Working Papers WP 2015-07 Centre for German and European Studies (CGES)

Yulia Martysenko

Social construction of sexual violence in German and South Korean newspapers

WP 2015-07

2015

№7

Bielefeld / St. Petersburg Working Papers WP 2015-07

Centre for German and European Studies

Bielefeld University

St. Petersburg State University

Centre for German and European Studies (CGES)

This work was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies of the Republic of Korea in year 2015 (AKS-2010-САА-2101)

CGES Working Papers series includes publication of materials prepared within different activities of the Center for German and European Studies both in St. Petersburg and in Germany: The CGES supports educational programmes, research and scientific dialogues. In accordance with the CGES mission, the Working Papers are dedicated to the interdisciplinary studies of different aspects of German and European societies.

The paper has been written on the basis of the MA Thesis defended in the MA SES in June 2015 supervised by Dr. R.K. Tangalycheva. The author’s internship at the Institute for Media and Communication Policy in Cologne, Germany and autumn exchange semester at the European University Viadrina, as well as supervision from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Korea at St. Petersburg State University made an invaluable contribution to the following research project. The publication of the MA thesis in the CGES Working Paper series was recommended by the Examination Committee as one of the best papers out of five MA theses defended by the students of the MA Programme ‘’Studies in European Societies’’ at St. Petersburg State University in June 2015.

Yulia Martysenko has graduated from the Faculty of Sociology of St. Petersburg State University in 2015 (Major in European Studies). Her academic interests include legal sociology and criminology, gender studies, cultural studies, Asian and European studies. Contact: [email protected]

ISSN 1860-5680 © Centre for German and European Studies, 2015

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Table of Contents Introduction ...... 5 Chapter 1. Integration of social theories to study sexual violence ...... 10 1.1 Sexual violence in social theory ...... 10 1.1.1. Sociological theories of violence ...... 10 1.1.2. Sociological theories of sexual violence ...... 12 1.2. Main assumptions of social constructionist theory ...... 15 1.2.1. Evolution of the social construction of sexual violence: a historical overview ...... 18 1.2.2. Legal definitions of sexual violence ...... 22 1.2.3. Sociological understanding of sexual violence ...... 23 1.3. The role of media in social construction of sexual violence ...... 25 1.3.1. Media theory ...... 25 1.3.2. Mechanisms of the social construction of social phenomena in media discourse ...... 27 Conclusion ...... 28 Chapter 2. Methodological framework ...... 29 2.1. Discourse analysis ...... 29 2.2. Samples / Sources ...... 30 2.3. Selection process ...... 32 2.4. Case description ...... 32 2.4.1. Sociocultural background of sexual violence construction in Germany and South Korea ...... 33 2.4.2. Historical background of sexual violence construction in Germany and South Korea ...... 38 2.4.3. Sexual violence in the legal framework in Germany and South Korea ...... 40 Conclusion ...... 46 Chapter 3. Structure of discourse and mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence in German and South Korean newspapers ...... 47 3.1. Structure of media discourse in South Korea and Germany...... 47 3.2. Mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence in the newspapers of Germany and South Korea ...... 52 3.3. Relations between various discourses constructing sexual violence ...... 59 3.4. Limitations of the research ...... 64 Conclusion ...... 65 Conclusions ...... 66

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References ...... 69 Appendices ...... 79 Appendix I Examples of guides ...... 79 Appendix II Example of coding ...... 93 Appendix III Example of interview transcript ...... 94

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Introduction

Sexual violence as a social problem

In recent decades a surge of interest in the topic of sexual violence has been detected. Various aspects of the problem of sexual violence have been investigated by psychologists, sociologists, journalists, legal experts and many others. One of the essential parts of research into sexual violence is the inquiry into how it is socially constructed in different cultural contexts. Each country has its own unique way of defining what constitutes sexual violence, who can be socially accepted as a victim, who conducts such a crime, what consequences it has. All these aspects combine into the understanding of the core concept of sexual violence and associated terms, which, in turn, affects social reality. Therefore, in order to critically analyse and understand the reality, one has to begin the investigation with an inquiry into various mechanisms of social construction which shape our understanding of sexuality and sexual violence. The understanding of what constitutes sexual violence is constantly in the process of change. The current social construction of sexual violence is undeniably being influenced by feminist ideas. In many countries, it has shifted from blaming women to presenting sexual violence as an instrument of control and domination, and gradually acquired more and more broad public and legal definitions. Among the concepts recently included in academic and broader public debates are such concepts as marital rape, intimate partner abuse, and female-on-male sexual assault. However, some of the scholars insist that that there has not been any significant change in the discourse of sexual violence as society still faces the same problems that were described by feminist theory in its origins (Donat, & D’Emilio, 1992). Research findings demonstrate conclusive evidence of the fact that attitudes predict behaviour, with the correlation ranging from .70 to .90 (Allen et al, 1995). This includes the way the healthcare system, criminal justice system, and the communities respond to issues of sexual violence (Kohsin & Rowley, 2007). This is especially visible in the processing of sexual assault cases through the criminal justice system (Alderden, 2008). Therefore, it is highly significant to know what, in turn, affects people’s attitudes and beliefs. The extent to which media influences the people’s opinions and beliefs is subject to debate. The body of research findings on the harmful effects (such as an increase in the acceptance of inaccurate beliefs about rape) of the media remains inconclusive (Allen et al., 1995). On the one hand, there is evidence that in its reports and representations, the media often promotes “rape culture” and support a culture of skepticism towards the victims of sexual violence (Flowe et al., 2009). What is more, the media can influence the prosecution for rape of a real current accused suspect. On the other hand, it seems to be reasonably difficult to investigate the lasting effects of exposure to representation and construction of sexual violence in the media (Malamuth & Check, 1981). Sexual violence had remained a taboo topic for a long time, and came to the foreground of public discourse and sociological research with the help of feminist analysis starting from the early 1960s. “Second-wave” feminism contributed to the construction of sexual violence as a social problem. Various pieces of scientific research showed that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experience sexual assault at least once in their lifetime, and about 44% of women experience sexual violence other than

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Centre for German and European Studies rape. At the same time, sexual violence remains among the most underreported crimes, which is connected with the way it is defined and processed in the legal framework. For example, there is evidence that the social construction of sexual violence affects the processing of sexual assault cases through the criminal justice system: the way police choose which cases are registered and which are not, the way the prosecution chooses which cases to pursue, the way the jury decide and the judge casts his/her verdict, the way sex crimes are defined in law (LaFree, 1989). Since many aspects of reality concerned with sexual violence are heavily influenced by the way it is defined, it seems necessary to study the social construction of this phenomenon.

However violence in general, and violence in intimate practices, still do not seem to be central concerns for sociological theory. This might be explained by the widespread marginalization of gender issues and by the fact that violence, especially domestic violence, is often kept secret, does not leave the private sphere and undergoes normalization. Therefore, the lack of studies of sexual violence is evident in sociology. My research attempts to fill this gap by analysing the construction of sexual violence in South Korean and German media.

Topicality

This particular research can be of interest since it considers sexual violence through the constructivist perspective. There has been an abundance of pieces of research done by criminologists, legal scholars, psychologists, health professionals that tend to objectify sexual violence, while this research aims to inquire into how it is socially constructed in different countries. Each country has its own unique way of defining what constitutes sexual violence, who can be considered a legitimate victim, who conducts such a crime, or what consequences it has. All these aspects, combined together, shape the understanding of the core concept of sexual violence and associated terms, which, in turn, affects and structures the social reality.

An even deeper analysis of social construction of sexual violence can be achieved through the implementation of media studies. The majority of research in the area of media studies focuses mainly on how media shapes and influences people’s beliefs, but in this work another dimension is considered. In recent years, a few studies have been carried out into how different types of sexual violence or its particular aspects (gender inequality, the image of the victim, the image of the offender, domestic violence, rape stereotyping) have been represented and constructed in various media sources (e.g. live-action, pornography, advertisements, teen television drama series). My paper follows this track. However, earlier research lacks consideration of the cross-cultural dimensions of sexual violence representation as well as of the competition of various discourses present in media. In this paper , I seek to look at these issues in a comparative perspective.

German and South Korean societies as contexts of the research

The rationale behind the selection of Germany and South Korea as the cases under study comes from two main sources. First of all, one of my main interests lies in similar post-war experiences of the two countries in terms of sexual violence and its consequences for the public discourse concerning this problem: both countries were

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Centre for German and European Studies influenced by American military presence; at the same time, the issue of “comfort women” provided an impetus for the opening of the sexual violence discourse in South Korea, while the investigation of war crimes facilitated and encouraged further interest in the topic of sexual violence in Germany. What is more, the perception of sexual violence is increasingly influenced by the process of globalization that disseminates feminist ideas. In this case, South Korea is a particularly interesting case since it hosts active processes of both globalization and localization, while German culture is more inclined to embrace the globalizing tendencies.

At the same time, these are two unique and different countries, with different cultural traditions: Germany is included in the long-standing European democratic and legalistic tradition of critically regarding sexual violence, while this is a relatively new topic for South Korea. In the two countries under study, attitudes towards women, their status in the society and interpretations of female bodies vary significantly.

Theoretical frames

The theoretical frame of the research draws upon three major sources. The first of them is the theory of social constructionism by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (The Social Construction of Reality, 1991) which presupposes that social reality is constructed and, therefore, helps to recognize the socially produced character of gendered and sexual practices as contrasted to the powerful trend of their naturalization. Sexual violence in this case is also understood as a social construct that is defined by competing actors in and through the discourse(s). This theory is combined with, second, feminist praxis - which maintains that power relations between genders are incorporated in the definitions of sexual violence. What is more, the feminist framework allows us to study the differences in the construction of sexual violence at the intersections of race, class, sexuality and other identities. Third, media theories help to identify and analyse the mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence, such as suppression of information, falsification of information and construction of myths, over- or underestimation, agenda-setting, framing, priming, and use of language games.

Methods

In order to complete this research, two types of analysis were conducted: discourse analysis of English translations of German and Korean newspaper articles, and the qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with professionals who work in the field connected to sexual violence and media (legal scholars and practitioners, violence researchers, gender researchers, NGOs and victim’s rights organization workers).

The research uses discourse analysis in order to see how discourses clash and compete (e.g. dominant vs. counter-, weaker discourses), to see the actors who produce those discourses, and to trace the power relations between them. Interviews, in turn, allow us to see how the experts’ views are represented in the media and how, in their opinion, sexual violence is constructed in the media.

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Sample

Altogether, four newspapers were chosen for the analysis: two in South Korea (Chosun Ilbo and Hankyoreh) and two in Germany (Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung). Articles within a period of 5 years, from 2010 to 2014, were analysed. At the same time, interviews with experts were also conducted, including legal professionals, a media expert, representatives of women’s rights organizations/initiatives, and a researcher who studies sexual violence.

Research questions

My major research question is as follows:  How is sexual violence socially constructed in the media? The research also focuses on two supplementary questions that specify the main research question:  What are the mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence?

 How does the social construction of sexual violence draw upon cultural systems of meaning?

Objectives

1. to integrate sociological theories of violence, feminist analysis and media studies in order to create a framework of constructivist analysis of sexual violence in media discourses; 2. to inquire into the historical and cultural background of the changes in the definition of sexual violence in each of the countries under study; 3. using discourse analysis of newspapers, to identify which mechanisms are used to construct sexual violence in printed media of each country (Germany and South Korea); 4. investigate what the dominant and counter-discourses of sexual violence in printed media are and what groups of actors produce and influence them; 5. to inquire into how the discourse of sexual violence is interconnected with other discourses in media of each country; 6. to analyse and compare, how cultural contexts affect the social construction of sexual violence in media in two countries.

Chapters outline The paper consists of three chapters preceded by an introduction and followed by the conclusion, list of references and appendices. The first chapter covers the theoretical ground of the study showing how sexual violence can be considered under feminist social theory, constructivist theory and theories of media. A working definition of sexual violence, which draws upon the theoretical background of the current work, is also presented. As a result, an integrative model of considering the social construction of sexual violence in the media is developed.

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The second chapter concerns the methodological framework of the current research. First, it describes the selection process of the studied sample and methods of data analysis. Then, each of the chosen cases is studied in more detail, showing the cultural, social, historical and legal aspects of sexual violence in each country.

The third chapter presents the main findings of this study. The empirical data is presented and analysed in this chapter. The results of analysis are divided into three major themes connected with the structure of media discourse in German and South Korean newspapers, the mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence, and the relations between various discourses on sexual violence that currently appear in the media.

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Chapter 1. Integration of social theories to study sexual violence

In this chapter, I provide a literature review and outline the major theoretical foundations of my research. The chapter begins with an introduction to sociological theories that regard violence and proceeds with a focus on sociological feminist research into sexual violence. Then, the constructivist approach to the understanding of sexual violence is introduced, through the analysis of the evolution of the term and its legal definition. This part ends with the introduction of the working sociological definition of sexual violence that is used in the current paper. Next, the role of media in the construction of sexual violence is considered, and the possible mechanisms for the social construction of the phenomena are discussed.

1.1 Sexual violence in social theory

1.1.1. Sociological theories of violence

No general theory of violence exists, although some scholars argue for its emergence (Walby, 2012). Usually, violence has been studied in a fragmented way – either as interpersonal violence in physiology, psychology or criminology, or as a mass phenomenon in political theory, international relations, and most of conflict studies.

Classical sociological theorists such as Emil Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber addressed the issue of violence as a part of their work. Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Michel Foucault in his Discipline and Punish focused more on the social order and the legitimate forms of violence, while Marx, Dahrendorf and Coser studied the use of violence in political conflicts.

In the post-war period the interest in the study of violence in broader society generally declined. According to Sylvia Walby (2012), this could be linked to the emergence of theories of modernity. These theories claimed that such features of modern societies as economic development, decrease in poverty and inequality, state monopoly on violence, open access to vertical mobility, and internalization of social control make violence a marginal, and even deviant, practice in society. For example, Weber claims that the state emerges and monopolises the legitimate use of violence, decreasing the occurrences of organised violence carried out by feudal lords and militia. Foucault writes about the transformation of punishment that traditionally focused on the bodies of criminals and the excessive use of physical violence into discipline aimed at their minds and souls. Elias maintains that increasing self-control in modern societies helps to reduce the expression of violent urges.

However, some new pieces of research have challenged this notion of decreasing violence. New types of violence have been brought to the foreground, such as violence of the powerful against the disadvantaged. This was studied, for example, through the examination of gender-based violence against women on the micro-level, and through the analysis of wars and oppression in the global South on the macro-

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Centre for German and European Studies level. The form of wars has also changed: such asymmetrical and decentralized tactics as terrorism, genocide, guerrilla wars have become increasingly widespread. Zygmunt Bauman (1989) suggests that modern societies are no less violent, and the illusion of the decreasing massive violence might be a result of it becoming distanced. What is more, the idea of state monopoly on violence is contradicted by the reluctance of governments to criminalize violence of the dominant towards oppressed groups, which suggests that the authority over the implementation of violence is divided between the state and other powerful groups (e.g. patriarchs, racists, the wealthy, etc.). In addition, the decrease in coerciveness of authority is disputed by the growing criminalization of interpersonal relations (more and more actions become regarded through the lenses of criminal justice) and use of coercive forms of criminal justice (imprisonment, police brutality). Therefore, many scientists have since discovered that violence is still pervasive in our everyday life. Yakov Gilinsky (2013: 15), for instance, argues that social violence has assumed a total character and is now interfused with all social institutions like politics, economy, culture, sport, family, education and others. Johan Galtung (1969) distinguishes between three types of violence: direct, structural and cultural violence. Direct violence, he believes, is any action that does not allow people to meet their basic needs and can manifest itself in murder, bodily harm, persecution, deportation, poverty, sanctions, imposture of different culture, and various other ways. Structural violence refers to a socially approved system of exploitation that penetrates all social structures and institutions. The examples here could be racism, sexism, classism, and the idea that wealthy people deserve more public goods, and it could be accomplished by means of manipulation, restriction of information, marginalization and environmental contamination. Cultural violence is a feature of any aspect of culture, such as science, religion, art, and it legitimizes and justifies the existence of direct and structural violence. As is evident from Gilinsky’s and Galtung’s reflection, violence is currently meant not only to indicate the use of physical force on people. Initially, violence was studied as aimed at the physical body (one could remember the execution scene from Foucault’s Discipline and Punish as an example). Now wider definitions of violence are used in much of the scientific literature. This could be attributed to the cultural turn in sociology that caused the tendency to analyse social phenomena through symbols. Pierre Bourdieu (1991) develops the concept of symbolic violence. He argues that symbolic violence is used by the authorities to legitimize its actions and implemented through the imposition of values and views, which establish the relations of domination and submission, on people who then unconsciously adopt them and perceive them as self-evident. This is achieved via structural mystification that obscures power relations for both the dominant and the disadvantaged through persuasion, coercion, manipulation of information, encouragement, and other mechanisms. Jean Baudrillard (1995: 28) maintains that the symbolic is becoming increasingly important in the contemporary world, with violence such as war being treated like a spectacle. Some researchers go even further and describe violence as a psychological phenomenon. For example, Frantz Fanon (1990) describes how violence, which is used as an instrument by colonizers, has become intertwined with the psyche of the oppressed. Meanwhile, those who resist colonialism use violence against the colonizers in order to cleanse themselves of the oppression.

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However, these theories are criticized for overlooking the physical aspects of violence. The bodily and biological aspects of violence have been separated from its social characteristics in scientific literature, Walby (2012) asserts, and this should be amended in an integrated theory of violence. Walby refers approvingly to the example of Randall Collins’ research into micro-sociological dynamics of violence in conflicts, which studies both symbolic and bodily manifestations of violence.

Interpersonal violence, with the bigger focus on its physical representation and intimacy, has generally been ignored in mainstream sociology in favour of institutionalized violence. Jeff Hearn (2013) argues that the reason for this misbalance lies in the way sociology views interpersonal relations: consisting of more or less rational individuals, trying to accommodate each other’s needs, with violence being an aberration in daily routine that should be analysed as a violent crime. However, various studies of violence against women and minorities (Hearn, 2013; Hollomotz, 2012; Walby, 2012) show that interpersonal violence is closely connected to sociological concepts of intimacy and reproduction of structured social inequality.

From the discussions of whether violence should be reduced to being viewed as an instrument of power or it is one of the distinctive forms of it, one can, nevertheless, see that violence is often used along the lines of power relations: either to support the status-quo or to challenge it. The increasing visibility of the use of genocide and rape in political conflicts and wars blurs the lines between interpersonal and inter-state organized violence.

1.1.2. Sociological theories of sexual violence

Violence can be categorized as physical, psychological, emotional and sexual. For a long period of time, sexual violence dealing with the taboo topic of human sexual behaviour, has been obscured from studies. Even when researchers became aware of such an issue, it was – and still is – a difficult field to research (due to the social taboos, the normalization of violence or high sensitivity of traumatic experiences), especially through methods that require direct interaction with people and collection of their narratives. Unsurprisingly, much of the spectrum of sciences studying sexual violence usually present an objectified, ‘purely academical’ view on sexual violence, sometimes extremely so (e.g. forensic science). Legal studies investigate the content and effectiveness of laws that regulate and legally define components of crime, legal proceedings and criminal responsibility of the offenders. Criminology is a multidisciplinary science that studies the nature of sexual offences, their causes and consequences, and prevention; and inquires into the types of sex offenders and victims. Victimology (sometimes considered to be a part of criminology) explores the phenomenon of victimization: probability of becoming a victim, social and individual consequences of victimization, and victim’s relations with offenders, justice system, social institutions, and the broader society. Victimology also overlaps with forensic psychology and psychiatry, because both of these studies apply psychological theory and medical knowledge to treatment of the victims of crime. These sciences also contribute to the exploration, assessment and treatment of criminal behaviour and of

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Centre for German and European Studies the offenders. Forensic science concerns the study and interpretation of physical evidence of sex crimes.

In many cases, the lack of a constructivist perspective seems evident. Although legal studies unconsciously tackle the issue of the social construction of sexual violence (the whole legislative activity can be viewed as the process of the social construction of crimes), and although there have been several occasional isolated pieces of research into the social construction of sex crimes (LaFree, 1989, Muehlenhard, & Kimes, 1999), the representation of rape myths in the media (Brinson, 1992; Gutsche Jr., & Salkin, 2015; O’Hara, 2012; Worthington, 2010) and their effect on the audience (Check, & Malamuth, 1981; 1983; Kahlor & Morrison, 2007; Franiuk et al., 2008), it has seldom been a central question for analysis.

Scientific interest in sexual violence rose as early as the 18th century with increased attempts to explain the phenomenon of crime. Under this framework, studies concerned the only type of sexual violence that has been to a certain extent visible in the society and which was conceptualized as crime, which is rape.

First, the medicalization of sexual violence was the major approach. It viewed sexual violence as a result of actions carried out by rare individuals with mental illnesses, which still remains a widespread idea in public opinion. In this approach, a popular idea of presenting the perpetrators of sex crimes as deviant, perverted, predatory psychopaths takes root (Jenkins, 1998). This view on perpetrators has historically contributed to the construction of links between homosexuality and sexual abuse, which is sometimes perpetuated in media presently (Shelby, 2013). However, statistics show that the vast majority of perpetrators belong to the psychological norm.

