Whose humanity?

There is more to feminist methodology than simply employing feminist methods.  Presser (2005) argues that we must also be attuned to how gendered power relations play out within the research field itself.  She cites the examples of previous scholars who have studied male prisoners and analyze the men's responses as if they have "an existence independent of the interview" (2068).  Presser contrasts these examples with her own research experiences with male prisoners, extolling the ways she is situated by the men she interviews as a heterosexual woman, how they craft their own narratives around expectations of hegemonic masculinity, and how she herself claims power or concedes to a subordinate gendered status.

Although Presser (2005:2067-2068) launches a valid critique of how "the humanity of men...is neglected" in much of feminist research on male prisoners, I understand why it may be so hard for female researchers to see a male incarcerated for violence against women as humane.  In the case of most of the men in these studies, our social category was subject to his violence.  It is very difficult to see a rapist as humane when, because of the social category of your gender, you live every day in fear of rape.  As Presser (2005:2069) herself notes that "women researchers...are unlikely to feel at ease interviewing men who have raped and murdered," I would hope her to be more forgiving of past research and the uncomfortable position of women researching male perpetrators.  Presser is correct that it is not ultimately helpful for feminist methodology to overlook the humanity of male perpetrators of sexual violence, but it does, from our subjective vantage point, seem extraordinarily inhumane when your social category is disproportionately victimized by them.

If feminist methodology is about reflexivity and being attuned to the social position of our subjects, then we should also be attuned to the pressure we face to humanize what can appear to us as blatant inhumanity.  This brings us to the larger issue about the presumptions we face of how our social locations affect our ability to understand or see the humanity of the oppressor.  I am conflicted about this argument I am making because I do very much believe that feminism sees and embraces men's humanity, while patriarchy does not.  But within a patriarchal discourse, we must consider whose humanity we are privileging.

Recently, I helped out another grad student when she had the students in her class on family violence complete an extensive mock trial project based on actual family violence court cases.  I and several other colleagues acted as the 'jury,' hearing the cases and deliberating the decisions.  The second and last case we heard was particularly difficult.  In it, a woman had shot and killed the husband who had violently abused her for seven years.  She was being charged with his murder, but the defense was arguing self-defense by reason of battered women's syndrome.

After hearing the trial, our 'jury' left the classroom to deliberate.  Altogether, the jury was made up of three women and two men.  Rather quickly, we saw that our deliberations were divided across gender lines.  I found myself in the painful position of witnessing men who I very much respect and whose company I enjoy making remarks infused with anti-feminist sentiments.  The men argued that the murder was clearly premeditated and were concerned that we were letting the woman "get away" with it. 

"She can't just kill him and walk away," said one male.  He seemed to suggest that this man's life was still a life wrongfully taken, and that no matter what kind of man he had been when he was alive, his willful murder was wrong and merited penalty in the eyes of the law.

The other man added, "If we let her get off without a penalty, then all the women out there will think they can shoot their husbands and get away with it."

"No," one of my female colleagues rejoined, "all of the man out there will realize they can't beat up their wives and get away with it."

It became clear in that moment that we were approaching the case from distinctly divided gendered angles.  The men saw themselves in the dead batterer's position - what if they risked a non-penalized murder for beating their wives?  And the women saw themselves in the battered woman's position - what if we were faced with there being no safety other than the death of our batterer?  Because that is what we understood to be true about this woman's case - at last he was dead, so at last she was safe from him.  What keeps us from these positions of batterer and battered is tenuous and precarious.  In the end, the men on the jury were arguing for the dead batterer's humanity, while the women on the jury were arguing for the battered woman's humanity.

Ultimately, we could not convince the men to declare her innocence and they could not convince us to declare her guilt.  We returned to the students and announced that we were a hung jury.  We each shared our individual verdicts with the class, which revealed the gender divide.  One male student asked the women on the jury, rather begrudgingly, "Are y'all three feminists?"

In the eyes of the student (and likely others), for us to be 'feminists' would be the only explanation for why would refuse to imprison a woman who had been psychologically, emotionally, physically, and sexually tortured for seven years.  To be humanists doesn't explain it.  To recognize her legal rights is not enough, either.  Evidently, we must be feminists to come to such a conclusion.

And despite my flippancy, the student unintentionally pointed out the very contribution feminism makes: without feminism, we would never see the humanity of the woman on trial.  The men on the jury harped continuously on "the law," on the wording of the charges, on what the defense had suggested and whether that really "proved" anything.  In the eyes of the law, they said, the man's murder must be penalized.  But the law was not made to protect the other.  The law is not an objective truth.  Life is far more complicated than the law makes it out to be.  The law was stacked against the woman on trial, and it was left up to our jury to determine whether we would dare to take on the complications, dare to trouble ourselves, dare to challenge ourselves to see beyond the law and see her humanity.

And so I caution that recognizing humanity is a risky business, and one to be undertaken carefully and responsibly.  For when we are urged to recognize humanity, we must be careful to ask, whose humanity? And in the process of recognizing one person's or one group's humanity, is another's humanity lost?  It seems to me that to humanize an individual or group in a way that minimizes the lived experiences of another is a step back from achieving a collective humanity.