start with textbooks in schools, you have to start with images on TV, you have to start with more women in political office to help to begin to develop an agenda. You have to go throughout the society. Robert Lipsyte 26:32 Do you think there's any possibility if indeed, the statistics are true, and that there there is more rape? That it is a reaction to the women's movement to a reaction to women more, there are more women in political life? There are more women as role models, there are more women in business and in the media? Elizabeth Holtzman 26:53 Barely I don't see that as a reaction to that at all. I don't think it's a political I don't think it's political. In that sense. I think it's very fundamental in terms of their own personal identity. But we what we really need to ask is what makes men feel so powerless in the society and therefore need to assert themselves in this way. And one of the factors in our culture that encouraged them to assert that sense of power against women and an enemy's avans is a society that condones violence in many, many ways. Whether I mean absence of gun control laws, Rambo, western movies, we glorify violence, it's deeply ingrained. But what we see now is that how much this feeling towards violence is the approval of violence turns against women. It's a way of allowing particularly young boys in many cases to prove their manhood Robert Lipsyte 27:41 and as you said earlier, it also allows rape is not such a critical crime. Thank you very much for being with us. This is the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte. |
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Interview concludes. Host Lipsyte announces show and introduces himself. Show ends.
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Show credits over Eleventh Hour graphics.
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Funding for show by announcer and overlay the Eleventh Hour graphics.
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Reel ends.
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