The next approach is connected with the psychologization of sexual violence. It is associated with the name of Sigmund Freud. At the end of 19th century, Freud presented the result of his work with female patients at a major scientific forum. There he reported on the prolonged psychological trauma of these patients, who disclosed that they were sexually abused by their fathers in childhood. Freud was heavily criticized and ridiculed for this notion, because his peers could not believe that fathers were sexually abusing their daughters. Freud then discarded that idea as false and started disbelieving his patients’ stories about sexual abuse, but could not deny the serious psychological damage it caused. Therefore, he created the infamous theories of ‘penis-envy’ and ‘Oedipus/Elektra complex’. He claimed that children pass through a stage of being sexually attracted to their parents and used it to explain the ‘false’ memories of sexual abuse. At the same time, the actions of rapists were, too, considered to be a result of psychological mechanisms. Such a reason as being dominated by an authoritarian mother figure in the childhood was given as an explanation.

Now, there are two main positions in the conceptualization of sexual violence. The most widely accepted framework under which sexual violence is considered takes its roots in feminist social theory and presents sexual violence as a reflection of power in society. In the most radical way, this idea was introduced by Susan Brownmiller (1975, see below). The other position is represented by ethology and sociobiology scholars, who regard sexual violence from an evolutionary point of view and connect it with the sexual motivation and reproductive instinct. This is a position that

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Centre for German and European Studies naturalizes sexual violence (against women) and outlines the evolutionary gains of rape for the population. For instance, Felson and Tedeschi (Wessells, 1999: 239) argue that the main goal of sexual coercion is the perpetrator’s satisfaction rather than the desire to dominate.

In Western feminist analysis, and in broader public perception, Susan Brownmiller’s book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1975) was groundbreaking, inquiring from legal, cultural and historical perspectives into the power relations intrinsic to sexual violence. Brownmiller (1975: 5) maintains that rape is “nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear”. In this case, all women experience the same fears as those women who were raped: they are afraid to walk alone at night, to be alone in the same room with a man. Through this, she demonstrates that sexual violence is conducted along the lines of power, as it is meant to control women’s behaviour. This work is said to have generated a number of significant changes in laws, judicial procedures and academic framework of studying sexual violence. The feminist approach usually focuses on the gender dynamics of relationships between men and women, attributing sexual violence to the functioning system of patriarchal power and control. In patriarchal systems, masculinity is characterized by aggression, power, strength, and violence, while femininity is constructed as weak, submissive, subordinate and vulnerable. Thus, these conceptions determine who has the right to use violence, in which situations and against whom. Feminist theory attempts to dismantle gender and sex inequalities, having both instrumental (changing the laws and social provisions) and symbolic (transformation of women’s status and legitimacy of their problems) aims. However, it should be added that patriarchal relations also include domination not only over women, but over other men who do not conform to the gender norms. Therefore, even though feminist framework often pays more attention to male-on-female sexual violence as the most frequent case, incidents with female perpetrators and male victims are also studied. The differences in experiences of sexual violence at the intersections of various identities are also investigated within this framework. Intersectionality is a concept introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw (1991: 1243) and used in critical theory to show how different forms of discrimination multiply and reinforce each other. For example, Crenshaw demonstrates how the interrelation of being a woman and being black has caused black women to be targeted for sexual assaults as a form of social control in the middle of 20th century in the USA. At the same time, black men were much more likely to be acknowledged as perpetrators of sexual violence due to their stigmatization. Thus, gendered concepts are inextricably connected to other forms of inequality on the basis of class, race, ethnicity, age, sexuality, religion and many others. A marginalized position in society often contributes to the construction of deservedness of victimization. Therefore, non-conformity to gender norms, for example being homosexual, often results in the reproduction of narratives of fear that encourage and lead to violence against people. What is more, people holding weaker status in the society (children, old people, migrants, etc.) become targets of sexual violence in the situation of opportunistic actions. Many feminist scholars explain the patterns of sexual violence by the existence of a rape culture that normalizes sexual violence and misogynistic practices through social interaction, formal and nonformal norms, media discourses and social institutions.

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Catharine MacKinnon (1983), for example, explains the prevalence of male perpetrators of sexual violence by masculine socialization, which presupposes active and aggressive initiation of sexual interaction by males. Diana Scully (1990) also inquires into how culture and social structure predispose people to conduct acts of sexual violence as a way to affirm or “do” masculinity in obedience to dominant cultural scripts.

Cultural, sexual and gender scripts are those learned meanings and patterns of interaction that guide human behaviour through the joint construction of interpretations of cultural elements and their internalization (Simon and Gagnon 1974: 19). With the help of such scripts, individuals structure their understanding of social reality, which allows the categorizing of some types of sexual behaviour as “normal” and others – as “deviant”. MacKinnon illustrates how these scripts draw upon gender beliefs and implies that sexual violence “…is not prohibited, it is regulated” (1983: 652), permitting exertion of violence towards specific victims as a part of social control. Therefore, it is essential to know how these meanings are constructed and framed. The feminist approach to sexual violence traditionally views it as a form of oppression of women as a whole group, by men as a whole group, disregarding the dimension of sexual nature of such practices. This way of viewing sexual violence is now being contested by many feminist scholars, who indicate that not only power relations constitute sexual violence, but also the special ways in which society constructs gendered sexuality. For example, MacKinnon maintains that “gender socialization is the process through which women come to identify themselves as sexual beings, as beings that exist for men” (1983: 183). Therefore, she argues, sexual violence becomes inherently incorporated in sexual behaviour and the dynamics of heterosexual relationships.

1.2. Main assumptions of social constructionist theory

Recently, sexual violence in its various manifestations, as well as many other gendered practices, has become increasingly more investigated within the constructionist approach. For example, Uggen and Blackstone (2004) focus on studying sexual harassment in connection with power, while Lea and Auburn (2001) examine how offenders themselves assess which behaviours are consistent with rape. G. LaFree (1989) studies how the social construction affects the process of dealing with sexual violence cases within the law enforcement and judicial institutions, and how various aspects of the institutional environment affect it. Muehlenhard and Klimes (1999) inquire into sexual violence that occurs in domestic violence cases and how it is defined by academia and legal practitioners.

The idea that social reality is a result of human interaction and agreement is represented in such sociological and philosophical approaches as social phenomenology, symbolic interactionism and constructivism. In their book The Social Construction of Reality (1991), Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann introduce social constructionism as a theory of knowledge that focuses on the investigation of the process in which common understandings of the world are developed by society. This theory explains how shared meanings are produced, transformed and routinised.

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Berger and Luckmann maintain that their theory concerns “itself with the general ways by which 'realities' are taken as 'known' in human societies” (1991: 15). Reality, according to them, is intersubjective, shared with others and constantly constructed via the ongoing everyday life interactions of people. In the process of interaction, people exchange their perspectives on, and understandings of, the world. Berger and Luckmann argue that these perspectives and understandings, although not identical, are allied because they refer to similar, habitual, self-evident patterns of action in the everyday life, to a world that is (seemingly) common to many people. On the basis of these similarities, people are able to identify similar patterns and divide them into types. These typificatory schemes, for example, are evident in interactions with others in a situation of face-to-face contact, and they grow progressively more transient and anonymous (i.e. this typification is applied to anyone within this category) the further the interaction becomes removed from face-to-face contact. The process of typification is especially evident in the media, in and through which highly anonymous examples of typical characters in typical situations are described and promoted. When the mass media reports on issues of sexual violence, it uses typificatory schemes of victims, perpetrators, other stakeholders, time and locations, and other characteristics of the situations of violence. This could be implemented in two meaningful ways: either through the overrepresentation of certain actors or situations in the context of violence (e.g. the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities among the perpetrators of crimes) or through the presentation of violence as an inherent part of specific actors and situations (e.g. showing foreigners as if they were inherently more violent). All these things facilitate the understanding of specific patterns of action as sexual violence, while media distributes these typificatory schemes, delivering similar information to everyone who consumes it and contributing to the creation of common worlds. Thus, it is possible to conclude that media plays a significant role in the way people experience the notion of sexual violence in this common world. At the same time, language as an important sign system is considered to be a powerful instrument through which people label certain activities in order to typify and subsequently anonymize them. Language provides the “ready-made possibility” (1991: 53) to detach meanings from the immediate situations and objectify not only the direct experience of people, but also the indirect one. Simultaneously, language builds semantic fields that structure people’s experiences by providing ready-made schemes of understanding reality, and distributes knowledge from person to person and from generation to generation. Therefore, various actors have their pragmatic interests in defining certain situations and actions in a way that is favourable for them, which is the reason why language users frequently resort to language games. Language games, a concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, are represented, for example, in the redefinition of instances of sexual violence that was conducted in feminist praxis in the middle of 20th century. Rosemary Hunter (2008: 82) considers the introduction of new descriptions of women’s disadvantages: new concepts that may be more persuasive of the existence of a problem, and hence more effective in bringing change. For instance, such terms as ‘sexual harassment’, ‘marital rape’, ‘date rape’, and ‘violence against women’, or ‘sexual assault’ instead of the simplifying term of ‘rape’ are increasingly used in public discourse. This semantic change emphasizes non-consent, use of power and disengagement from purely sexual activity.

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These typifications become institutionalised the further away they move from face-to- face interactions, allowing the separation of the roles and their habitual activity from the individuals themselves, and, therefore, objectification. Berger and Luckmann insist that institutions are always grounded in history, and “it is impossible to understand an institution adequately without an understanding of the historical process in which it was produced” (1991: 72). Institutions also contribute to social control by the provision of predefined patterns of conduct, including the cases of human sexualities and violent practices, where institutions define which practices are accepted and which are declared a taboo. The reproduction of institutions and patterns of actions further objectifies reality through the process of legitimation. Legitimation is the process of explanation and justification of institutional order, which is also rooted in history and transmitted to future generations. Legitimation also leads to the negotiation of unity of history and biography though the creation of a symbolic universe. The symbolic universe embodies the symbolic totality of all discrete institutional processes and biographical experiences, and creates the world of meanings. The symbolic universe also mandates and prohibits human violent conduct, and includes systems of control and domination that shape and order the personal traumatic experiences of (sexual) violence (e.g. establishing sexual violence as an element of gender, national or racial hierarchy, of control over colonies). The existence of the term ‘sexual violence’ and its correspondence to specific situations allows people to relate and conceptualize their experience as an event of sexual violence. New production, in this case, presents the stories and narratives of sexual violence that are understood as pertaining to the nation, and, therefore, become memorable, understandable, and emotionally loaded for large groups of people. If the legitimation is successful and leads to the constant reproduction of people’s actions and habits, it becomes naturalized, seen as the result of the objective logic of the world, independent from people’s intentions. This is the process of reification which presents sexual violence as natural, obeying natural or biological laws: e.g. women in war zones, or women walking the dark alleys late at night, or prisoners in penitentiary facilities are expected to be raped; women in short skirts are expected to be sexually harassed the same way people expect to see sand on the beach. In these situations, connections between sexual violence and militarism, total institutions, gender, or even clothes and location of the event are not questioned. At the same time, the roles of victims and perpetrators are also reified in the predominant paradigm of “male offender, female victim”. Reification hinders the inclusion of other situations, which do not correspond to the “natural” state of affairs, in the term of sexual violence. The established “objective” norms and concepts, in turn, are internalized by people though the processes of primary and secondary socialization, and, therefore, structure their habits and allow them to experience society as subjective reality. At the same time, people do not passively accept the concepts and structures presented to them, but also engage in negotiations of ideas and again construct reality. Feminist praxis recognizes the constructed character of gendered and sexual practices, including sexual violence, and aims to deconstruct them, as opposed to the naturalization of acceptability of interpersonal and institutionalized violence, of femininity, masculinity and gender in general. This entails the deconstruction of

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Centre for German and European Studies biopolitics, or the way in which power is inscribed on the body, with sexual violence, as a practice that most directly affects the body of the individual, being a part of biopolitics.

Among other scholars, Berger and Luckmann (1991) trace the reproduction of violence on the basis of social practices. Practices are usually understood in sociology as routine actions which are hidden in the background and which construct the identities of people in this particular time and space. Among them, discursive practices seem to be the most important for analysis of media. Foucault describes them as “the process through which reality comes into being” (2004: 63). Discursive practice asserts power relations in the society and represents the historical circumstances through the use of language, and, thus, requires critical examination. There are various vernacular techniques with the help of which the powerful denote reality: the use of vocabulary, syntax, intonation, proverbs, strategies of naming and framing, etc.

Therefore, the consideration of who constructs social phenomena, and in which way, is also the concern of feminist and social constructionist theories. The changing views on sexual violence are the perfect example of the struggle between different actors who aim to exclude their own behaviour from being constructed as violent (Muehlenhard, & Kimes, 1999). Therefore, the most powerful groups aim to construct social problems in a specific way, while the less powerful groups try to challenge these understandings, and the language they use is essential in these efforts. Thus, it could be said that the way sexual violence is constructed has

“the power to label some acts negatively, while ignoring and, by implication, condoning other acts. How these terms are defined affects how people label, explain, evaluate, and assimilate their own [experiences]. In addition, the definitions of these terms convey numerous assumptions about power and coercion sexuality, and gender” (Muehlenhard et al., 1992: 24).

In summary, the current theoretical frame presupposes that there is no single, “true”, all-encompassing and uncontested definition of sexual violence, but rather there are different ways to conceptualize this term depending on the actors who produce them and the academic and/or political traditions in which they are embedded. At the same time, it seems essential to explore the historical dimension of the construction of sexual violence in order to see how it has been typified, institutionalized and reified.

1.2.1. Evolution of the social construction of sexual violence: a historical overview

In the analysis of social construction of phenomena, it is important to consider how these understandings have changed in a historical context. Historically, there have been multiple ways of viewing sexual violence, and the understanding of sexual violence has constantly transformed itself. Thus, giving a specific definition to this phenomenon proves to be a challenging, if not impossible, task. However, it is feasible to trace these transformations and see which actors and factors have

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The change in the social construction of sexual violence can be traced back to ancient times. One of the most significant pieces of research into the plethora of definitions of sexual violence is carried out by Patricia L.N. Donat and John D’Emilio (1992). They claim that with the growth of religious power of the church, people’s sexual expression became limited to procreation within marriage, so by the colonial age a woman’s value in society had become based on the ability to produce legitimate heirs which required attention to female chastity and monogamy. Therefore, sexual violence against women was considered to be an offence against family, and, ultimately, against the father (because he, as the head of the family, sustained a ‘loss’ since he could not marry his daughter into a respectable family) or husband (because the legitimacy of the heirs was now under threat). In Europe, the traditional definition of sexual violence has remained extremely narrow for a long time, only including the case of male-on-female rape (out of an array of various situations), which Linda Williams (Shelby, 2013) calls the classic rape: it involved an attack by a stranger, where a woman needed to offer as much resistance as she could muster. In any other case, the woman was considered a willing participant. In the 19th century the influence of the church declined, and women began to enter the workforce, however female virtue continued to be of great importance for marriage. If Christianity considered women to be weak and in need of control by men in order to fight their sexual urges, in the 19th century it was a widespread opinion that women were not interested in sex as they were pure and virtuous by nature. Any woman who did not conform to these criteria was considered a ‘fallen’ woman (Donat, & D’Emilio, 1992)1, and was habitually blamed for provoking sexual violence against her. It was now women’s responsibility to control men’s sexual urges. The 20th century was a time of rapid change in many aspects of human life, and many phenomena were re-conceptualized in/through science. This included the issue of sexual violence. In the beginning of the century, a concern about the causes of sexual aggression arose among psychologists. They hypothesized that the cause of such behaviour was in mental illnesses and perversions (incorrect socialization, defective superego, character disorder, feeling of sexual inferiority, homosexual tendencies and so on) from which the perpetrators suffered, therefore, seeing them as deviants not criminals. All this relieved the perpetrators of the responsibility for their actions. Thus, the perpetrator’s point of view was taken as a basis for understanding social violence, while the victim’s sufferings were considered as a by-product of the perpetrator’s trials. The tradition of identification of sexual violence with sex continued.

Since the 1960s, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of employed women in European countries. Women’s presence in public spheres increased, and so did their victimization, since such women who did not conform to the traditional roles were viewed as a ‘fair game’. Sexual violence was redefined as a rightful punishment for those women who did not behave. However, women’s higher status in society caused them to resist the traditional understanding of proper behaviour, and

1 It is a widespread idea still. The ultimate manifestation of it is the Madonna-Whore complex described by Sigmund Freud.

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Centre for German and European Studies triggered further social change. Many women realized the oppressive nature of many aspects of their life (including a constant threat of sexual violence for misbehaviour). They joined in groups and tried to implement a consciousness-raising policy in order to empower other women. At this stage, new aspects of understanding sexual violence were introduced. The term became broader and grew to include not only rape but also sexual harassment, forced marriage, intentional sexual touching and others. By the 1970s, the feminist movement had gained momentum. The movement was highly concerned with the issue of sexual violence against women, thus attempting to redefine this social problem from the victim’s perspective. Women’s experience of sexual violence was reformulated as loss of control, while male desire was seen as aimed not at gaining sexual release but at gaining control over women, a process of intimidation (Donat, & D’Emilio, 1992). Feminists initiated a fight against rape/sexual violence myths that they viewed as harmful both for society and for the victims.

Feminist works argue that for centuries the majority of cultures around the world have endorsed inaccurate beliefs about rape and supportive attitudes towards rape and sexual violence (especially against women), the so-called rape culture (Shelby 2013). Martha Burt (Donat, & D’Emilio, 1992) found that there are attitudinal factors that influence supportive beliefs about sexual violence: (a) sex role stereotyping (a belief that social roles should be based on person’s sex); (b) adversarial sexual beliefs (a belief that males and females oppose each other); and (c) acceptance of interpersonal violence (a belief that violence is an appropriate way of interaction). Accordingly, feminists started to call for educational programs to be provided in the community in order to change public opinion about sexual violence. These programs had to specifically focus on male behaviour ‘not to sexually abuse’, as opposed to traditional female education on ‘how not to get sexually abused’.

In recent decades, the social construction of sexual violence has come to include a much broader definition that took into consideration various racial (e.g. white male’s use of rape of women of colour as an instrument of social control over past colonies), gender (e.g. men can be victims of sexual abuse and violence), and socioeconomic (the use of power to coerce the victim into undesirable actions/interactions) aspects.

Oh and Neville (Lee et al., 2010) also outline a four-factor structure of beliefs that have a direct impact on the conceptualization of sexual violence. First, these are the beliefs concerning victims: there are myths that state that only a certain type of people (e.g. those women who were ‘asking for it’) can become victims of such crimes. There is a popular belief, which is incorporated in many legal definitions of sex crimes laws (for example, in Russia and, until 2008, in South Korea), that men cannot be victims of sex crimes. Needless to say that these beliefs are considered to be strongly connected with the societal conditions in each society.

Second, there are also ideas concerning the perpetrators of sexual crimes. People might have (false, as studies show) beliefs that women do not participate in sexual violence against men or women, that only men do it because they cannot control themselves, or that men are entitled to other people’s bodies, and therefore sexual violence is not a crime at all. In addition, it is largely considered that the vast majority of sex crimes are conducted by strangers, however statistics show (Basile, &

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Saltzman, 2009) that 80-85% of such crimes are conducted by acquaintances, friends or relatives.

There are also many myths concerning the proper reaction to sexual violence. If a woman, for example, fails to report the crime immediately, it might still be considered suspicious (e.g. by the law enforcement officers). Or, if survivors do not behave in specific, stereotypical patterns (do not cry but carry on with their lives), they might also not be considered as real victims. Sometimes the public sees perpetrators as the real victims of such crimes since they have more to lose (in cases where the perpetrator’s social status is higher than the one the victim holds). The latter idea is also influenced by adversarial sexual beliefs (an idea that victims lie about their sexual abuse).

The forth factor is the context of a crime. As has been previously stated, initially, only rape in the form of sexual assault by a stranger was considered to be sexual violence. With the growth of women’s and scientists’ awareness, more and more incidents became conceptualized as manifestations of sexual violence. For example, a typology of sexual violence can be devised nowadays (Basile, & Saltzman, 2009): a completed sex act, an attempted (non-completed) sex act, abusive sexual contact (such as intentional inappropriate touching), non-contact sexual abuse (for example, voyeurism; exhibitionism; verbal or behavioral sexual harassment; threats of sexual violence; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature), and unspecified (which covers various types of sexual violence that cannot be included in the previous types, for example, sex trafficking, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation). The concept of consent is central to all the newer studies of sexual violence. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (Basile, & Saltzman, 2009: 11), consent is “words or overt actions by a person who is legally or functionally competent to give informed approval, indicating a freely given agreement to have sexual intercourse or sexual contact”. Consent is not given when a person is unable to refuse due to the “use or possession of guns or other non-bodily weapons, or due to physical violence, threats of physical violence, real or perceived coercion, intimidation or pressure, or misuse of authority” (Basile, & Saltzman, 2009: 11), or unable to consent “because of [young] age, illness, disability, being asleep, or the influence of alcohol or other drugs” (Basile, & Saltzman, 2009: 11). Therefore, nowadays sexual violence is understood very broadly as “any sexual act, attempt to obtain sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work” (Kohsin, & Rowley, 2007: 5) In the end, one might argue that the current social construction of sexual violence is being influenced by feminist ideas. In many countries the definition has shifted from blaming a woman to presenting sexual violence as an instrument of control and domination; and, gradually, sexual violence has acquired broader public and legal definitions. Among the recently included concepts are marital rape, intimate partner abuse, sexual harassment, coerced undressing and female-on-male sexual assault. However, some scholars insist that that not much has changed both in the academic debate and in everyday life since the challenges women face nowadays are still the same as they were decades ago (Donat, & D’Emilio 1992).

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1.2.2. Legal definitions of sexual violence

The major sphere where the transformations of the definition of sexual violence are explicit, traceable and immediately affect social reality, is the sphere of the law. With time, the legal framework has gained legitimacy in defining what sexual violence is, and starting from 18th century, this phenomenon has become increasingly institutionalized and defined in terms of crime. Thus, now it constitutes the major approach to viewing sexual violence. Legal definitions vary greatly across countries and, sometimes, within countries across regions (e.g. each state in the USA has its own criminal legislation). Generally, sexual offences are considered to be composed of the following main elements: criminal behaviour, lack of consent on the part of the victim and presence (at least in some extent) of intent on the part of the offender.

In the field of legal definitions, A. Giddens’ idea of the ‘duality of structure’ seems a relevant analytical tool. Here, the structural component is present in the form of the institution of law that dictates people how to interpret human behaviour in relation to legal regulations. However, the agency component is also very strong in this sphere since the law changes every day. It is a politician’s personal agency to present a bill in Parliament (in code law), or judge’s personal agency to deliver judgment (in precedent law). These decisions do not exist in vacuum either, and they are often influenced by social movements that are organized by citizens who seek changes in the legislation due to changes in social, economic, political, and cultural context.

The dynamic of change can be traced in time, and comparisons between countries with similar conditions can be made. For example, former USSR countries differ in how they define the victim of rape (Kameneva, 2011: 24). The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was adopted in 1992, and it states that only a woman can be a victim of rape. However, such former USSR countries as Ukraine (Criminal Code adopted in 2001), Lithuania (2000) and Moldova (2002) have it in their law that any person, male or female, can be considered a rape victim. Kameneva suggests that these differences in definitions reflect the modern characteristics of gender relations, including their criminal manifestation.

Comparison of legal systems in different countries proves to be a difficult task due to the diversity and, oftentimes, irreducibility (because it is based on social and cultural phenomena distinctive to a particular region) of terminology, variations in sources of law (codes, precedents, customs, religious morals) and in corpus delicti (components of crime). For example, the Russian Criminal Code states the necessary presence of both the actus reus (guilty act) and the mens rea (guilty mind) for the action to be considered a sex crime. However, in German Code the necessary presence of mens rea is not stated because the German justice system considers only intentional actions as a crime (if not specifically stated otherwise).

Nevertheless, Kameneva suggests that, even though the terminology differs, it is possible to conduct comparative analysis of legal norms if we analyze the elements in corpus delicti, which are usually similar in content (e.g. French law uses the term ‘sexual aggression’ with the similar meaning to sexual violence). She states that the objects of sex crime are the person’s sexual inviolability (or sexual integrity, sexual immunity – for those who cannot give informed consent due to their age, health,

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Centre for German and European Studies physical condition) and sexual freedom (sexual self-determination – for those who are able to give consent).

Kameneva argues that the statutes vary greatly in terms of who can be a victim and a perpetrator. In some cases, the victims not only have to be of specific sex to be considered wronged: they also have to be in specific relationships with the perpetrator (until recently, spousal rape was not seen as a crime in many countries, and the law system of South Carolina still requires the use of excessive force), and to behave in a specific way (sex workers are, or were, often overlooked in law which focused on protecting women who behave in a ‘proper’ manner).

Kameneva also brings into focus the fact that some statutes differentiate between sex crimes committed by or against males, and those involving females. She writes that it is inadvisable since, first, it creates excessive difficulty in labeling a process if a person’s physical and genetic sex do not correspond. Second, the construction of two types of crime with the same corpus delicti reinforces the institutionalized inequality. Nevertheless, in the framework of criminal justice process, the “classic” rape scripts prevail, which Burt (1991: 34) describes as societal belief in real rape as a “rape by a stranger who uses a weapon – an assault done at night, outside, with a lot of violence, resistance by the victim, and hence severe wounds and signs of struggle”. The situations that do not fit this description, have a lower chance of resulting in a prison term for the perpetrator (Shelby, 2013).

However, it does not seem useful to base the current research on the legal definitions of sexual violence since they have been contested by scholars and victims’ rights activists. What is more, the legal definitions of sexual violence are reduced to a rather narrow understanding of sexual violence as sex crimes. Therefore, it is necessary to provide further a working definition of sexual violence that can be used to distinguish the object of current inquiry from related concepts.

1.2.3. Sociological understanding of sexual violence

The definition of sexual violence used in my research draws upon constructivist theory that presupposes that the concept of sexual violence is jointly constructed by people in a society. This concept is inextricably intertwined with the structures and discourses that question or enable these acts. Feminist analysis, which guides this research, imports a framework of indentifying sexual violence along the lines of power relations. Therefore, this study follows the intersectional approach which considers sexual violence in connection with race, gender, sexuality, nation, colonialism, and state violence.

There seems to be no commonly accepted definition of sexual violence in sociological research. For example, some studies seem to inductively draw their definition from the research field:

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Sexual violence is a broader category that includes rape, coerced undressing, and non-penetrating sexual assault such as sexual mutilation. The sexual humiliation and abuse inflicted on prisoners by U.S. troops at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and other prisons is thus a form of sexual violence (Wood 2009).

Others do not give a clear definition of sexual violence, instead indicating the theoretical framework of analysis and emphasizing the constructed and transformative nature of the term:

…we do not mean to imply that social scientists or political activists have finally found the ‘true’ definitions of sexual and domestic violence. From a social constructionist perspective, there is no such thing as a true definition. There are ongoing struggles to define sexual and domestic violence and to frame the ways in which we think about these problems (Muehlenhard, & Kimes, 1999).

The feminist tradition of regarding sexual violence emphasizes the interrelations between gender, sexuality and power, while constructivist approach incorporates the cultural aspect of viewing these practices. Drawing upon these two theoretical foundations, my study considers sexual violence as a social construct, which reflects the power relations in society, draws upon cultural systems of meaning, and provides an interpretation of what practices could be considered as violations of the individual’s right to sexual self-determination.

Sexual violence is often mentioned alongside and as a synonym to ‘sexualized violence’, ‘gender violence’ and ‘gender-based violence’, ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate partner violence’, ‘violence against women’ and many other accompanying terms. All of them present different approaches to violence. Gender and gender-based violence (GBV) is a framework that recognizes the fact that victims of various forms of violence are targeted because of their gender (or because they present a challenge to traditional gender norms). Therefore, this type of consideration of violence focuses on women, lesbian, gay, queer and transgender people as the victims. Violence against women is also a type of GBV that fixes its attention on women as the majority of victims in such cases. While this paper takes into account the gender patterns of violence, it limits itself only to those types of violence that are sexualized in nature, while leaving physical, psychological and emotional abuse out of the scope of research.

Sexualized violence is a term relatively recently introduced in scholarly discourse that places emphasis on the fact that the cause of violence lies not in the sexual desire of perpetrators, but in the dynamic of power and control, and simultaneously attacks a person’s sexuality. This research uses the term of sexual violence as a more frequently used synonym of sexualized violence. Domestic and intimate partner abuse indicates the types of violence that are committed by non-strangers and imply a significant degree of intimacy between the victim and the perpetrator. Sexual abuse might be used in situations of domestic and partner violence, but is not limited to it.

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Generally, sociological and feminist studies tended to analyze extreme cases of sexual violence such as rape and sexual assault, however scientific and legal discourses recognize a greater variety of practices. There are endless variations of typologies of sexual violence proposed by transnational organizations (e.g. WHO, UN, European Institute for Gender Equality), NGOs that advocate for human rights (e.g. Amnesty International, Rape Crisis Network Europe) and national entities (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, RAINN). They are often developed and used specifically for the needs of the studies that are being conducted by these organizations.

The major sociological typology of types of sexual violence was introduced by Liz Kelly (1988) in the form of continuum of sexual violence ranging from less physical to more explicit practices. Kelly proposes a significantly broad definition of sexual violence incidents based on the experiences of women. Taking into account these different variations of sexual violence, this research, however, uses an inductive approach to indentifying instances of sexual violence in order to define which practices are described as such in each country under study.

1.3. The role of media in social construction of sexual violence

1.3.1. Media theory

The question about the extent to which media can influence people remains one of the most topical for social scientists. Generally, three approaches to the relations between media and its audiences are distinguished: theories of mass society, or media-oriented theories; theories of active audience, or human-oriented theories; and theories of limited influence of media (Яковлев, 2001). Among the media-oriented theories are the theory of mass society, the propaganda model by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky (Яковлев, 2001), the magic-bullet theory (hypodermic needle model), Harold Lasswell’s approach to the study of scientific propaganda, George Gerbner’s cultivation theory, Walter Lippmann's theory of public opinion formation, Marshall McLuhan’s medium theory, Albert Bandura’s concept of social learning, public arenas model proposed by Hilgartner and Bosk, the narcotizing dysfunction model by Merton and Lazarsfeld (Яковлев, 2001), the theory of social responsibility of media, and many others. These are the theories that consider media to have a significant direct influence on people’s values and opinions: media is believed to shape the way people conceptualize the world, create mass symbols and manipulate the minds of mass audiences. Some of these theoretical frames were disproved, like the magic-bullet model, while some remain influential in contemporary media and communication analysis (e.g. cultivation theory).

Theories that posit a limited influence of media include the two-step flow of communication model by Lazarsfeld and Katz (Яковлев, 2001), the diffusion of innovations theory proposed by Everett Rogers, and Klapper's selective exposure model. These models maintain that audiences can resist the influence of the media and that media effects are not as far-reaching as it is commonly believed. Finally, the human-oriented approach (the uses and gratifications theory by Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch, the media dependency theory developed by Ball-Rokeach and DeFluer,

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Centre for German and European Studies the agenda-setting theory proposed by McCombs and Shaw, and Noelle-Neumann’s spiral of silence theory) departs from conceptualizing mass audience as passive viewers and asserts the dependence of media on viewers’ interests.

The issue of sexual violence has been traditionally considered as a private rather than a public matter, and therefore this topic has not been vastly covered by media until recently. The press, as well as “the old media” in general, is usually perceived as one of the elements of the public sphere and, according to some research (Salter, 2013), is characterised by a masculinist bias, at the same time enjoying a monopolistic and one-directional manner of expressing what is taken to be public opinion. This leads to the emergence of counter-publics, in Nancy Fraser’s terms, those that represent alternative norms of public speech sympathetic for feminist concerns, including the issue of sexual violence, and often opposed to social and legal norms. The “new media”, usually defined as a type of mass media that uses digital technologies for information distribution, is characterized by accessibility and the user’s ability to create content and give feedback (Ahlqvist et al., 2008: 13).

Global and European media landscape is characterised by the transformations connected with the advent of the new digital media, influence of the global economic crisis and spread of free newspapers. The market segment of the “Political Press” in many countries continues to shrink, and publishing companies’ profits are dropping, while magazines and tabloids fair better, although their readership has also been decreasing slightly in recent years. The decline of the printed press is balanced by the rise of television viewership as the most popular medium, and the advent of the new media (many private news portals already surpass the sites of traditional media in readership, and people’s trust in them is growing).

Nevertheless, TV and newspaper coverage remains the primary source of information in many countries (Eurobarometer, 2011). In his study, Gerbner focuses on the cumulative effects of television viewing with regards to violence in TV dramas. He asserts that the fundamental message that is broadcast on TV is violence, with two thirds of programs containing some element of it in the 1970s (Gerbner et al., 1980). Gerbner shows that the disadvantaged categories of people (women, ethnic minorities, children and the elderly), although underrepresented on TV in general, are overrepresented in TV content as the victims of violence, which adds to their symbolic marginalization.

My study is an example of analysing the construction of violence in news reporting. Generally, there are two directions of analysis of media content: one of them looks at how media reflects public opinion and another assesses how it affects it. For the purpose of this research, the former type of analysis appears to be of interest. The current research suggests that even though media depictions do not directly cause the difference in patterns of behaviour, they indirectly influence the attitudes and actions of people through exposure to the specific way of portraying violence, gender differences and social attitudes towards specific types of crimes and practices (Briere, & Malamuth, 1986). However, this study limits its scope to an inquiry into various mechanisms that are used by Korean and German newspapers in the construction of sexual violence, without the examination of the consequences that such construction may have. Therefore, it is important to examine different media theories in order to identify these mechanisms and describe them in more detail.

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1.3.2. Mechanisms of the social construction of social phenomena in media discourse

As an element of the public sphere and a major socializing agent, the media has become a primary source of information about sexual violence, as well as sexual and gender scripts. However, the media does not only represent and transmit cultural meanings; it also plays the role of a claim-maker, meaning that media outlets provide justifications and demands about what can be considered normal or deviant, important or benign, legal or criminal. The claim-making process is one of the elements of the social construction of social issues. Spector and Kitsuse (1977) describe such construction as a set of attempts to define certain situations in a specific way that requires their amelioration by authorities and to impose these meanings on a wide population.

Communications theory distinguishes a number of social functions of media. One of them is that news assigns a status to certain human behavior, for example, a crime could be reported as a grave offence or as a misdemeanor (Lazarsfeld, Merton in Назаров, 2002: 250). One of the characteristics of news messages is that they single-handedly construct the extent of importance of events, thus allowing the manipulation of facts. Among the techniques that are used, the most powerful are probably suppression of information (for example, by not allowing information about a crime committed by public officials to enter the public debate), falsification of information (including the construction of myths in order to reassure the public, to deflect attention from or artificially focus the public’s attention on a specific problem, or to transmit specific values and ideas) (Ilyin, 2010), and over- or underestimation (an example of superfluous depiction of violence is highly illustrative in this regard) (Carlson in Назаров, 2002: 358).

Jenny Kitzinger (Shelby, 2013) argues that agenda-setting has become one of the major mechanisms of influence in news media production. News media companies choose which stories to report on, how often, and which values and issues to promote with these stories. Aside from agenda-setting, such mechanisms as framing (choosing how to interpret and present certain stories), priming (choosing the hierarchized time slots in which certain problems are discussed), and language games become apparent in news reporting.

It has been found that much of media reporting on sexual violence perpetuates rape myths and stereotypes about sexualized offences and gender, race, sexuality biases (Shelby, 2013). Such reporting characteristics could be partially attributed to the lack of deconstruction of power disparities in society. At the same time, contemporary media do not simply mimic public attitudes. With the decrease in revenues from the old media, they are becoming more and more dependent on audience ratings. Therefore, they become market-driven and select those topics that can attract more consumers, which sometimes may lead to sensationalism of the news coverage and general tabloidization of the media.

Simultaneously, the process of mediatization is intensifying in contemporary media. Media is more and more independent from political institutions, and has a profound influence on public perception as the primary source of news. What is more, the media is increasingly able to affect the social reality through claim-making and

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Centre for German and European Studies interactions with political actors, who are forced to adapt to media interests. Research carried out by Joel Best (1990) shows that, in fact, policy-makers respond to social issues more eagerly when media coverage is more extensive and attention is thus drawn to the issue. Thus, it is possible to say that media becomes not only a platform that transmits the opinions of claim-makers, but can also be considered as an autonomous agent that represents and constructs cultural phenomena. This could be achieved through the use of specific language and rhetorical styles, appeals to certain topics or framing them in a specific way. I aim to empirically study these phenomena and processes in connection to sexual violence.

Conclusion

All things considered, it is evident that the feminist movement has had a great influence on the way sexual violence has been constructed in the recent years. Anthony Giddens identifies women as the major contributors to social change and the agents of the democratization of intimacy, with which he associates the rapid global transformations (Giddens, 1992: 182). Thus, he views women as agents of cultural globalization, which, through their bottom-up efforts, constitutes the grounds for separation of sexuality from reproduction and marriage, initiates a quest for individual identity and, ultimately, results in transformations of gender roles. These bottom-up initiatives are presented in the forms of critical production of family culture and participation in feminist movements struggling against the oppression of women.

To sum up, social constructionism, feminist theory and analysis of discursive practices employed in media discourses all contribute to this study and help investigate how media constructs, reinforces or challenges the dominant discourses concerning sexual violence in two cases: newspaper articles produced in Germany and South Korea. The constructivist approach further allows study of the cultural differences of these two cases and analyse how they affect the mechanisms and content of media construction of sexual violence.

The feminist framework implies a critical approach to social reality and, as Cynthia Enloe (2007) puts it, crafting a global feminist curiosity that questions the dominant gender relations and analyses how global patriarchy and capitalism shape and reinforce gender norms through the media. In many cases, instances of sexual violence are used in the media in order to promote the gendered beliefs that already exist in society: medicalization of sexual abuse and simultaneous perpetuation of rape myths in the context of prevalence of violence portrayal in heterosexual pairs.

As specified earlier, this study is driven by the three research questions about (1) how sexual violence is socially constructed in the media; (2) what the mechanisms of social construction of sexual violence are; and (3) how the social construction of sexual violence draws upon cultural systems of meaning. In order to study the specific mechanisms of violence construction, elements of media theory are used to identify the instances of agenda-setting, framing, and use of language games.

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Chapter 2. Methodological framework

In this chapter, the methodological basis of the study is presented, and background information concerning the cases under study is provided. Sociocultural, historical and legal frameworks that influence the understanding of sexual violence in each country are also considered.

2.1. Discourse analysis

This research utilizes discourse analysis as the primary method of data analysis. Discourse analysis is a qualitative method that is based on the ontological and epistemological principles of social constructionism, which imply a critical approach to “self-evident” knowledge, understanding that people’s categorizations of the world are stipulated by the cultural and historical particularities of the conceptualization of the phenomenon, and the necessity to study the link between these categorizations and actions, processes and institutions in the society. For these purposes, discourse analysis inquires into the discursive practices and discourses produced by people.

There are a plethora of scientific definitions of discourse, starting from purely linguistic ones and ending with the analysis of practices that give insight into sociopolitical relations. For the purposes of this study, the definition proposed by M. Foucault is used since it allows us to explore the extra-linguistic characteristics of texts, especially power relations. Foucault maintains that discourse is a set of signs that “systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak” (Фуко 2004: 38).

However, Foucault’s techniques of discourse analysis focus more on the historical aspects of concept formation, therefore Reiner Keller's sociology of knowledge approach (SKAD, or Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse) was chosen as an approach that synthesizes Foucault’s tradition of regarding discourses and Berger and Luckmann’s ideas about the construction, objectivation, circulation and internalization of knowledge with the tradition of analysis of knowledge as an objective phenomenon. Therefore, based on the clearly presented strategy of discourse analysis presented by Keller, it became possible to conduct the empirical part of my research.

SKAD method provides an opportunity to study the social actors that participate in the production and transmission of discourses and concepts, as well as classifications and justifications (Keller, 2011). What is more, it helps to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the social construction of phenomena and power relations within the media discourses of sexual violence.

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The analysis is conducted by using the following a set of specific analytical units, or concepts, provided by Keller (2005) in the interpretation procedure: (1) Deutungsmuster2 (interpretative schemes, frames), (2) classifications, (3) phenomenal structure and (4) narrative structure (plots). At the same time, in the analysis of any phenomenon, Keller identifies a structure that is intended to be studied. This structure includes: “cognitive devices like the concepts used to name an object, the relations between those concepts, the introduction of causal schemes and normative settings, the dimensions, urgencies and legitimations for action, as well as the kind of practices considered to be suitable to a particular phenomenon” (Keller, 2005). Based on this methodology, various aspects of the way sexual violence is constructed in media discourses were identified.

2.2. Samples / Sources Newspaper articles

Two newspapers in Germany and two newspapers in South Korea were chosen as sources for this research. The requirements for the selection of newspapers arose from the necessity to study the newspapers that were influential and popular among the people of each country, as a way to study more mainstream views on sexual violence. Therefore, dailies and weeklies with the highest circulation were chosen as sources for analysis. At the same time, the issue of language presented a big challenge, therefore the decision was made to study the translations of German and Korean articles into English.

German case

In Germany, only three newspapers provided public access to the English translations of newspapers: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel. Among them, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegel were chosen as the ones with the highest circulation. Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) is a national daily with a liberal-left orientation and a circulation of 432,000 in 2012 (European Social Survey 2014). The official site of the newspaper links to Süddeutsche International where the articles translations (mostly by WorldCrunch) are available. SZ outsources the translation of its articles, thus, not all of them are, in the end, translated. These articles go through the process of selection, therefore, it is expected that not all the articles on the topic of sexual violence were featured and, therefore, they were not analysed in this research. This situation presents a methodological challenge that cannot be amended: the criteria for selection of the articles that are translated into English remain unknown.

Der Spiegel is a German news weekly and one of the largest European publications with an average circulation of around 920,000 in 2012 (The Economist, 2013). Center-right, Der Spiegel provides the translations of its articles in the Der Spiegel

2 Deutungsmuster, according to Keller, is “socially typified historically embedded interpretation device for occurring events, urgencies of action, etc.” (Keller 2005).

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International section with all the translations made by the Der Spiegel staff specifically.

Korean case

Lots of South Korean newspapers have translations of their articles into English, which could identify a higher level of their orientation towards international publics. Among the most prominent newspapers that are translated into English are Chosun Ilbo, DongA Ilbo, Hankuk Ilbo, Hankyoreh Shinmun, Kyunghyang Shinmun and many other local and national publications. There are also three national dailies that are originally printed in English: Korea JoongAng Daily (a subsidiary of JoongAng Ilbo in cooperation with International New York Times), Korea Times (the oldest English- language newspaper established as a subsidiary of Hankuk Ilbo), and The Korea Herald (the top national English-language newspaper owned by private Herald Media corporation). The leading Korean newspapers in terms of circulation are Chosun Ilbo with the highest circulation, DongA Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and Hankyoreh Shinmun. The first three are right-leaning editions that are reported to be conservative (they are sometimes referred to as Cho-Joong-Dong), while Hankyoreh Shinmun is described as a liberal newspaper, one of the largest in Korea. For the sake of diversity, Chosun Ilbo and Hankyoreh Shinmun were chosen as the cases to study.

Chosun Ilbo had the highest print circulation in 2010 with 1.84 million copies (Chosun Ilbo, 2010-11-30). Both Chosun Ilbo and Hankyoreh Shinmun present their own translations (made by interns and translators) of the articles on the websites of the newspapers. Chosun Ilbo also provides publications in English based on news from other information agencies such as VoA News.

The circulation of Hankyoreh Shinmun is 281,814 copies, which makes it one of the largest dailies in South Korea (Chosun Ilbo, 2010-11-30). In addition, in 2014 Hankyoreh Shinmun was voted as the most trustworthy media outlet and one of the most thoroughly viewed ones alongside Chosun Ilbo (Hankyoreh, 2014-09-02). Moreover, the same survey shows that Hankyoreh Shinmun is considered the fourth most influential newspaper in South Korea (following Cho-Joong-Dong).

Experts

For each country, the aim was to have two-three interviews with experts whose work is directly connected with sexual violence and its construction, and who are knowledgeable on the issues of media discourse on sexual violence in each of the countries. The idea was to interview people who, by the nature of their job, have a direct contact with the issue under study. In order to complement and triangulate the media analysis, people who know the country of study had to be interviewed to escape bias, since I, as a researcher, was very much an outsider to both countries. The sufficient knowledge of the experts was guaranteed by choosing legal professionals, representatives of women's rights organizations and victims’ rights advocates, journalists who write on the issue of sexual violence, and researchers who study sexual violence and (quite possibly) influence the transformation of the construction of this phenomenon.

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2.3. Selection process

Newspaper articles

Since one of the objectives of this research was to trace how the social construction of sexual violence changed over time in Korean and German printed media, it was decided to analyse articles within the interval of five years: 2010-2014. As a first step, all the articles that contained news concerning sexual violence were collected. They were chosen in accordance with the definition of sexual violence that was given previously, and covered a wide spectrum of types of sexual violence. Due to the shortage of translated articles from the German case, the chosen step of analysis was as follows: one article per six month. In total, it constituted 20 articles from the South Korean case and 18 articles from the German case (this difference is explained by the fact that the translations of Süddeutsche Zeitung newspapers are only accessible starting from the year 2011, making it two articles short as compared to the Korean case).

A spike in number of articles in 2013 as compared to other years was documented in German cases, while the number of articles concerning sexual violence was gradually increasing in the Korean case. Therefore, 2013 was chosen as the year for deeper analysis. With the step of one article per 2 months 12 articles from German newspapers and 12 from South Korean newspapers were analysed. In total, 62 articles were considered. The following table outlines the workload.

Tab. 1. The volume of analysed material. Germany Korea Number of articles 30 32 Total number of words 47528 21825

Experts

In Germany, four interviews were conducted: two with representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, one with the representative of a women’s rights organization that strives to stop violence against women and provide help for victims, and one with a journalist working for the organization which fights against gendered stereotyping in media.

In South Korea, two experts were interviewed: a representative of a women’s rights organization that also provides help and counselling to the victims of violence and a scholar who studies sexual violence in South Korea.

2.4. Case description

Further, the description of background information concerning sexual violence in Germany and South Korea is presented. Social, cultural, historical and legal aspects of two national contexts are considered.

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2.4.1. Sociocultural background of sexual violence construction in Germany and South Korea

Germany

Various pieces of research show the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence in Germany that persists in the 21st century. Statistics shows that the majority of perpetrators are men, while sexual violence is conducted against women in the majority of cases. A report from German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth shows that in 2003 37% of women experienced gender- based violence, with 13% of the respondents being victims of sexual abuse, while 58% of the sample reported being sexually harassed (Mueller, Schroettle 2004). The majority of perpetrators (99%) were reported to be men. A 2005 global report of the World Health Organization shows that 1 in 5 women in Germany suffers intimate partner violence (WHO 2005), while sex trafficking and such “customary” types of sexual violence as child marriages also remain a significant problem (Krug et. al. 2002). In 2013, it was estimated that one in three women experienced gender-based violence (The Local, 2014-03-05). The research published by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2014 shows prevalence of sexual violence in contemporary Germany over other European countries. According to this study, 35% of women over 15 years old reported to be a victim of sexual or physical violence in their lifetime, which is above the norm as compared to the EU countries in general. 13% of respondents reported to have suffered child sexual abuse, while near 40% confided that they had been victims of physical sexual harassment. Many mentioned being assaulted by their bosses or partners. The Director of FRA stated that this “survey shows that physical, sexual and psychological violence against women is an extensive human rights abuse in all EU Member States. The enormity of the problem is proof that violence against women does not just impact a few women only – it impacts on society every day” (The Local, 2014-03-05). This comment shows that sexual violence is regarded as a serious problem at the level of the EU. However, the survey shows the diversity of public attitudes towards violence: only 19% of Germans admitted that sexual violence is a common occurrence, with women being more likely to agree with this statement. Other respondents indicated that sexual abuse was unusual (about 25%) or happened sometimes (53%), showing that even though the issue of sexual violence is now being discussed freely in public debates, it remains to a significant extent hidden in the everyday life situations. At the same time, only 23% reported on encountering campaigns aimed at fighting violence against women. The reluctance to view instances of sexual abuse as violence could be attributed to the continuous cultural narratives, which were discovered by Sabine Smith (1998) who examined texts on sexual violence in her book Sexual Violence in German Culture: Rereading and Rewriting the Tradition. She identified the persistent narratives that blurred the lines between sexual violence, seduction, and romantic love, simultaneously showing the significant influence that they exercised over the political agenda, legal definitions and public discussions of sexual violence. This statistics shows that it is important to study the status of women and men in the society in order to understand the background of sexual violence. A 2005 WHO study supports this idea, emphasizing that, in a plethora of countries, the unequal position

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Centre for German and European Studies of men and women and the normalization of violence in interpersonal relations are strongly associated with perpetration of sexual violence. Other factors include male sexual entitlement to women’s bodies, importance of female sexual purity and family honour, and weak punishments for sexual violence (WHO, 2014). Since 16th century, Germany has been most influenced by two religious denominations: Protestantism and Catholicism. Even though with increased secularization the influence of the church over people’s behaviour, politics and legislature has been constantly diminishing, the long religious tradition still to some extent affects the attitudes of the population. Christianity traditionally stigmatized sexuality as evil, as a sin and even perversion, and women were viewed as an embodiment of original sin, a living temptation. Therefore, the sexuality of women was strictly controlled, and women were categorized either as virgins or whores. Female purity was highly regarded, while women were constructed as highly sexual and asexual simultaneously. Pre-marital sex and adultery were regarded as sins, while female sexual behaviour in marriage was regarded as a duty. The struggle to achieve gender equality has been already active for over 100 years in Germany. The traditional roles of women were described with the famous three “K” formula: Kinder (children), Kirche (church), and Küche (kitchen); sometimes, however, the forth “K” – Kleider (clothes) was added. This model presented women as caregivers and men as breadwinners and heads of the family. In marriage, women were considered as subordinate to men, who enjoyed all the social, political and economic rights. The husband, under this perspective, could control every aspect of woman’s life, including her body and sexuality. Marriage was viewed as an ultimate consent to any sexual practice, while both rape and adultery were viewed as a crime against husband’s rights. However, the first-wave feminist movement, taking place in the late 19th and early 20th century, engaged, among others, German women. The movement, like in many European countries, focused on legal issues and led to German women acquiring the ability to vote in 1919. During the Nazi period, traditional female roles experienced a restoration. Uli Linke in her book German Bodies: Race and Representation after Hitler exposes how the “othering” of women and detestation of women’s sexuality unfolded in the violent actions of German Freikorps against women. Women were viewed as “whores, vehicles of urges, emasculators” (Linke, 1999: 128), and they were punished for that. At the same time, in the period of World War II some women occupied traditionally male positions, and later played a significant role in rebuilding the country. After Germany had been separated into two states as an outcome of WWII, the positions of women in the FRG and the GDR grew very different. In the FRG, the post-war electoral majority did not bring much change in the representation of women in the government and highly-qualified professions, resulting in the growth of the political left (Chapman, 1993: 233-234). Despite the legally declared equality, by 1950s traditional values like importance of marriage for women and reliance on the “male as a provider, female as a homemaker” models were revived. Only by the mid-1980s prominent changes regarding equal rights were achieved, with women having ever increasing influence on the Green Party and bringing their issues (such as legalization of abortions) onto the political agenda.

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Marxist ideology of the GDR established formal equality of sexes, especially in labour. The women’s question was incorporated in socialist ideology and discussed by many political leaders like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and August Bebel (Kranz, 2005). The emancipation of women was proclaimed, and they were encouraged to take on the roles in the society similar to those played by men. In many cases, however, it resulted in further oppression of women since housework and child rearing duties were considered a prerogative of women, compelling them to work double hours. At the same time, the official position of the government considered the feminist movement to be “man-hating” (Chapman, 1993: 235-236). The attempted emancipation of women and public discussion of women’s question, ironically, led to women lacking feminist consciousness (Kranz, 2005).

After the reunification of Germany in 1990, women faced the dramatic change in circumstances: a struggle to navigate different political systems, restore the ties between parts of the country, and overcome severe economic problems such as unemployment. The Feminist movement focused predominantly on economic and political issues, while issues of sexual violence were brought to the public and political attention only as late as in the mid-1990s.

In recent years, the way sexual violence is conceptualized in Germany has changed significantly. Women’s rights organizations had a symbolic aim of changing the social attitudes regarding sexual violence such as a belief that sexual violence was not a serious offence, that victims were responsible for their victimization, and that there were “real rape” and “simple rape”. They targeted their campaigns at dismantling stereotyped gender roles, advocating for sexual freedom, and re-conceptualizing sexual violence and various myths connected with it as a part of systemic violence against women. The liberalization of public attitudes took place gradually from the 1960s. The issue of sexuality became less of a taboo. Simultaneously, the problem of sexual violence against women was brought to increasing public attention from the 1970s onwards. The public discussions increased the awareness concerning gender violence, and led to the emergence of organizations and unions battling violence against women and domestic violence and providing help for the victims (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2007). The second purpose of women’s rights organizations was the instrumental one: it was to reform the laws and public policies regarding sexual violence. Significant legislative changes and the development of national state programs followed in the 1990s. Federal programs, such as National Action Plan that focuses on combating domestic violence, attempted to work with the offenders in order to decrease recidivism and prevent them committing sexual violence in the future.

At the same time, while on the rhetorical level it is now claimed that gender equality has been achieved, the return of traditional roles has been observed in recent years, with women becoming more prone to fulfill household chores and withdraw from work. Moreover, Germany remains among the lowest ranks in the EU in terms of pay gap (Mast-Kirschning, 2008). Angela Merkel is being criticized for not doing enough for women’s equality.

As a country that receives immigration, in recent decades Germany has hosted representatives of different cultures with their own practices connected with gender relations, sexuality and violence. Since early 21st century, feminist organizations

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South Korea

In the second half of the 20th century, a number of discursive shifts have occurred in South Korea in regards to the role of women in society. Many scholars associate this change with the influence of the global feminist movement. The global conversation about the role of women started with the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international treaty that was created in 1975 to provide support for gender equality (and was signed by South Korea on May 25, 1983 (Markham 2013). A global sociocultural feminist movement was facilitated by the UN (e.g. through a number of conferences starting from Mexico, 1975, The International Women’s Year (1975) with the help of UN Commission on the Status of Women, Women and Development decade ’75-85) spread globally and started the de-patriarchalization process (Therborn, 2004: 99- 102).

Cynthia Enloe (2007) considers yet another dimension of transformations in South Korean society – the economic development, and she attributes a major role in Korean industrialization of 1960-1980s to women. According to Enloe, the position of Korean women as “cheap labor” is what attracted international corporations to base their production lines in the country, which gave rise to rapid industrialization. Previously predominantly agrarian, the farming population decreased by almost twofold in the period between mid-1960s and mid-1970s (Abelmann, 1997: 405).

Enloe also provides evidence on the transformation in understanding of “a dutiful daughter” as a result of a calculated campaign by the Korean military government to connect the concept of “respectable, decent, marriageable” femininity with the ideas of “national pride”, “modernization” and “industrial growth” (Enloe, 2007: 27-28). Thus, the roles of women in the society changed. Single women were now supposed to work, while the married needed to be occupied in status-production and household work. Both these options were viewed as a form of filial piety (Janelli & Yim in Ikels 2004: 144).

The next shift occurred in the 1970s among the female workers (predominantly in the textile industry). Labor mobilization gave them an opportunity to assess the differences in working conditions of men and women, and witness various social movements that fought for their rights. Working women reframed their condition on the labour market as “unfair” and their skills as “equal”. They no longer agreed that women’s identity depended on men’s identity. Therefore, they formed independent union movements, that later transformed into civil rights movements that aimed to change various aspects of Korean society (family structure and gender relations, women’s economic conditions and educational level, mindset of citizens) and influence the policy-making process (Kim, & Lee 2011).

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The major discourses concerning gender roles and female identities that can be found in contemporary South Korea seem to fit either the discourse of traditional femininity or the discourse of modern femininity. In the narratives of Korean females and in media representations, these two types of identities – of traditional or modern women – have distinct disparities. Traditional roles are associated with Confucian morality and are opposed to modernity, rationality, science, and individualism (Sorensen, & Kim, 2004: 154).

Angel Lin’s and Avin Tong’s research shows that many Asian women associate traditional femininity with “Confucian cultural values” which are consistently mentioned as a narrative of family and gender relations, romance and sexuality. Commenting on the representation of femininity in Korean dramas, one of their interviewees says: “…there should be no premarital sexual behaviour. A married woman should respect her mother-in-law, help her husband and teach her children” (Lin, & Tong, 2008: 103) This idea is consistent with the Confucian hierarchized, binary system of gender roles which presumes women’s subordination to men, and younger people’s subordination to elders. Neo-Confucianism maintains that female chastity must be specially valued and promotes double standards regarding male and female sexuality that contribute to the patriarchal structure of the family. At the same time, under Neo-Confucianism, female bodies are inevitably gendered, while a man is considered as a default, a person (such a tradition is also expressed in the language, with the word Saram meaning both a person and a man).

What is more, since women traditionally had lower social value, the legalization of abortions and the ability to know the child’s sex before birth brought new challenges. Since the late 1980s, an increase in demographic imbalance has been noted since many parents preferred to abort female fetuses. This imbalance reached its peak in 1999 when the average proportion of newborn girls to boys was 100:116 accordingly, while in conservative regions it reached 100:130 (Lankov, 2014). This, combined with the problem of ageing population, led to the dramatic increase in women’s migration to Korea, especially through marriages.

However, now this hegemonic form of femininity is being disputed by women’s rights organizations and the global discourse. In the 1990s, Korean feminism took on the struggle against sexual violence perpetrated against women and children, and raised concern about sexual violence as a serious social problem, bringing it out of the private domain and into the public sphere. As a result, in 1994 the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes and Protection of Victims that authorized the provision of help to the victims of sexual violence was passed. Since that time, a dramatic increase in the number of crisis centers, hotlines for victims, shelters and counselling centers has been observed (Lee et al., 2010). Special facilities that provided help for migrants and the disabled have also been founded. However, although sexual violence is now recognized as a serious social issue, the numbers of people reporting and seeking help through crisis centers remains low (Lee et al., 2010). Various myths concerning rape and sexual violence are reported to have a significant influence on public attitudes.

For a long time, the Korean religious scene was dominated by the tradition of neo- Confucianism and ancester worship, with minor communities of Buddhists and Christians. After the Second World War, which strengthened the ties between

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Christianity promoted the social emancipation of women, permitting remarriage, promoting literacy, forbidding polygamy and neglect of daughters (Cho, 1984). At the same time, Christian churches endorsed the conservative teachings on gender, including the ideology of women’s submission to men, kept women away from positions of authority and delegated them tasks connected with support, help and service (Chong, 2006).

Many scholars put emphasis on the “paradox” of Korean women being progressively involved with contemporary traditionalist religious movements which endorse patriarchy. However, other researchers show that Christian churches, in fact, represent the discrepancies between the stated traditionalist, patriarchal values and the instrumental, strategic liberation of women.

Kelly Chong writes: “Evangelicalism serves as an instrument in women’s efforts to cope with their domestic lives, battle domestic oppression, and gain hope and consolation, both spiritually and institutionally” (Chong, 2006: 118). This happens through the construction of women’s spaces (the Church) that allow women to “escape” domestic duties, share their experience, socialize and participate in non- domestic activities in a legitimate way. Simultaneously, church attendance accomplishes the goal of fulfilling family obligations by participation in conservative practices.

Global aesthetics, with its idealized and globalized consumerist role model, is promoted in K-pop and dramas. Thus, now Korean women consume both types of values, while the media provides an example of (idealized and) possible happy reconciliation of the dichotomy (Chong, 2006: 100-102). Consequently, some scholars claim that this is an evidence of emerged hybridized modern female identity (Chong, 2006: 109), where women choose the behavior patterns and combine the characteristics consistent with “Pan-Asian” Confucian values and “modern, Western” aesthetics.

2.4.2. Historical background of sexual violence construction in Germany and South Korea

Germany

Much attention to the issue of sexual violence in Germany is connected with the wartime sexual assaults that took place during and after the Second World War. As a part of wartime violence, rape of German women was a widespread practice in the Allied forces and the Red Army.

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In Berlin in the immediate period after the war, approximately 10,000 women died as a result of sexual assault – they were either killed by soldiers, or by their fathers and husbands for losing their ‘honour’, or committed suicide. After they had been subjected to sexual violence, many were further ostracized and harassed. For example, women were called ‘Allied whores’, or their heads were shaved, or they faced the threats of further sexual violence (Teo, 1996).

As a result of the constant threat of rape by troops during the war and during the following occupation, some women were forced to find men who would protect them in exchange for sex. Many turned to prostitution, which resulted in more than 50,000 prostitutes working in Berlin only in 1945, which tripled by the end of 1946 (Teo, 1996). These figures show that women experienced sexual violence connected with wartime long after the end of the actual war. What is more, the restoration of highly conservative values after the war caused women to further experience a wide range of sexual violence, such as “verbal, visual and physical abuses, and sexual harassment in the workplace and in public spaces” (Teo, 1996).

The attitudes towards wartime rape remained ambiguous among the population and the government. At the end of war, women were able to freely discuss their experience with sexual violence, but this theme slowly disappeared from the discourse by the end of 1940s, to reappear only in the early 1950s as an instrument of propaganda in the Cold war (Teo, 1996). The image of ‘horde of rapists’ (the Red Army) who raped German women and pillaged the towns began circulating as a part of anti-communist discourse (Garraio 2013). Women’s biographies published in the 1970-1980s showed that the use of sexual violence as an instrument of war was not exclusive to communist troops (Teo, 1996). Wartime sexual violence resulted in a collective trauma among the Germans which makes an important element of a broader and deeper cultural trauma of the war (fully fitting the definition by J.C. Alexander (2004: 3) as members of the collectivity of contemporary Germans still “feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their identity in fundamental and irreversible ways”).

South Korea

A great significance of the issue of sexual violence was realized in South Korea due to the historical events that took place before and during the Second World War, when Japanese military forced women and girls from Korea, China, Philippines and many other countries into sexual slavery for the soldiers. Women, who were described with the euphemism “comfort women” in the Japanese army, were brought to the so-called “comfort stations” and forced into providing sexual services to the Japanese military. As a result of sexual violence and torture that they were subjected to, around ¾ of the victims died, while those few who survived also suffered profound physical and psychological damage.

This aspect of war history has been ignored for a long time, with the first public mention of it taking place in only 1970s. Since the 1990s, the survivors, with the support of women’s rights advocates, organized groups and demonstrations aimed at putting pressure on the Japanese government to gain recognition and probably compensation for their disadvantaged position. This situation is still a matter of fierce

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Centre for German and European Studies debate, since Japan has yet to provide the apologies and compensation that the survivors and Korean government demand.

However, the end of Japanese hegemony over South Korea did not put a stop to the practice of “comfort women”. It was continued by the South Korean military during the Korean war, but later produced a lukewarm reaction compared to the heated discussions about the consequences of Japanese colonialism (Soh, 2008: 34).

Other scholars further emphasize the importance of the combination of other factors – such as nation-wide attention to high-profile rape cases, the attempts to transform the current law on sexual violence and the influence of the global feminist movement – which have facilitated the emergence of groups and organizations seeking to reform Korean laws and public opinion regarding sexual violence (Lee et al., 2012). Due to the work of such scholars, sexual violence has come to be considered one of the four social evils, alongside with domestic violence, bullying and low food quality (Woo, 2013).

In 1953, after the Korean war, the USA and the Republic of Korea signed a treaty that guaranteed South Korea help from the US military in case of war, while also allowing the US to station their troops on Korean territory. US military presence caused a lot of legal, political and social troubles including the sexual exploitation of local women. The number of brothels in the vicinity of American military bases grew, and in 1950- 1980s around one million of Korean women were involved in prostitution aimed at US soldiers. Much like the situation with women’s work that was mentioned earlier, the government tried to persuade citizens that providing services for American soldiers was patriotic, and women who did that did not have to be scorned (Asmolov, 2014). Some parents encouraged their daughters to become prostitutes as a part of their “filial piety” and to fulfil their duty to their parents and family by earning money.

Sex crimes were also associated with the areas where American soldiers were based, and often caused outrage among the locals. This is especially true for the situations after the improvement of the Korean economy, when South Korea grew less dependent on the USA and the image of the US became less positive (Asmolov, 2014).

2.4.3. Sexual violence in the legal framework in Germany and South Korea

Germany

There were two sources of pressure to change the legislative definition of sexual violent practices in Germany: feminist groups and international law, particularly the European Union's legislative framework. The feminist movement facilitated the re- conceptualization of the role of women in Germany, the transformation of characterization of rape and sexual violence as a crime of power and control, and the extension of the spectrum of possible victims, perpetrators, and practices that could be considered as sexual violence. This led to major changes in the German Penal Code.

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Most sexual offences are covered under the German Criminal Code. Since November 1973, the Criminal Code of the FRG stated the protection of sexual self-determination against sexual offences (Sexualstrafrecht). In the case of rape, the Criminal Code stated: “Whoever compels a woman to have extramarital intercourse with him, or with a third person, by force or the threat of present danger to life or limb, shall be punished by not less than two years’ imprisonment” (ICTY, 1999). As it is evident here, only a woman could be considered as a victim of rape and exclusively a man – as a perpetrator. Rape between spouses was not seen as possible.

In 1997 and 1998, new amendments were introduced, and a broader definition of rape was accepted. With these amendments, marital rape and sexual abuse of a person incapable of resistance were penalized. According to the current Criminal Code, sexual assault with the use of force and rape is defined as follows: “Whosoever coerces another person 1) by force; 2) by threat of imminent danger to life or limb; or 3) by exploiting a situation in which the victim is unprotected and at the mercy of the offender, to suffer sexual acts by the offender or a third person on their own person or to engage actively in sexual activity with the offender or a third person, shall be liable to imprisonment of not less than one year” (German Criminal Code, Section 177). This definition presents a rather broad perspective, allowing physical and psychological threat to be considered as coercion and not specifying the gender of the perpetrator or the victim, including penetrative and non-penetrative acts.

Now Chapter Thirteen of German Criminal Code lists a number of crimes that are categorized as offences against sexual self-determination. They include sections on such types of sexual violence as the abuse of a position of trust, child abuse and abuse of juveniles, sexual assault by use of force or threats and rape, abuse of persons who are incapable of resistance, causing minors to engage in sexual activity, exploitation and controlling prostitutes, exhibitionism, causing public disturbance, and distribution of pornography including prostitution in particular places or during particular time.

However, many practices that are regarded as sexual violence in my study are conceptualized differently under the German legal framework. For example, there are a few terms that are used to describe sexual offences in German, among them are sexuelle Nötigung (sexual assault), Vergewaltigung (rape), sexueller Miβbrauch (sexual abuse), sexuelle Gewalt (sexual violence). The terms sexuelle Gewalt or Sexualstrafrecht are usually used to describe sex crimes. Some professionals outside legal framework nowadays prefer to use the term sexualisierte Gewalt (sexualized violence) in order to make a distinction that, unlike the term sexuelle Gewalt, under this framework the offences are viewed as exercise of power, not of sexual urges. This term considers other types of consequences aside physical ones (i.e. includes psychological, verbal, emotional traumatic experiences), while sexuelle Gewalt is traditionally considered in terms of bodily harm. Sexualisierte Gewalt thus covers a wider range of offences, one of them being harassment.

In September 1994, a law on sexual harassment became effective. The provisions of the law conceptualize sexual harassment as a violation of the employment contract rather than a form of gender discrimination (as it is regarded in the European Union legislature). Further, as the EU legal framework sustains that the actions that fall under this law should be unwanted (victim’s perspective), the German law provides

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Centre for German and European Studies that a clear willfulness of the action on the perpetrator’s part and a clear rejection on the victim’s part are necessary for sexual violence to be recognized. These strict provisions, which do not go in line with the public view of this offence as insignificant, and the fact that sexual harassment law often conflicts with other laws concerning employment, lead to low instances of reporting and prosecution of such cases.

Female circumcision or female genital mutilation (FGM) is also outlawed under another chapter in German Penal Code. It used to be persecuted under section 224 (causing bodily harm by dangerous means), or 225 (maltreatment by those in position of trust), or 226 (causing grievous bodily harm), but now, under the influence of activist initiatives and public campaigns, it has its own subsection 226a. Forced marriages and human trafficking for the purpose of sex exploitation are covered in chapter eighteen (crimes against personhood), sections 237 and 232 accordingly.

The liberalization of German Penal Code is also evident in recent years. This could be illustrated, for example, by the decriminalization of (voluntary) prostitution in 2002, since women, being the majority of sex workers, have grown to be regarded as people who should enjoy the same rights of sexual self-determination as men. Male prostitution also has its niche on the market of the sex industry. German law recognizes the difference between voluntary and coerced sexual practices, and sex work has been normalized in legal discourse and equated to other forms of businesses, with similar regulations (registration, taxation) that apply to it. The legal regulation of prostitutes has also improved since the organization of groups to lobby their interests – which have claimed rights to social security for example. However, public attitudes towards sex work remain generally negative, with women participating in the sex industry often being ostracized and marginalized. The social significance of prostitution and its influence on women is still a matter of debate in Germany.

Germany also experiences pressure from the European Union and international legislative bodies and conventions. Germany ratified and signed different European and international conventions and resolutions that protect women against sexual violence: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) and others. For example, international pressure on German laws is seen in the fact that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture urges Germany to prohibit the use of surgical castration of sex offenders – a punishment taking roots in the Nazi Germany practice of sterilization – which now only happens in Germany and the Czech Republic (Allen 2012).

In general, German legislature is regarded as an efficient way to combat sexual violence. However, the question concerning the prosecution of sexual violence cases remains open. German law is criticized for having a high threshold in terms of victims reporting sexual violence and seeking help. Mona Kuepers claims: “Currently, a clear ‘no’ is not sufficient. There is still a need to prove coercion, the use of violence, the threat of danger to life or limb or taking advantage of a ‘vulnerable position’” (European Women’s Lobby, 2013).

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In addition, criminal procedure in German courts does not prevent victims from being asked about their previous sexual behaviour. According to criticism from victims’ rights advocates, this poses a serious threat, since such procedures allow victim blaming strategies to be used in court and result in putting victims on trial, instead of the offenders, in order to determine if they conform to the model of a stereotypical victim’s behaviour. Such line of questioning is allowed only if the information about the victim is strictly necessary for the case, however, criminal defence attorneys, who present a strong resistance to the proposed rape shield laws, often argue that such information is essential for prosecution (Dubber, & Hörnle, 2014: 620). The ability to withhold some information about their background is especially important for the representatives of disadvantaged and marginalized groups, for example, if the victim is a sex worker, who is traditionally viewed as a ‘deserving’ victim.

Further, prosecution of criminal cases that involve sexual violence is criticized for not taking into consideration various reactions victims may have during or after an assault. Often, victims become paralyzed by fear or do not resist “enough” for the action of the perpetrator to be considered as coercion. What is more, the state of vulnerability is defined from the objective perspective of possibilities to escape/resist, not from the victim’s subjective perspective (European Women’s Lobby, 2013).

Currently, there are heated debates taking place in Germany concerning the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (CAHVIO), referred to as the Istanbul convention. According to the convention, consent to any sexual activity (including any point of sexual act) should be yielded “voluntarily as a result of the free will of the person” (European Women’s Lobby, 2013). As a result of the implementation of such provisions, the scheme of prosecution in cases of sexual violence would change, and the trial would be focused not on the typical reactions of the victim, but on inquiring on a case-by-case basis whether the consent was given freely.

South Korea

The Korean Penal Code was adopted in 1953, and until 1995 sexual violence was listed within the chapter called Crime Against Chastity. This reflects the traditional view of rape as a loss of woman’s virginity and chastity. The gradual change of attitudes in the country is reflected in the renaming of the chapter as Crimes of Rape and Indecent Act, emphasizing the shift from female chastity to a crime against the right of sexual self-determination as the reason for prosecution (Lee et al., 2010). In Korean, the words “sexual violence” could be translated as 성폭행 (Sung Pokhaeng). There are two types of crimes against the person under Korean law, Pokhaeng and Sanghae (상해). Pokhaeng could be translated as “violent act”, and it necessarily implies the use of direct physical force towards another person’s body. Therefore, sexual violence in Korea is understood as a physical assault that does not include insults and verbal harassment. However, physical contact is not always a requirement in cases of Pokhaeng. When an injury is the result of a crime it becomes categorized as Sanghae. The damage might be physical (bruises, fractures, transmission of diseases), but also psychological (neurosis, PTSD) which is also conceptualized as bodily injury.

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Three categories of rape are now recognized under the Korean law. The first one – Kang Kan – constitutes a sexual intercourse without consent of the person with use or threat of force. The second one, Yoo Sa Kang Kan (sometimes translated as “Like- Rape”), includes penetration of part of the victim’s body other than genitals, or insertion of objects and other body parts into the vagina under the use of force or threat of force. The third type is Choon Kang Kan, or quasi-rape, which covers cases of sexual intercourse “by taking advantage of the other’s condition of unconsciousness or inability to resist” (Korean Criminal Code, Article 299). It is evident that in Korean law, unlike in the German one, different circumstances of the crime of rape are assigned different symbolic meaning. What is more, due to the reforms of 2013, the definition of offences became gender neutral, reflecting the knowledge about the incidence of sexual violence. Before that, only a woman or a transsexual woman could be acknowledged as a victim of rape. All other cases used to be qualified as an indecent act by compulsion. However, my interviews with experts show that the influence of inherent linguistic meaning of the term still influences the conceptualization of the word “rape”: “One interesting thing that I noticed when looking at the written Hanji characters is that the word for ‘rape’, one of the Hanji characters, is the same that is used for 'woman'. So even though the word ‘rape’ may change in the legal definitions, it refers most explicitly to vaginal penetration” (KS1 2015). Indecent act by compulsion describes the acts that make the victims feel humiliation and repugnance, are sexual in their nature (violate the victim’s right to sexual self- determination) and require violence and intimidation or a victim’s inability to resist (quasi-indecent act by compulsion). These acts also may include such forms of physical sexual harassment as inappropriate touching, frottage, forcible kissing, etc.

Among the sex crimes, Korean Criminal Code also lists such crimes as death or injury as a result of rape or murder after rape, sexual intercourse with a minor (under 13, or over 14 with the use of fraudulent means or intimidation) or feeble minded person, sexual intercourse by abuse of occupational or other authority, intercourse under the pretence of marriage. Abduction with the purpose of marriage and engaging in sexual acts or with the purpose of human trafficking for prostitution and sexual exploitation are also punished under the Korean Criminal Code in the chapter concerning crimes of kidnapping. Victims of domestic violence are protected by the Special Act for the Punishment of Domestic Violence. Provisions of this law allow the victims to file for restraining orders against their abusers. Under the Act on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Protection, work with offenders and different schemes of domestic violence prevention and awareness are authorized. Still, UN CEDAW marks a low incidence of reporting and convictions in such crimes, emphasizing the vulnerability of the victims who often have to leave the place of living due to the provisions of the law. Korean Women's Association United (KWAU) has also listed a number of factors that hinder the prosecution of cases of domestic violence:

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“i) violence at home is culturally a matter of privacy, ii) legal and institutional safeguards for the victims are poor, iii) the awareness is low in the police, iv) the aggressor is often allowed to stay at home while the victim is driven away under the existing legal system, and v) public services focus on counselling for the victims rather than punishment of the perpetrators” (KWAU, 2008). Prostitution is criminalized in South Korea, with both the client and the provider of sexual services being eligible for punishment (punishment only for the client is foreseen if the victim is underage). However, such services of the sex industry that do not involve sexual intercourse as kissing and hugging/groping are legal. Verbal sexual violence might be qualified as an instance of defamation or insult (personal attack) or fall under the laws regulating workplace harassment. The Gender Equal Employment Act was the first legal document in the country to recognize sexual harassment, be it non-verbal, verbal or physical, as a crime in 1995. Under this act, the intent of the perpetrator to commit such an act is disregarded, while the perspective of the victims (their feeling of sexual humiliation, aversion, or possible problems at the work place) is considered as ground for prosecution. In addition, cyber-sexual violence is recognized as a significant problem, especially for children who are bullied in the Internet, or sent pornographic pictures and propositioned in chat rooms. In recent years, a plethora of changes in laws regarding sexual violence has been observed in South Korea. Since the amendments of 2013, crimes that involve sexual violence can now be prosecuted even if the victim does not file a report to the police, making it the responsibility of law enforcement to punish such crimes. Marital rape has been officially recognized as a crime by the decision of Korean Supreme Court since 2013, although previously there were cases of marital rape, but they were recognized under specific circumstances (e.g. when the spouses were separated). In some cases, Korean law relies on the international experience of prosecution and punishment of cases that involve sexual violence. For instance, chemical castration as a form of punishment for rapists was introduced in 2011, while a national database of sex offenders similar to one in the USA and some other countries was created.

South Korea also experiences international pressure from NGOs and transnational organizations that advocate for victims and human rights. What is more, South Korea has signed a number of conventions and agreements that are aimed at improving gender equality and fight against sexual violence: CEDAW, the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Convention on the Rights of the Child and many others.

The Korean legal system, much like the German one, is often criticized for the discrepancies between the legal definitions of sexual violence offences and their credibility in the framework of law enforcement and court performance. Courts demand victims to resist to the maximum in order to be recognized as victims who deserve protection. At the same time, a punishment for excessive self-defense is possible in the cases when victims are too good at protecting themselves. Thus, the only way to be accepted as a victim is to be nearly killed while attempting to defend their chastity. Otherwise, charges could be dismissed as a case of consensual intercourse (Lee, Kim & Lim 2010). Therefore, the trial may turn into an assessment

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Centre for German and European Studies of the victim and of her behaviour during the crime or before it, such as conformity to traditional gender roles and victim’s sexual history. It has been also shown, that police officer’s views remain influenced by myths about sexual violence (Lee, Lee & Lee 2012).

The practice of settling out of court in criminal cases is also questioned by some critics, who maintain that it helps offenders escape punishment and registration as sex offenders. A settlement out of court is allowed between the victim and the offender if the latter acknowledges his guilt and apologizes. Korean law enforcement is often criticized for encouraging and pressuring those victims who want to report crimes to drop charges and accept money payment instead (Strother, 2013). This situation has recently been amended with law reforms that allow prosecution of cases of sexual violence even when the perpetrator and the victim reached an agreement.

Conclusion

This chapter has outlined the methodological grounds of the research. This was done, first, through the demonstration of methodological tools of selecting and analyzing information under study. Then it was complemented, consistently with the objective to inquire into the historical and cultural background of the changes in the definition of sexual violence in each of the countries under study, by the study of cultural, social, historical and legal aspects of the construction of sexual violence, which might further explain the differences in the findings that are outlined in the third chapter.

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Chapter 3. Structure of discourse and mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence in German and South Korean newspapers

In this chapter, the results of my empirical research are presented. It should be pointed out again, however, that this research is executed in a qualitative paradigm, which implies the exploration of the issue in-depth. Often in such projects that use data-driven coding and analyzing techniques, it is the data that leads the researchers to new ideas and new areas of exploration. This also happened in my study, and it prompted me, as the researcher, to focus on the topics that turned out to be of specific interest in the investigated data. Therefore, this chapter is structured as follows: first, the structures of media discourses on sexual violence in German and Korean newspapers are discussed and the main themes and actors that structure these discourses are identified; second, the mechanisms that construct sexual violence are identified and, simultaneously, the characteristics of this construction are outlined; third, the main discourses that compete for the right to construct the term of sexual violence in a legitimate way are described.

3.1. Structure of media discourse in South Korea and Germany

In this study, discourse is understood in the Foucauldian tradition as a set of signs and meanings that present repeating connections and relations among each other and form sets of justifications. Discourse is the process of construction of meanings and simultaneously its result (text). In this regard, two dimensions of discourse relevant for my study can be distinguished. The first dimension is connected with the institutional field of media, which is formed by actors who gain access to it as professionals in the field: reporters, journalists, editors and production staff. This field of discourse was already discerned in the description of methodology when I chose the corpus data: articles in specific newspapers that addressed the topic of sexual violence.

The second dimension of discourse is concerned with the analysis of sexual violence construction in media. Various other groups of interest have access to the formation of understanding of sexual violence and its revision. Their views are also presented in the field of the media, where they form sub-discourses and compete for dominance in assigning meanings to sexual violence. In order to understand which actors produce and influence the dominant and counter-discourses, it is essential to study the structure of media discourse.

With the description of the structure of these discourses, their general description is given. There are various elements to the structure of discourse: linguistic, rhetorical, temporal, macro- and microstructure, and others. My analysis of the structure of discourse provided below is based on Keller’s SKAD method that presupposes the study of major, central and minor topics, and the connections between them, but also the study of actors and how they position themselves in the discourse.

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Themes

One of the components of the structure of discourse is the recurring themes around which it is organized. During the selection of texts for this research, intermediary analysis was conducted. It showed that some themes frequently appeared in media discourse alongside the topic of sexual violence. Frequent use was established by looking at topics which featured in newspapers under study more than two times.

It is possible to distinguish similar themes that appear both in German and Korean newspapers. They can be divided into three types. The first of them is connected with the international scandals which concern famous people committing sexual violence. These are series of articles on the cases of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Julian Assange, and Roman Polanski. The breakdown of reporting on these topics was uneven between both Korean and German newspapers, with Der Spiegel and Chosun Ilbo having far more articles on these topics than other outlets.

The second recurring theme that appears in connection to sexual violence is the consequences of the Second World War. However, the differences in text volume dedicated to this theme in the outlets under study is evident. Der Spiegel only published a few articles concerning wartime rape that was committed by German soldiers (Der Spiegel, 2011-04-08) in other countries, and by the Allied (Der Spiegel, 2015-03-02) and the Red Army on the occupied territories (Der Spiegel, 2013-10-17; 2010-02-26). Meanwhile publications in Korean sources were numerous and constant, with a few articles being dedicated to this topic every month (e.g. Chosun Ilbo, 2014-08-04; 2014-08-06; Hankyoreh, 2014-08-02; 2014-08-06). This shows that media discourses on sexual violence are still rooted in the topics that “opened” them. What is more, in South Korea, which was a colony of Japan for a significant part of the 20th century, this might be a powerful tool of remembering and deconstructing the colonial past.

The third theme is connected to the legislative changes concerning sexual violence. Media discourse thus plays the role of a public arena where sex crimes laws are discussed and various, often competing, points of view are presented. This competition becomes particularly evident in the debates concerning the legalization of prostitution, which will be mentioned later.

There are also differences in the covered themes between German and Korean outlets. Newspapers in Germany present such themes as abuse in Catholic church and abuse in Catholic school, sexual violence during Oktoberfest, Strauss-Kahn case, sexual violence committed by politicians, and certain religious and cultural practices (e.g. circumcision). In Der Spiegel domestic and political themes seem to prevail, while Süddeutsche Zeitung shows more interest in the investigation of sexual violence in other countries.

South Korean newspapers also cover themes connected with domestic scandals and national particularities. These themes include sexual violence in the military system, sex crimes allegedly committed by people in power (politicians, producers, and prosecutors), sexual abuses among teenagers and sexual abuse in schools, and rapes committed by US soldiers.

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Along with the types of sexual violence that are featured in the media discourse (as described further), these themes constitute typificatory schemes of what events can and should be considered as sexual violence. These typifications present recurring types of situations, victims and perpetrators, with which the readers compare their life experiences and which, thus, serve as the mould for considering what constitutes sexual violence.

Due to the extensive volume of data, the analysis of selected articles was conducted with the help of methodology of grounded theory proposed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967). This theory illustrates the technical aspect of analysis of qualitative data, suggesting the use of coding in order to identify the major elements of the narratives presented in the data.

Using open and axial coding, in the process of this research a number sub-themes within the aforementioned themes was identified in the discourse. These themes present the elements, through which the social construction of sexual violence is conducted. In the course of the research, based on the procedures of grounded theory, I divided the discourse into the following fragments that summarize and provide categories for the units of analysis:

 Actors: social workers, courts, women’s rights organizations, police, prosecutors, victims, perpetrators, victims’ relatives, etc.

 Causes of sexual violence: to induce terror, to affirm masculinity, alcohol, child neglect, distorted view of sexual behaviour, low self-esteem, poverty, technological development, etc.

 Characteristics of the perpetrator: female, male, powerful, frightened, high self- esteem, ordinary, recidivist, etc.

 Characteristics of the victim: underage, foreigner, female, vulnerable, beautiful, shy, fearless, ashamed, unreliable, etc.

 Community responses: businesses support, help centres for women, reporting, negative stigmatization of the victim, etc.

 Myths about sexual violence: perpetrators are sick, sexual violence is committed by strangers – deconstructed, women can easily destroy men with accusations, rape happens in dark alleys – deconstructed, etc.

 Sexual double standards: girls are troublesome, location is not safe for women, women feel vulnerable, men feel less vulnerable, etc.

 Rhetorics: rhetoric of injustice, rhetoric of loss, rhetoric of shame, rhetoric of threat, rhetoric of ubiquity, rhetoric of uncertainty, etc.

 Stylistic tools: appeals to international experience, emotional language, use of personal narratives, metaphors, generalization, dramatization, etc.

 Cultural background: role of the family, attitudes towards disclosure, importance of the image of the country, etc.

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These fragments are based on the core categories that construct sexual violence in the media discourse. Each actor has their set of categories associated with their position and interpretation of the fragments of discourse. This systematization will help in the further analysis of the way sexual violence is constructed in German and Korean discourses, but for the purposes of the current paper some fragments of discourse were analysed more closely. These were actors, rhetorics and stylistic tools, myths about sexual violence and cultural background.

Actors

Social actors are understood as those individuals and groups who produce utterances and statements in the field of media. Actors are presented in the discourse in the speaking position, where they use specific discursive practices to construct and transform meanings. In order to become speakers, actors need to occupy a relevant position in the field and have their own set of storylines and their explanations regarding the phenomena in the discourse. Having different resources and capitals, actors, therefore, might enter into discourse coalitions. Thus, depending on the influence that each actor has in the field, sexual violence might be constructed in one way or another.

The results of discourse analysis show that each of the cases has its own set of actors that shape the discourse. In German newspapers, the majority of people, whose opinions are expressed, are the representatives of women’s rights organizations and NGOs that support the victims of sexual violence. These actors also have a high significance in Korean newspapers. However, the way they are depicted in the newspapers is different. In German media, the work of feminist organizations and individual advocates of victims’ rights often take the central stage of the narrative. Due to the inability to contact the victims themselves, the stories of those who fight against sexual violence are used for the purpose of personalization of discourse. Often, their experience is presented in the form of a story, when, first, the characters are introduced: “Alexandra Stigger (pictured) is all too familiar with it [Oktoberfest] but says it’s nevertheless a great celebration. Stigger, 29, is a Munich native who grew up attending it every year, and now she works there — not in one of the beer tents but in a service center where the Red Cross, a lost-and-found and the women’s support center where Stigger works are housed” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2014-09-08).

Then, the story usually proceeds with the description of a day in their life, where their duties are explained: “During the tour, she [deputy mayor] occasionally points to a hut and shouts bits and pieces of a story over the music playing in her car. As she drives, she tells stories of various cases of sexual abuse in the neighborhood, some so graphic they are unfit for publication” (Der Spiegel, 2014-03-17).

In these stories, a deep understanding of the problem of sexual violence against which the actors fight is achieved through the depiction of real-life human experience and individual on-the-spot reactions.

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At the same time, in Korean newspapers, women’s rights organizations are usually introduced as experts. While Chosun Ilbo seldom gives account on the behalf of women’s rights organizations, Hankyoreh tends to regularly present their opinions, for example, when they comment on legislative change:

In past cases of domestic violence, men have been prosecuted only for violence, not for sexual violence," said Korea Women's Hotline Secretary-general Song Ran-hee. "The means to punish them existed under present law, but the court chose not to take a proactive stance in interpreting the law. (Hankyoreh, 2013-05-17). The significance of the presence of women’s rights organization in the discourse is supported by the materials of the interviews. When asked whether journalists try to contact them as experts, the representative of women’s rights organization in Germany answered: “Yes, very much so. I think during the last year, we never had so many calls from media than in the last year” (GW1, 2015). The spokesperson later also elaborated on the types of information that media asks from them, saying that about 80% of journalists want to talk to the victim (which the organization cannot help with), while some want “to explain the situation of women in the society, the power relations, reasons for violence” (GW1, 2015). The representative from Korean women’s rights organization also states: “Newsmakers contact our organization if something unusual happens. They usually either ask for an interview, or want advice when they are writing an article, or need an expert interview” (KW1). Politicians and policy-makers also occupy a significant position in the discourse of German newspapers. This is especially evident in the discussion of the criminalization or decriminalization of certain practices that could be viewed as sexual violence. What is more, their position in the discourse is sometimes stated to be crucial since they have control over the policy-making process and the development and revision of laws. For example, in the discussion on the legalization of prostitution, Pierrette Pape, a representative of European Women's Lobby, maintains: "The debate has begun throughout Europe, and we hope that German politicians and aid organizations will pay more attention to human rights in the future than they have until now" (Der Spiegel 2013-05-30). At the same time, the passivity of German politicians is also emphasized: “In 2008, the Conference of Equality and Women's Ministers tried to introduce a rule that would make brothel operators subject to a reliability test. They consulted with their colleagues in the Conference of Interior Ministers, but nothing happened” (Der Spiegel, 2013-05-30). Although legal and law enforcement professionals (such as judges, prosecutors, and the police) are extensively represented in German discourse, their opinions hold an even more significant position in Korean newspapers. Along with commenting on the issues of legalization, they also provide statistics regarding sex crimes: “According to police, the number of foreigners who committed crimes here rose from 20,623 in 2008 to 26,663 in 2012” (Chosun Ilbo, 2012-01-15). For Chosun Ilbo, professionals performing in the field of law are the primary source of information alongside the representatives of academic community.

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The latter hold a leading position in the Korean media discourse about sexual violence. The majority of the speakers are professors (of law, sociology, history, media, anthropology) presenting their expert knowledge or the results of their research in the articles. Germany features a wider set of social actors in their articles, showing how the community – neighbours, businesses, employers, medical facilities, relatives and friends of the victims or perpetrators react to sexual violence. These voices appear less often in Korean newspapers, and are usually to be heard when the response develops into organized action (e.g. the response to the death of Jang Ja-yeon and the organization of People’s Court in Hankyoreh, 2011-06-03).

Sometimes, victims of sexual violence also narrate on their lives or give comments on sexual violence. The infrequent occurrence of the victims of sexual violence being the speakers in the media discourse is easy to understand, given how traumatic and sensitive a topic it is. The lack of victims’ perspective might partially be compensated by the comments of victims’ rights advocates. At the same time, the position of perpetrators is sometimes mentioned, too, either via direct comments or through the indirect statements of their lawyers.

All things considered, it is evident that politicians and women’s rights organizations are the main actors in German newspapers, while legal professionals and scientists present their views more often in Korean newspapers. Thus, it seems possible to conclude that German media discourse on sexual violence is more politicized, while in South Korea it is rather constructed as a social problem with the dominating contribution of such claim-makers as legal experts and scholars.

3.2. Mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence in the newspapers of Germany and South Korea

It is essential now to identify the mechanisms that contribute to the construction of sexual violence in each of the cases. As was previously demonstrated, an array of mechanisms can be used for such purposes including agenda setting and framing, priming, construction of myths, use of language games and many others.

This chapter not only goes though the range of mechanisms that are found to be used for the purposes of the construction of sexual violence in the media discourses of South Korea and Germany, but also discusses how they are used. Four major, most vivid, subjects of such construction has been identified in the sources: (1) use of various rhetorics and stylistic tools for the politicization of sexual violence; (2) use of different stylistic tools and framing efforts as well as bringing specific myths about sexual violence onto the agenda depending on the maturity of discourses on sexual violence; (3) use of agenda-setting and framing in the construction of sexual violence through the (re)definition of the concepts of blame and shame; and (4) use of agenda- setting and framing in the construction of the Other.

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Degree of politicization

German and Korean newspapers are characterized by the use of distinctive sets of stylistic tools in their reporting. Some stylistic tools are common for the discourses of Germany and South Korea. For instance, both national media try to use real cases to illustrate their articles, although German outlets are far more successful in this regard. What is more, since in both countries the name of the victim cannot be mentioned in media, pseudonyms are used instead of impersonal namings such as “miss A”, “mister B”. However, there is a big difference in the way stories of sexual violence are represented in Chosun Ilbo and Hankyoreh, as compared to the German newspapers under study. Hankyoreh seems to be closer in its reporting style to both German newspapers. This can be traced in the attempts to use personal narratives (of victims, perpetrators or stakeholders) as much as possible so as to make stories more “relatable”. Hankyoreh has several articles where personal narratives are used to drive the storytelling: e.g. an article about exhibitionism (Hankyoreh, 2014-10-05) where interviews with experts such as police officers, professors and public defenders are combined with the testimony of an offender. Chosun Ilbo relies mainly on statistics and interviews with legal professionals, with almost the only exception connected with the experience of “comfort women”. This indicates that there is greater polarization in the target audiences between two Korean newspapers than between German ones. German newspapers often frame their articles about sexual violence as literary pieces with frequent use of literary plots and tools. Events are described in a successive, detailed manner. Tools of presenting the contradictions between the pleasant, normal setting of the story and the abnormality of the topic of sexual violence are often used: “At the Manila sushi bar, Angel and Annalisa recount some of the horrors that happened to them abroad” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-07-17). Metaphors (presenting the police and perpetrators as adversaries) and comparisons (fight against sexual violence as a war) are also sometimes used in the text, but more likely in the headings: for example, talking about sexual violence as a disease - “the plague of forced marriages” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-07-25). Rhetoric is one of the important varieties of language games. Rhetorics presuppose the use of symbols and motifs in order to create an atmosphere, where the readers feel the need to act to solve a problem presented by the newspapers. Both German and South Korean newspapers use the rhetorics of threat and emphasize the risks (of becoming a victim of sexual violence, of having STIs as a result of sexual violence) when they report on the issues of sexual violence. For example, once the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the preventive detention of sex offenders in Germany was leading to the violation of human rights, an article was published to voice the negative response from various actors (local community, public defender, the police): “Anyone who called the police now to ask that such offenders be monitored, said [the head of the police union GdP, Konrad] Freiberg, would be told: ‘That isn't possible’” (Der Spiegel, 2010-05-19). However, the motif of risk becomes particularly evident in the Korean case, where intense rhetorics of the ubiquity of sexual violence and its spatial proximity to the lives of ordinary people, as well as emphasis on the horror of sexual violence bordering on

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however, is often used as a supplementary topic in the articles on political topics when discussing the political opponents (Der Spiegel 2013-09-13). Yet another element of analysis concentrates on the use of citation. In the majority of cases, in German newspapers the citation is either followed or preceded by the journalist’s text that either clarifies or critiques the utterance. For example, this comment expresses the attitude of disbelief and astonishment in response to the comment made by the spokesperson of the help center: “'We believe that a woman should be able to walk through the festival naked and not be molested,' Stigger says. What an idea, especially given just how uninhibited the atmosphere can be — particularly on Saturday nights” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2014-09-08). This is the direct, explicit form in which professionals in the field of media specify their position. Korean newspapers also sometimes use this way of identifying their stance. However, often they give the quotation without a direct comment on it; still, the meaning is derived implicitly from the previous or subsequent choice of speakers who support or argue with it. Sometimes, the combination of factual information and emotional language serves as the expression of editorial position. Maturity of discourse

The analysed German newspapers are characterized by long, investigative articles with in-depth studies of sexual violence as a systematic phenomenon, while in Korean newspapers, although not without a fair part of investigative pieces, the articles are shorter, they often provide a simple description of facts and historical backgrounds of sex crimes and predominantly use statistics (provided by state bodies or by NGOs). Statistics are especially often used in Chosun Ilbo as a supplement to the expert opinions of various professionals or as the major content of the articles. The difference in length of the articles has been shown above in Table 1: on average, articles in German newspapers were twice as big in volume as the Korean ones.

At the same time, Korean articles provide a vast use of expert and scientific knowledge alongside the use of emotionally loaded and moralistic language to describe sexual violence, such as “brutal”, “henious”, “sadistic”, “perverted”, “unimaginable terror”, “shameful acts”, “worst human rights violation of all”. Frequent use of statistics, expert knowledge and emotionally loaded assessment of sexual violence could be explained by the need to problematize, objectify, and legitimize sexual violence as a social problem. In this case, governmental bodies and academia are used as actors, whose opinions are valued and trusted.

In German newspapers, on the other hand, articles tend to use more impartial language with infrequent use of emotionally loaded words or phrases. Emotional language, however, can be seen in the headings (a common journalistic tactic of catching readers’ attention) and in the personal narratives of the actors, especially of those who empathize with the victim: parents, victims’ rights organizations, other advocates and victims themselves.

What is more, when we look at how myths about sexual violence are presented in German newspapers, we can see that, although in the majority of cases they are deconstructed, it is done in a casual and implicit way. For example, by explaining the consequences of sexual violence for victims the myth about the fact that victims of sexual violence will not suffer any long-term effects of victimization is implicitly

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Meanwhile, in the Korean case, many articles specifically and openly state that they subvert and dismantle the myths concerning sexual violence. This is often done with the help of statistics and scientific research as ‘reliable sources’, and presented as new information: “Among paraphilias, exhibitionism was also found to occur at a high rate among women. One 2006 study by Niklas Langstrom found 32% of exhibitionists in Sweden to be female. It’s not only men who wear raincoats” (Hankyoreh, 2014- 10-05).

This quote which describes exhibitionism as a sex crime, also illustrates another difference between German and Korean discourses: the latter discovers more diversity in the types of sexual violence that are presented in the articles. The types of sexual violence that are covered by Korean newspapers include: prostitution and human trafficking, child pornography and child sexual abuse, rape, “quasi-rape”, physical sexual harassment and groping in public and deserted areas, exhibitionism, seduction (intercourse under promise of marriage), taking photos of sexual nature without consent. Meanwhile, the German discourse most frequently describes rape or child sexual abuse, with a few articles about prostitution and harassment, and some types of sexual violence that are associated with specific ethnic groups (FGM, circumcision, forced marriages, child marriages). This observation on the limited understanding of sexual violence is supported by a media expert, who, when asked about which types of sexual violence are present in German media discourse, states: “I would say just rape” (GM1 2015). Thus, I can summarize four observations: 1) the prevalence of long investigative articles with extensive personal narratives in Germany and more factual data, statistics and expert knowledge in Korean printed media; 2) more frequent use of emotionally loaded language and moral condemnation in Korean newspapers; 3) explicit deconstruction of myths about sexual violence in Korean articles; 4) a greater variety of types of sexual violence as introduced in South Korean case. One of the possible explanations of the discovered differences could lie in the various degrees in the maturity of discourses in two national contexts. Korean newspapers seem to be at the inception of the open sexual violence discourse and require knowledge about the vast variety of instances of sexual violence, reasons for committing it and consequences that it may have. Meanwhile, German newspapers do not require this as an introductory step and, instead, focus on the most shocking and “serious” crimes, which can potentially attract more audience. One of the newspapers even mentions it openly, giving reasons why such a “mundane” type of sexual violence as harassment is depicted in the articles: “There’s no way Stern magazine would have picked up on the story if it had involved some middle management Lothario; scenes like this are way too routine in Germany to constitute “news.” What was news, however, was that the protagonist of this case was Rainer Bruderle, a top German politician” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-01-30).

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Based on the evidence from the articles, it is possible to conclude that in Germany the discourse about sexual violence is more mature than in South Korea. The term of ‘maturity’ here does not have any evaluative connotation, but simply refers to having a fully developed area of discourse. On the opposite, in Korean case statistical data, research and expert knowledge are presented as having a significant degree of novelty. From the description of the historical background that was presented in the second chapter, it becomes evident that the issue of sexual violence came to public attention approximately simultaneously both in Germany and South Korea: in the mid-1990s. At the same time, the differences in the maturity of discourses that have been identified in my research show that the development of discourse is not directly influenced by the ‘age’ of discourse: instead, it seems that public discussions of the issue of sexual violence have been long active in Germany, which has led to many legal and social transformations, while the reaction of Korean publics must have been more lukewarm in the end of 20th century. Construction of blame and shame

One more major aspect of constructing sexual violence lies in the different ways of framing it in the context of blame and shame in the two countries under study. In German newspapers, both motifs of blame and shame and the feeling of humiliation are mentioned as a consequence that victims of sexual violence experience. Significant attention is paid to women’s rights organizations who try to deconstruct these feelings and affirm that victims should not feel this way, because the blame lies with the perpetrator.

In South Korea, however, the motifs of shame, humiliation and embarrassment are used not only with regard to the victim, but when the perpetrator and his actions are described. Being accused of conducting sexual violence seems to be equated to loss of face and character assassination. Media reports on the cases, where known offenders were compelled to confess to a crime because their offence was made public or they decided to step down from their position under social pressure. A vivid example here would be the recent case of a man groping a woman on the subway: “[A video] was uploaded onto a web portal. Public opinion was outraged and the man in the video, whose face was clearly visible, [and who] turned himself in less than a day later” (Hankyoreh, 2014-06-23).

Another example is connected with the Blue House spokesperson Yoon Chang-jung, who has been already mentioned earlier in this chapter. He was accused of sexually assaulting an intern on his trip to the USA, after which the “shameful spokesperson”, as he was referred to in Hankyoreh (2013-05-13), was dismissed. This story was later featured on China’s Most Embarrassing Incidents of 2013 (Chosun Ilbo, 2013-12-20). All of this shows that being involved in a scandal is already considered embarrassing and shameful. Yoon Chang-jung was also referred to as a ‘role model’ for international disgrace (“The globalization of bad Korean culture?” by Hankyoreh, 2013-05-14), which is connected with how the country is viewed from the international perspective which is often important in the context of Korean media discourse.

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In a number of other occasions, Korean newspapers addressed and assessed the international experience of dealing with sexual violence, as well as comparing the situation in South Korea with the experiences of other countries, mainly Japan and the USA. Other countries are brought up constantly when the assessment of efficiency of policies is discussed as a means to maintain the image of the country. For example, the response to the international pressure to combat human trafficking mentions Japan, as if showing that ‘it is even worse somewhere’: “South Korea is in Tier 1, which groups countries that fully comply with the international minimum standards. Japan is in Tier 2 for countries whose governments do not fully comply with international minimum standards but are making efforts to do so, on the grounds that the number of foreign women in prostitution is increasing through organized sham marriages” (Chosun Ilbo, 2011-06-29).

A possible explanation for such a frequency of using the motifs of shame and embarrassment might lie in the different types of culture Germany and Korea belong to. According to Ruth Benedict (2004), two types of culture could be distinguished: guilt cultures in which the inculcation of feelings of guilt for behavior patterns that the individual believes to be undesirable turn into the primary method of social control, and shame cultures which are honour-driven cultures and in which the predominant tools of social control and order maintenance are the inculcation of shame and the resulting threat of ostracism. Indeed, the recurring motifs of shame in Korean newspapers which go in line with the motifs of social exclusion seem to corroborate South Korean society being a shame culture.

Construction of the opposition between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’

Another major point of my analysis is the construction of sexual violence as an instrument to denote the boundary between the cultural ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. As previously mentioned, each actor, when constructing phenomena with negative connotation, like sexual violence, strives to exclude his/her own practices from the definition. Therefore, actors that occupy positions of power attempt to maximize the “otherization” of sexual violence. Both Germany and South Korea, after the reconstruction of the countries during the post-war period, have become the destinations of immigration. Ethnic minorities still do not hold powerful positions in the society, so it does not seem surprising that the marginalization of the cultural Other infiltrated the discourses of sexual violence as well.

Constructing sexual violence as a boundary between cultures is implemented both by German and Korean sources. However, the ways this is done differ across countries. In Germany, it is done through cultural eroticization. The newspapers present many articles about cases of sexual violence in other countries (Turkey, Egypt, Philippines, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Kenya and other African countries) with in-depth analysis of their cultures. At the same time, these stories present the unique types of sexual violence that are only discussed in connection to these countries: FGM, forced marriages and child marriages.

On the contrary, in Korean discourse, the Other is discussed predominantly in the context of the country itself. This could be understood as a part of the agenda from articles with such headings as “Korea Struggles with Crimes by Illegal Aliens” (Chosun Ilbo, 2012-01-15) and “Crimes by Foreigners on the Rise” (Chosun Ilbo,

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2010-06-30) or “More than 1 in 10 female migrants suffers sexual abuse” (Hankyoreh, 2013-05-05). These articles are illustrated with statistics showing that more foreigners commit sexual violence and more foreigners become victims of sexual violence in Korea. Since statistical data is not examined critically (e.g. low reporting rates among the population are not taken into account), it seems as if the media discourse aims to distance the native Koreans from such crimes, by showing that sexual violence mostly happens to foreigners and is caused by foreigners, and therefore, it is a foreign/alien problem. In addition, powerful recurring topics such as the Japanese occupation and American soldiers’ military presence go along with the claims about the prevalence of crime committed by foreigners in South Korea.

However, even if the perpetrator is an ethnic Korean, attempts are made to distance him from the rest of the population. This is done, for example, through framing and defining the perpetrator as not being a “real” Korean, as in the case of a murderer from Suwon, by mentioning that he lived in China: “Wu Yuanchun, a 42-eyear-old ethnic Korean from China…” (Hankyoreh, 2012-06-16). To conclude, it is possible to state that in both cases scapegoating of migrants in connection to sexual violence and the exotization of violence are visible, although different rethorics are used by the outlets. This way of constructing sexual violence, targeted at marginalized groups, also tends to reproduce social inequalities within and across countries.

3.3. Relations between various discourses constructing sexual violence

Various approaches to the construction of sexual violence can be traced in the German and Korean media discourses on sexual violence. Discourses compete with each other in order to ensure their legitimacy and power to construct social phenomena as “truth”. When actors assume the position of power, when they are able to transmit and impose their views and argumentations over other actors, counter- discourses arise that attempt to contest the institutionalized way of constructing social reality. As we have seen earlier, there are many actors that have access to discourse formation both in Germany and South Korea, each having their own ideas concerning what constitutes sexual violence and what does not. Therefore, for the purpose of answering my guiding question, an analysis of sub-discourses, giving their interpretations of sexual violence, is essential.

Based on Keller’s SKAD methodology, one more major point of analysis is connected to the competition of various discourses on sexual violence all of which present their unique ways of classification of objects and situations as sexual violence, as well as their sets of justifications. What is more, these discourses are produced by specific actors, and the analysis of newspapers led me to the identification of such major oppositions that are peculiar to the debates concerning sexual violence in Germany and Korea: competition between “neoliberal” and interventionist discourses, between rights of the children and rights of the minorities, and between public interest and interests of the victims.

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Social construction of sexual violence in liberal and interventionist discourses

A significant piece of evidence of the competition among the discourses common to German and South Korea concerns the struggle between neoliberal and interventionist logics. The most remarkable example of this struggle could be traced in the debates concerning the question about the legalization of prostitution. Liberal discourse maintains that legalization of sex work is a women’s rights issue. With the changing attitudes towards female sexuality and their bodies, neoliberal discourse appeals to the rhetoric of entitlement (to the rights and freedoms) and furthers the idea that prostitution is a free choice of women that should not be restricted by archaic laws designed to protect the chastity of women. Therefore, women’s experience with prostitution should not be associated with the question of women’s sexual purity, but with their right to control their body and to realize their sexual self- determination.

There is a number of actors that support such construction of prostitution. The articles and the previously conducted inquiry into the legal aspects of the construction of sexual violence show that the liberal discourse is the one that is institutionalized in Germany with regard to prostitution. It is incorporated in the law, promoted by politicians and weakly contested: only a few politicians disagree with this approach, and their attempts at social change have not been fruitful, to the point of not being able to put the topic of criminalization of prostitution on the agenda again (see the quotation about politicians in the segment about actors above).

Among the supporters of legalization of prostitution, are prostitutes themselves. For example, Johanna Weber, the founder of the first cooperative body for sex workers, claims: “There is currently the public perception that thousands of women in Germany are being forced into prostitution… I am stunned by this, because it's simply not true. There are many good, clean brothels, and most of the women do these jobs independently and voluntarily” (Der Spiegel, 2013-10-30). As it is evident from this statement, the supporters of the law use the rhetoric of unreason to emphasize the misrepresentation of sex industry in Germany. They appeal to the idea that sex work is a voluntary choice.

Among other supportive actors whose views are presented in the media discourse, are social workers, family planning centers and therapists, arguing that sex workers might help physically and mentally disabled people to improve their quality of life (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-05-22); some researchers come to the conclusion that "as a recognized sex trade, is undergoing a process of emancipation and professionalization" (Der Spiegel, 2013-05-30), while brothel operators are in favour of legalization since it simplifies their work.

A “interventionist” discourse is also produced by various actors. Among the most prominent of them are human rights organizations and law enforcement officers that point out the evidence that legalization of prostitution has led to the increase of human trafficking and deterioration of the working conditions among prostitutes. Interventionist logic appeals to the rhetoric of unreason showing that neoliberal logic is a deceit to cover up the exploitation of thousands of women under the ruse of a fight for women’s rights. Sex workers are also represented in this group, with one of

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Some politicians, like Tekla Walker from the Green Party, support the counter- discourse: “The current laws do not protect women from exploitation, but grant them ‘merely the freedom to allow themselves to be exploited’” (Der Spiegel, 2013-05-30). This is also true for many social workers, researchers, professors, and local and international institutions like UEGD, German Ministry of Family Affairs, and European Commissioner for Home Affairs (Der Spiegel, 2013-05-30). Outlined here are two main discourse coalitions of actors, each of which has their own interest but aims to achieve similar goals in terms of the construction of prostitution either as sexual violence or not.

In this competition for the power over the construction of prostitution either as sexually violent practice or as an act of sexual self-determination, liberal and interventionist discourses bring the typifying examples of sex workers. In liberal discourses, these are German women who voluntarily chose this work, have registered with the government and have formed alliances among themselves and with some institutions (e.g. health institutions, family organizations), and who work independently. While the typical example of a sex worker in interventionist discourses is a foreign woman who came to Germany because she did not have money to live on in her country, or because her loved one tricked her into becoming a prostitute, she works on the street or in a flat-rate brothel and earns little, while her pimp gets all the money, and she is overworked.

As we can see, many governmental bodies in Germany support the liberal logic in their interpretations of prostitution. Therefore, it is possible to say that the neoliberal approach forms the institutionalized discourse in the legislature, however the media discourse shows no such homogeneity. In some of the articles under study, comic style of claim-making is used to ridicule the assumptions of the neo-liberal discourse showing the irony in “women toasting the fact that men in Germany could now go to brothels without any scruples” (Der Spiegel, 2013-05-30). Sometimes newspapers frame their reports in a way to accentuate the benefits and positive perception of legalized sex work (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-07-04; 2013-05-22; Der Spiegel, 2013-10-30), other times they bring onto the agenda such stories that undeniably construct prostitution as a type of sexual violence in which the line between consent and coercion is blurred (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2013-08-08).

A similar division in the conceptualization of prostitution is evident in Korean media discourse. Hankyoreh presents the debates between professionals concerning the proposed bill that would legalize prostitution in South Korea. The liberal discourse is predominantly represented by legal professionals (judges and professors of law school) who argue that: “[This bill] positions sex work as a matter of women’s rights and provides a starting point for a debate on expanding women’s rights to self- determination” (Hankyoreh, 2013-01-11).

They add that “law should avoid stepping into moral issues as much as possible” (Hankyoreh, 2013-01-11). This argument is used in the whole set of debates about the construction of sexual violence both in Germany and South Korea. Legal experts and professionals in both countries maintain that the government should refrain from

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In South Korea, this argument was essential in the repeal of the law that punishes adultery. It is now also used as an argument against the law regulating “sexual intercourse under pretence of marriage”. This law is applicable in cases of men lying about the possible marriage with women in order to sleep with them. In the interview, the German legal professional confirms that this dichotomy also exists in Germany in the discussion of ratification of Istanbul convention, saying: “Many groups say that Penal Code should not apply to every situation in life, there have to be some spaces of liberty and not everybody has to be protected. Gown-ups who are not mentally ill don’t need that much of protection” (GL2).

Some activists and scholars support the general view against excessive criminalization, but provide different reasons for that, which is evident in the comment that was given by a researcher who studies sexual violence in Korea. When asked about activism concerning street sexual harassment in Korea, the scholar answered: “We take a stance away from using law as a remedy to sexual violence. Criminalization is often targeting marginalized men more than men of higher social position, so actually we never advocate for legal changes” (KS1 2015).

Interventionist discourse in South Korea is represented by scientists (such as a sociology professor Lee Na-young), legal professionals and women’s rights organizations like National Alliance to Solve the Problem of Prostitution, who maintain that “[court ruling] fails to properly address the sociocultural issue of prostitution, confusing it with [fully voluntary] sexual behavior between individuals” (Hankyoreh, 2013-01-11). Their arguments, much like in the German case, question the voluntary character of sex work and maintain that prostitution is an element of oppression of women who have limited socioeconomic choice.

Interestingly, both neoliberal and interventionist discourses represent the counter- rhetoric in the discourse on sexual violence, since the institutionalized legal discourse is the conservative one. A professor at the Konkuk University Han Sang-hee explains it in the following way: “The policy approach to sex work in South Korea has centered on regulation [punishment], viewing it simply as an ‘evil’” (Hankyoreh, 2013-01-11). This is evident in the fact that prostitution is outlawed in South Korea, with both the clients and sex workers being punished. In this case, actors forming the interventionist view on sexual violence have similar interests with conservative groups and in a way form a discursive coalition: for both of them legalization of prostitution seems undesirable. However, they see the responsibility in connection to prostitution differently: women’s rights organizations demand only the owners of brothels and pimps to be penalized for sexual exploitation.

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The social construction of sexual violence in connection with the rights of children and the rights of minority groups

One of the most significant current debates in Germany focuses on the contradictions between children’s or women’s rights and the rights of ethnic minorities in the debates about male and female circumcision. The status of male and female circumcision is different in Germany. Female circumcision, or female genital mutilation – this name is another evidence of how language games can change the attitude towards sexual violence, – has been outlawed for a longer time than male circumcision. FGM is more or less established in the media discourse as torture that violates human rights (Der Spiegel 2013-09-09), while male circumcision is currently a subject of public debate. However, the competing discourses that create different interpretations of these phenomena go along the same lines in both of these cases.

Different cultures have different definitions of sexual violence, which often compete in multicultural societies. According to Susan Moller Okin (1999), the discourse of multiculturalism is dangerous for victims, since it can be used in modern democratic societies to justify sexual and other types of violent gender practices such as “marriage by capture”, honor killings, femicide, male circumcision and female genital mutilation. The competition of discourses on the topic of circumcision that have been found in German articles is a particular case of this debate on the balance between children’s rights and the rights of ethnic minorities.

Children’s rights advocates, who maintain that circumcision constitutes assault on the child; and doctors, who give their expert opinion and claim that circumcision is a medically unnecessary surgery that may lead to complications; make one party to the debate. They appeal to children’s rights to personal integrity and the absence of consent on the child’s part that cannot be substituted by the consent of the parents. For example, a representative of the Federation of German Criminal Police claims: "The freedom of parents to practice religion will nevertheless be limited by a child's more important right to physical integrity” (Der Spiegel 2012-07-20). As one can see, these actors resort to legalistic and scientific styles of claim-making, while their opponents use the subculture style and appeal to cultural traditions.

The representatives of minority groups – Jewish and Muslim, - who do not view circumcision as a violation of child’s body but rather as a rite of passage and a tradition that is inherent to their religion, are their opponents in the ongoing debate. This debate is complicated by the history of German-Jewish relationships, with one of the government aims being reconciliation with the Jewish community. The possibility of outlawing circumcision caused heated reactions among the Jewish and Muslim community. The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany argued that the decision could "make Jewish life in Germany no longer possible" (Der Spiegel 2012- 07-25), while the Muslim community views it as a provocation. This fatalistic and categorical language was accompanied by the use of emotional language, rhetorics of danger and the recurring references to the Nazi past, with the Conference of European Rabbis calling the debate the “worst attack on Jewish life since the holocaust” (Der Spiegel, 2012-07-12).

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One more example of competition of discourses in media coverage on sexual violence is presented in the account of the historical background of the struggle between children’s rights and rights of sexual minorities concerning pedophilia in several articles on the activity of the Green party and Free Democratic Party. A change in the social construction of sexual violence can be traced in this example. Pedophilia was not broadly discussed but condemned until the 1980s and the sexual revolution when the liberalization of sexual practices took place. Then some groups argued for liberation, on the model of homosexuality, and maintained that pedophilia had to be decriminalized. However, now it is presented in media as a result of “too much tolerance”. In this case, sexual violence is constructed along the political discourse showing how political orientation can influence its interpretation.

Contradictions between public interests and interests of the victim in Korean media discourse

One type of contradiction in the discourse on sexual violence that is now discussed in South Korea is the opposition between public interests and interests of the victims in situations when sex crime is reported and prosecuted. The subject of the discussion is connected to the law that was introduced in 2013 and that assigns police the task of prosecution of sex crimes even when victims do not want to file charges. Dr. Lee Seung-hyun of the Korean Institute of Criminology reminds of the dangers connected with such changes: «…repealing the clause that takes into account the wishes of the people involved could potentially harm the victims even more». (Hankyoreh, 2014- 06-23) The main guiding question of these debates is: should prosecutions be brought against the will of the victim? The answer depends on how the role of the society and the victim is considered, and whether sexual violence is understood more as a personal problem or a problem of the public in general. The articles present the opposing views and statistics, however, do not give concluding or evaluating remarks, thus, refraining from expressing the view of editorial staff. All things considered, it is possible to argue that both Korean and German newspapers serve as an arena of public discussions concerning sexual violence and, especially, its legal definitions. However, the analysis shows that they present different, often contradicting views from various experts and sources. Thus, it could be claimed that, in Germany and Korea alike, the heterogeneity of discourses that construct sexual violence is evident.

3.4. Limitations of the research

As my theoretical frame and research methods presuppose, in this paper I study only what is understood as sexual violence in the context of each country, or specific media outlets in these countries, rather than what sexual violence is in reality. Although I develop a working definition of sexual violence, I do not aim to discuss the ontological status of this phenomenon. What is more, the aim of my study concerns the inquiry into how media constructs sexual violence, not whether such a construction is true or false, accurate or inaccurate, consistent with the reality or not.

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The analysis is further limited by the language constrictions: translation is always an interpretation of meaning; therefore, the study of the English translations of articles might not capture many cultural specificities that could be uncovered in the language. At the same time, we should be aware of the fact that articles distributed in English – and aimed at a broader, international audience, - also involve strategies of self- representation of the outlets and their countries internationally which makes their publications different from those appearing in the local versions.

Conclusion

In this chapter, the structure of the media discourse on sexual violence was studied. The main actors in each of the countries discourse were outlined, which showed that the construction of sexual violence in Germany seems to be more politicized, while South Korean media constructs it rather as a social problem. Simultaneously, the major recurring themes and subthemes characteristic of the outlets under comparison were introduced and described.

Next, the mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence were analyzed and the peculiarities of the use of rhetorics, language games, agenda-setting and framing were described for each case. As a result, it became evident that the construction of sexual violence differs between the two cases in terms of maturity of discourse, how the construction of sexual violence contributes to the polarization and division of “Us” and “Them”, and the way motifs of shame and guilt are allocated in the discourse.

Further, the interaction with various sub-discourses in the construction of sexual violence was depicted. The competing discourses of liberalism and protectionism, children’s rights and the rights of minorities, as well as public interests and interests of the victim, were traced. The research also shows the way actors interact, oppose and form coalitions in order to most successfully influence the construction of sexual violence.

At the same time, the influence of cultural and historical background has become visible in the set of themes that are repeatedly circulated in such episodes of social construction of sexual violence as the construction of blame and shame, differences in the patterns otherization (exotization or placing sexual violence within the boundaries of the country), as well as in the set of discourses that are present in the media and compete for the right to legitimate their approaches to the construction of sexual violence.

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Conclusions

The concept of sexual violence has been subject to significant transformations, not only in its everyday meaning, but also in academic terminology. It has grown to be regarded through the perspective of feminist social theory as a continuation of power and gender relations in society, another element of oppression. At the same time, the powerful are the ones who construct definitions of sexual violence in order to exclude their behaviour as deserving condemnation. The media is one of the major channels of socialization and formation of public opinion. Through various mechanisms of agenda-setting, framing, priming, language games and information manipulation it can construct and deconstruct myths about sexual violence, present it as a pressing social problem or trivialize and normalize it. In the media discourse, various actors compete for authority over the construction of sexual violence.

The aim of this study was to inquire into how sexual violence is socially constructed in the newspapers of Germany and South Korea. In order to do this, I, first, inquire into the historical and cultural changes in the definition of sexual violence in each of the countries under study. It has been found out that both countries have a history of wartime sexual violence that happened during WWII, and the accounts of the victims facilitated the foregrounding of this issue. At the same time, with the post-war transformations in economy and social structure, as well as under the influence of global feminist movement, the role of women has changed, and their issues were brought to the public attention.

By the 1990s, social changes had affected the legal system, which is important to consider since the legal framework embodies institutionalized, dominant views on sexual violence. Social changes generated a plethora of new legislative initiatives that broadened the scope of the legal definitions of sexual violence in terms of actions (e.g. groping, insulting), actors (e.g. young and old, men and women) and the relationships between them (e.g. spouses, relatives, friends). At the same time, these definitions were affected by legal and cultural traditions of understanding sexual violence. For example, the structure of the Korean words for sexual violence and rape presuppose that it is a crime committed against a woman with the use of physical force, even though the precedents were set for a broader definition.

The centrepiece of my research is connected with the discourse analysis of articles in German and Korean newspapers aimed at identifying the mechanisms and peculiarities of the social construction of sexual violence. This has been supported by the interviews with professionals in the field who have provided an overview of the issue of sexual violence from different perspectives. The first major finding maintains that sexual violence seems to be constructed in a more politicized way in Germany, while in South Korea it is constructed rather as a social problem. This is evident when we look at the actors who have the “right” to speak in the media discourse. The majority of people whose opinions are expressed in German newspapers, are either representatives of women’s rights organizations and NGOs that support the victims of sexual violence, or politicians and policy-makers, or, sometimes, victims of sexual violence (usually in debates about prostitution). Meanwhile, in Korea the majority of experts are scientists and various legal officials such as judges and prosecutors, followed by representatives of women’s rights organizations.

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What is more, the stylistic and rhetorical tools also contribute to this situation. While newspapers in both cases try to use specific tools that are associated with the tabloidization of media (dramatization of reports on sexual violence, use of “catchy”, sensational headings of the articles, attempts to present personal narratives to make readers more sympathetic to the cause and emotionally involved), there are also differences. The prevalence of investigative articles in Germany that consider social, cultural and political implications of sexual violence is one difference. German newspapers often resort to the rhetorics of threat and risk as a way to frame their reports on sexual violence, but it is done to a far greater extent in Korean media, with extensive accounts of statistical data and expert interviews appealing to the growing number of sex crimes and sex offenders, to the ubiquity of sexual violence and spatial proximity to each person in the society, and simultaneously though scapegoating of specific groups in Korean society (foreigners, teenagers). This, coupled with the use of emotionally loaded language to condemn acts of sexual violence, installs fear in the readers and potentially leads to moral panic.

Another major finding is concerned with the maturity of discourses on sexual violence in Germany and South Korea. The tendency to use more impartial language in the accounts of sexual violence incidents as well the limited number of scenarios of sexual violence that are presented in the articles under study and the more implicit character of the (de)construction of myths about sexual violence show that German media discourse has less need to problematize the issue of sexual violence. Korean sources, on the other hand, use emotional and moralistic language more freely, and explicitly show the deconstruction of sexual violence myths using the vast informational basis of scientific studies, statistics, and expert narratives. What is more, with the help of scientific and legalistic discourses, a broad account of various types of sexual violence is examined, thus allowing a greater objectification and legitimization of sexual violence as a social problem in all its forms. At the same time, my research has also found that the temporal characteristics of the discourse (the ‘age’ of the discourse) does not in fact determine the maturity of this discourse, while the intensity of public discussions must be the reason for such differences between Germany and South Korea.

The next finding is concerned with the way sexual violence is constructed with regard to blame and shame. When presenting the consequences of sexual violence, media of both countries mentions the feelings of shame, humiliation and embarrassment, alongside guilt as those feelings that haunt victims after their victimization. What is different is the fact that in Korea, the rhetoric of shame is also used with regard to the perpetrator of sexual violence - both at the personal level and at the level of international relations, where a “scandal” is regarded as a disgrace to the country. The cultural peculiarities of the countries under study might explain the discovered diversity, Germany being an example of a “guilt culture”, and South Korea evidently falling under the category of “shame culture”.

One more peculiarity of sexual violence construction in German and South Korean newspapers is connected with its relation to the construction of the Other in the culture. Sexual violence has been shown to belong to the Other in the society, although it was realized in different ways in Germany and Korea. Korea presents the Other within the boundaries of the country and assigns this Other with higher rates of committing or higher chances of becoming a victim of sexual violence. In the Korean

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case, such Others are Japanese and American soldiers, and other foreigners. Germany “exoticises” sexual violence by transferring it to other countries and cultures and discussing specific types of sexual violence that are practiced there (FGM, child marriages, forced marriages).

The final major finding that could be highlighted in the present research is concerned with the power relations between actors that construct sexual violence in the media discourse. It is evident, that media presents various competing views on the causes and content of sexual violence without presenting one of them as superior to others, which shows the heterogeneity of discourses on sexual violence in both countries.

All things considered, in this research various mechanisms of the social construction of sexual violence were identified, and the characteristics of their use in each of the cases were described. What is more, the inquiry into the power relations between sub-discourses presented in German and Korean articles showed that the media is characterized rather by their heterogeneity. Additionally, cultural specificities are evident in how legal understandings of sexual violence are constructed, in the relations between sexual violence and the construction of shame, blame and the Other, as well as in the set of discourses that are allowed to compete in the media discourse on sexual violence. However, some common mechanisms of sexual violence construction have also become evident (e.g. dramatization, emphasis of threats) and this can be attributed to the general tabloidization of newspapers that aim to attract more readers.

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101. Muehlenhard, C.L, & Kimes. L.A. (1999). The Social Construction of Violence: The Case of Sexual and Domestic Violence. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 234–245. 102. Muehlenhard, C.L., Powch, I.G., Phelps, J.L., & Giusti, L.M. (1992). Definitions of rape: Scientific and political implications. Journal of Social Issues, 48(1), 23– 44. 103. Mueller, U., & Schroettle M. (2003). Health, Well-Being and the Personal Safety of women in Germany. A Representative Study of Violence against Women in Germany. Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ). Available at: www.mvcr.cz/soubor/04-study-of-violence-against- women.aspx - Retrieved on 20.04.2015 104. O’Hara, S. (2012). Monsters, playboys, virgin and whores: Rape myths in the news media’s coverage of sexual violence. Language and Literature. 21, 247– 259. 105. Okin, S. M. (1999). Is multiculturalism bad for women? Chichester: Princeton University Press. 106. One in three women experience violence. (2014-03-05). The Local. Available at: http://www.thelocal.de/20140305/study-female-assault-above-eu-norm-in- germany.html - Retrieved on 15.05.2015 107. Salter, M. (2013). Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media. Crime Media Culture, 0(0), 1–18. 108. Scully, D. (1990). Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. London: Harper Collins. 109. Shelby, R.M. (2013). Obscuring Sexual Crime: Examining Media Representations of Sexual Violence in Megan's Law. Sociology Theses, Georgia State University. Available at: http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=sociology _theses - Retrieved on 15.01.2015 110. Simon, W., & Gagnon, J. H. (1987). Sexual Scripts: Permanence and Change. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 15, 97–120. 111. Smith, S. H. (1998). Sexual violence in German culture: Rereading and rewriting the tradition. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Publishing 112. Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J.I. (1977). Constructing social problems. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings 113. European Institute for Gender Equality. (2007). Standards und Empfehlungen fuer die Arbeit mit maennlichen Taetern. Available at: http://eige.europa.eu/content/standards-und-empfehlungen-fuer-die-arbeit-mit- maennlichen-taetern - Retrieved on 15.05.2015 114. Soh, C.S. (2008). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 115. Strother, J. (2013). South Korea Struggles to Confront Stigma of Sexual Assault. The Wall Street Journal. Available at:

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128. World Health Organization (WHO). (2005). Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against Women: Summary Report of Initial Results on Prevalence, Health Outcomes and Women’s Responses. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization; 129. World Health Organization (WHO). (2002). Fact sheet: intimate partner violence. Available at: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/global_campaign/en/ipvf acts.pdf. - Retrieved on 22.04.2015 130. Worthington, N. (2010). Of conspiracies and kangas: Mail & Guardian Online’s construction of the Jacob Zuma rape trial. Journalism, 11(5), 607-623 131. Wood, E.J. (2009). Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare? Politics & Society, 37(1), 131–161. 132. Woo, J. (2013). South Korea toughens sex crimes law. The Wall Street Journal. Available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/06/18/south-korea- toughens-its-sex-crimes-law/ - Retrieved on 15.05.2015 133. Асмолов К. (2014). Американское военное присутствие в Корее и его перспективы // Новое Восточное Обозрение. Available at: http://ru.journal- neo.org/2014/09/02/amerikanskoe-voennoe-prisutstvie-v-koree-i-ego- perspektivy/ - Retrieved on 22.04.2015 134. Бенедикт Р. (2004). Хризантема и меч: Можели японской культуры. М: Российская политическая энциклопедия (РОССПЭН) – 256 с. 135. Гилинский Я. И. (2013). Социальное насилие. Монография. СПб: Издательский Дом «Алеф-Пресс» – 185 с. 136. Ильин А.Н. Дискурс новостей и его мифотворчество // Социологические исследования - 2010. - № 12. – c.115–121. 137. Каменева А.Н. (2011). Ответственность за изнасилование по уголовному заонодательству Российской Федерации и различных зарубежных государств. М.: Издательство Московского университета – 160 с. 138. Ланьков. А. (2014). Демографические проблемы Южной Кореи. Корея и Мы. Available at: http://www.vmeste.kr/index.php/rubrika-a-lankova/299- demography-south-korea - Retrieved on 15.05.2015 139. Назаров М. М. (2002). Массовая коммуникация и общество. Введение в теорию и исследования. М.: “Аванти плюс”. – 428 с. 140. Фуко М. (2004). Археология знания. СПб: Гуманитарная Академия – 416 с. 141. Яковлев И. П. (2001). Основы теории коммуникаций. Учеб. Пособие. СПб. –230 c.

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Appendices

Appendix I Examples of guides

Media guide

Introduction

Hello! My name is Yulia Martysenko. I greatly appreciate that you have accepted my request of interview and allowed me to enrich my research.

I am a student at St. Petersburg State University. I am currently conducting a research into what is understood as sexual violence in [name of country] media. Since gender relations play a significant role in how sexual violence is identified and defined, the interview with you is very important for my research so I would understand the cultural framework with regards to gender issues in which [name of country] media operates.

 Possibility to record the interview 1. Info about respondent a. What exactly is your occupation and how long have you been working in this position? b. What duties and responsibilities do you have? 2. Gender relations a. How would you characterize the way how men and women, their roles and relations are presented in [name of country] media nowadays? b. How has it been changing throughout history? c. Is there something unique and specific in the nature of how gender is represented in [name of country], compared to other countries? d. In your opinion, which factors and conditions influence the way gender roles and relations are depicted in media? (social institutes, changes in the society/economy/international law etc.) e. Can you name any pressure groups, people or organizations that made the most significant impact on the way gender relations and roles are portrayed in German media nowadays? (human/women/migrants’ rights activists, feminist movement, religious groups and church) f. Can you tell me about the characteristics of the relationship between media coverage of gender-related issues and public policy? i. How did media coverage change with the way [name of country] public policies concerning sexual violence and gender issues changed? ii. Can media influence the political agenda in [name of country]? Why? Why not? (examples) g. Is there an interconnection between media coverage and public opinion?

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i. How did media coverage change with [name of country] public opinion towards gender issues changed? ii. Can media influence the public opinion in [name of country]? Why? Why not? (examples) 3. Sexual violence a. How would you define what sexual violence is? b. Can you describe how German media represents sexual violence? (ask about prison rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, verbal or behavioral sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to pornography; threats of sexual violence to accomplish other end; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature of another person without their consent, «revenge porn», human trafficking, prostitution, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation, FGM etc.) i. Which types of sexual violence are framed as violence? (portrayed negatively, have a lasting impact) ii. Which types of behaviour/situations that you consider as sexual violence are not represented as violence in media? (e.g. played “for fun” or as a normal, common and insignificant situation, or eroticized) c. Can you say if there are characteristics of the aggressor and the victim that influence the way sexual violence is framed in media as “serious” or “not serious”? i. Characteristics of victim: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc. ii. Characteristic of aggressor: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc. iii. Relationships of the victim and the aggressor: strangers, acquaintances, friends, relatives, partners, ex-partners, spouses. iv. Nature of representation:  mentioned briefly or shown in great detail  depending on which vocabulary (words and phrases) is used to describe the cases of sexual violence  depending on which type of information is presented: statistics, expert interviews, personal narrative, formal statements of officials etc. d. Can you describe how the representation of sexual violence changed with time?  Has there been a broadening of the specter of actions that are considered as sexual violence?  Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might commit sexual violence, to appear or disappear in media coverage recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children)  Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might be victims of sexual violence, to appear or disappear in media coverage recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children)

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 Have there been changes in how the reaction of victims/society to sexual violence was depicted? (victims do not tell anybody, tell relatives/friends, victims go/do not go to police; relatives/friends ridicule or help victims; emphasis on vigilantism or police work) e. How do you think, which factors and conditions influence the way SV is depicted in media? (social institutes, changes in the society/economy/international law etc.) f. Can you name any pressure groups, people or organizations that made the most significant impact on the sexual violence is portrayed in [name of country] media? (human/women/migrants rights activists, feminist movement, religious groups and church) g. Is there something unique and specific in the nature of how sexual violence is represented in [name of country], compared to other countries? 4. Projects a. What are the goals of your organization’s projects and campaigns? b. What types of projects do you have? c. Can you describe how the process of organization of a project in [name of organization] looks like? d. Do you try to influence the media and representation of genders in it? In which way? (press-releases, interviews etc.) i. What are the ways in which you can influence the media? ii. Do media representatives contact you to know about your organization’s vision? e. Who do you feel is responsible for the representation of gender relations in the [name of country] media? Who plays the decisive role? f. Do you have the impression that your voice counts in the decision-making process? g. Do you try to influence the public opinion? In which way? (theatrical performances, public lectures, visiting schools, etc.) i. Which ways of influence do you consider effective? Which are not? ii. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the public opinion in a more effective way? h. Do you try to influence the authorities? In which way? i. Which ways of influence do you consider effective? Which are not? ii. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the authorities in a more effective way? 5. Interaction a. Whom do you interact with during your work? (colleagues, human rights activists and organizations, journalists, politicians, victims, social workers, psychologists, health professionals, law enforcement, etc.)

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b. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of gender relations corresponds with their vision? (ask about each, based on respondent’s communication with them) c. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of gender relations corresponds with the society’s vision? (men/women agree or disagree, provide support or not, contact the organization etc.) d. Were there cases, when general population, activists and movements openly discussed the gender relations portrayal in media, incl. sexual violence? (picketing, protests, flashmobs, critiquing and commenting) 6. Recommendations a. In your opinion, which changes are necessary in:  Social activists’ and movements’ Interactions with media,  Media portrayal of gender relations and roles in [name of country],  Representation of sexual violence In [name of country] media?

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Law Guide

Introduction

Hello! My name is Yulia Martysenko. I greatly appreciate that you have accepted my request of interview and allowed me to enrich my research.

I am a student at St. Petersburg State University. I am currently conducting a research into what is understood as sexual violence in [name of country] media. Since legal definition of sexual violence is one of the influential, affecting how society views sexual violence, therefore, it is essential for me to get to know your point of view on this problem, as a representative of Public Prosecutor’s Office.

 Possibility to record the interview

1. Info about respondent 1) What exactly is your occupation and how long have you been working in this position? 2) What duties and responsibilities do you have? 2. Definition 1) Could you describe which actions are considered as sexual violence from the legal point of view? (ask about prison rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, verbal or behavioral sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to pornography; threats of sexual violence to accomplish other end; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature of another person without their consent, «revenge porn», human trafficking, prostitution, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation, FGM etc.) 2) What kinds of evidence are necessary (enough or not enough) to charge somebody with offences, connected to sexual violence? 3) Is there something unique and specific in the nature prosecution of SV cases in [name of country], compared to other countries? 3. Changes 1) Can you describe how the representation of SV3 changed with time?  Has there been a broadening of the specter of actions that are considered as SV?  Have there been any changes in punitive measures?  Have new aggravating circumstances been introduced?  Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might commit SV, to appear or disappear in media coverage recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children)

3 SV = sexual violence

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 Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might be victims of SV, to appear or disappear in media coverage recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children) 2) Is it fair to say, that even know we can witness the changes in legislature concerning SV? If yes, then in which way?  E.g. law protecting sex workers, Istambul convention 3) How do you think, which factors and conditions influence the way SV is defined in legal framework? (social institutes, changes in the society/economy/international law etc.) 4) Can you name any pressure groups, people or organizations that made the most significant impact on the way SV is defined in legal framework? (human/women/migrants’ rights activists, feminist movement, religious groups and church) 4. Practical activity 1) Could you briefly describe the stages of prosecution of the cases with the elements of SV? 2) How would you say, in which way do they differ from other cases? (victims have supplement legal protection: the perpetrator cannot communicate with the victim, it is not allowed to ask victims specific questions during the court hearing or interrogation, the victim can file for the restricting order, obligatory work with the psychologist or social worker) 3) Are there any unwritten rules that regulate the prosecution of such cases? 4) Are there any criteria, based on which you, as a Prosecutor, can understand how promising the prosecution of the case and filing charges would be?  Which cases “move forward” through the stages of prosecution? (check Focal concerns theory)  E.g. character of evidence (physical evidence, witness testimony, correspondence to the «classical» ideas about sexual offences, where the crime took place), victim’s behavior, behavior of the accused? 5) Can you describe which judicial ruling do cases connected with SV usually end with? (guilty – not guilty verdict or other, how often can the guilt be proved) 6) Can you say, on the basis of your experience, that some characteristics of the crime (brutality, severity or non-seriousness in the eyes of the jury, society) itself influence the court ruling? 7) Does the character of provided evidence (direct, indirect, witness testimony, video-audio, physical evidence) influence the court decision? 8) Can you say, on the basis of your experience, that some characteristics of the victim influence the court ruling? (age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc.) 9) Can you say, on the basis of your experience, that some characteristics of the accused influence the court ruling? (age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc.)

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 Has a criminal record for SV case or other case, verdict was guilty or not guilty? Can it be mentioned in court? 10) Can you say, on the basis of your experience, the character of the relations between the victim and the perpetrator influence the court ruling? (strangers, acquaintances, friends, relatives, partners, ex-partners, spouses) 5. (Education) 1) How are you taught which cases could be recognized as SV, and which not? In which case charges can be filed, in which not? 2) Have you experienced a situation when your theoretical knowledge about prosecution of SV crimes does not correspond with practice? If yes, then in which way? 3) Would you say that some skills in prosecution of SV cases can only be acquired in practice? If yes, then which? 6. Interaction 1) Whom do you interact with during your work? (colleagues, human rights activists and organizations, journalists, politicians, victims of SV, social workers, psychologists, health professionals, law enforcement, etc.) 2) To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of gender relations corresponds with their vision? (ask about each, based on respondent’s communication with them) 3) To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of SV corresponds with the victims’ vision? (Prosecutor rules it as SV case, and the victims agree/disagree that what they experienced was SV, victim say it’s SV but Prosecutors cannot charge with offence?) 7. Connection to media and publics 1) To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of SV corresponds with the vision presented by media? (ask for an example) 2) Does the Prosecutor’s Office try to influence the media and public discussions of SV in it? In which way? (press-releases, interviews etc.) 3) Do media representatives contact you to know about terminology or Public Prosecutor’s position on the cases that involve SV? 4) Were there cases, when general population, activists and movements openly discussed the cases that involved sexual violence? (picketing, protests, flashmobs, critiquing and commenting) 8. Recommendations 1) In your opinion, which changes are necessary in:  Legislature  Procedure of prosecution  Provision of support to the victims  In cases that involve sexual violence?

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Women’s rights organization Guide Introduction

Hello! My name is Yulia Martysenko. I greatly appreciate that you have accepted my request of interview and allowed me to enrich my research.

I am a student at St. Petersburg State University. I am currently conducting a research into what is understood as sexual violence in [name of country] media. Since the activist work of women’s rights organizations and movements had a significant effect on how society views sexual violence, it is essential for me to know what is your, as a representative of [name of org], vision regarding this issue.

 Possibility to record the interview

1. Info about respondent 1.1. What exactly is your occupation and how long have you been working in this position? 1.2. What duties and responsibilities do you have? 2. Sexual violence 2.1. How would you define what sexual violence is? (ask about prison rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, verbal or behavioral sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to pornography; threats of sexual violence to accomplish other end; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature of another person without their consent, «revenge porn», human trafficking, prostitution, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation, FGM etc.) 2.2. Can you describe how the understanding of SV changed with time? a. Has there been a broadening of the specter of actions that are considered as SV? b. Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might commit SV, to appear or disappear recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children) c. Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might be victims of SV, to appear or disappear recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children, sex workers) d. Have there been changes in what the reaction of victims/society to SV is expected to be? (victims do not tell anybody, tell relatives/friends, victims go/do not go to police; relatives/friends ridicule or help victims; emphasis on vigilantism or police work) 2.3. How do you think, which factors and conditions influence the way SV is viewed? (social institutes, changes in the society/economy/international law etc.) 2.4. Can you name any pressure groups, people or organizations that made the most significant impact on how SV is understood in [name of country]? (human/women/migrants rights activists, feminist movement, religious groups and church)

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2.5. Is there something unique and specific in the nature of how SV is viewed in [name of country], compared to other countries? 3. Help and Counselling 3.1. What kind of help and counselling does [name of org] provide? 3.2. Can you describe the stages in the process of providing help? 3.3. Who turns to your organization for help? (women, men, children, older people, migrants, victims of rape, abuse, trafficking, physical or economic violence etc.) 3.4. Can you say if there are characteristics of the aggressor and the victim that influence the way SV are handled by the crisis/counselling centres (counselling is more difficult, requires special legal help and help when communicating with law enforcement, cultural sensitivity, careful communication with relatives etc.)? a. Characteristics of victim: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, occupation, preceding history etc. b. Characteristic of aggressor: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, occupation, preceding history etc. c. Relationships of the victim and the aggressor: strangers, acquaintances, friends, relatives, partners, ex-partners, spouses. 3.5. Do you provide legal aid to those who come to you for help? a. If yes, in what way? (if they provide legal support for criminal cases – ask about evidence collection, court rulings and criteria of how promising the case looks like) 4. Projects and campaigns 4.1. What are the goals of your organization’s projects and campaigns? 4.2. What types of projects do you have? 4.3. Can you describe how the process of organization of a project in[name of org] looks like? 4.4. What difficulties do you and your organization face during your work? 4.5. Do you require any kind of support in solving them? 5. Influence 5.1. Do you try to influence the laws concerning SV? In which way? (drafting legislation, spreading the petitions etc.) a. Which ways of influence do you consider effective? Which are not? b. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the legal system in a more effective way? c. Do you have the impression that your voice counts in the decision-making process about laws that concern SV? 5.2. Do you try to influence the public opinion? In which way? (disseminating posters, public lectures, visiting schools, etc.) a. Which ways of influence do you consider effective? Which are not?

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b. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the public opinion in a more effective way? 5.3. Do you try to influence the authorities/politicians? In which way? a. Which ways of influence do you consider effective? Which are not? b. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the authorities in a more effective way? 6. Interaction 6.1. Whom do you interact with during your work? (colleagues, human rights activists and organizations, journalists, politicians, victims of SV, social workers, psychologists, health professionals, law enforcement (police, prosecutors, lawyers, judges), etc.) 6.2. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of issues connected with SV corresponds with their vision? (ask about each, based on respondent’s communication with them) 6.3. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of SV corresponds with the victims’ vision? (agree/disagree that what they experienced was SV) 6.4. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of SV corresponds with the society’s vision? (feedback: men/women agree or disagree, provide support or not, contact the organization etc.) 6.5. Were there cases, when general population, activists and movements openly discussed the problem of sexual violence? (picketing, protests, flashmobs, critiquing and commenting) 7. Media 7.1. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision of issues connected with SV corresponds with the vision presented by media? 7.2. Do you try to influence the media and public discussions of SV in it? In which way? (press-releases, interviews etc.) a. What are the ways in which you can influence the media? Which ones are the most effective? b. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the media in a more effective way? c. Do media representatives contact you to know about your organization’s vision? 7.3. Who do you feel is responsible for the representation of SV in the [name of country] media? Who plays the decisive role? 7.4. Do you have the impression that your voice counts in the decision-making process regarding media representation? 8. Recommendations 8.1. In your opinion, which changes are necessary in: a. Support of the victims of SV?

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b. SV prevention programs? c. Social activists’ and movements’ interactions with media, legal system and politicians, d. Media portrayal of SV in [name of country]?

Scholar guide Introduction Hello! My name is Yulia Martysenko. I greatly appreciate that you accepted my request of interview and allowed me to enrich my research. I am a student at St. Petersburg State University. I am currently conducting a research into what is understood as sexual violence in [name of country] media. Since legal definition of sexual violence is one of the influential, affecting how society views sexual violence, therefore, it is essential for me to get to know your point of view on this problem, as a representative of Public Prosecutor’s Office.

 Possibility to record the interview

1. Info about respondent b. Could you please describe your professional experience relating to the topic of sexual violence? (research, activism) 2. Sexual violence 1. How would you define what sexual violence is?(ask about prison rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, verbal or behavioral sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to pornography; threats of sexual violence to accomplish other end; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature of another person without their consent, «revenge porn», human trafficking, prostitution, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation, FGM etc.) 2. Is there something unique and specific in the nature of how SV is viewed in [name of country], compared to other countries? 3. Changes 1. Can you describe how the understanding of SV changed with time? i. Has there been a broadening of the specter of actions that are considered as SV? ii. Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might commit SV, to appear or disappear recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children) iii. Have you noticed any new categories of people, who might be victims of SV, to appear or disappear recently? (acquaintances, spouses, partners, men, women, children, sex workers) iv. Have there been changes in what the reaction of victims/society to SV is expected to be? (victims do not tell anybody, tell relatives/friends, victims

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go/do not go to police; relatives/friends ridicule or help victims; emphasis on vigilantism or police work) 2. How do you think, which factors and conditions influence the way SV is viewed? (social institutes, changes in the society/economy/international law etc.) 3. Can you name any pressure groups, people or organizations that made the most significant impact on how SV is understood in [name of country]? (human/women/migrants rights activists, feminist movement, religious groups and church) 4. Characteristics of media coverage 1. Can you describe how [name of country] media represents sexual violence? (ask about prison rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, verbal or behavioral sexual harassment, unwanted exposure to pornography; threats of sexual violence to accomplish other end; or taking nude photographs of a sexual nature of another person without their consent, «revenge porn», human trafficking, prostitution, forced marriage/cohabitation, forced impregnation, FGM etc.) i. Which types of sexual violence are framed as violence? (portrayed negatively, have a lasting impact) ii. Which types of behaviour/situations that you consider as SV are not represented as violence in media? (e.g. played “for fun” or as a normal, common and insignificant situation, or eroticized) 2. Can you say if there are characteristics of the aggressor and the victim that influence the way SV is framed in media as “serious” or “not serious”? i. Characteristics of victim: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc. ii. Characteristic of aggressor: age, ethnicity, gender, illnesses incl. mental, behaviour, preceding history etc. iii. Relationships of the victim and the aggressor: strangers, acquaintances, friends, relatives, partners, ex-partners, spouses. iv. Nature of representation: I. mentioned briefly or shown in great detail II. depending on which vocabulary (words and phrases) is used to describe the cases of SV III. depending on which type of information is presented: statistics, expert interviews, personal narrative, formal statements of officials etc. 3. To what degree, in your eyes, your vision as a researcher regarding SV corresponds with the vision presented by media? 5. Role of the media 1. How would you characterize the role of media in construction of sexual violence in [name of country]? i. Influence on public opinion (publicizing, labeling, moral panic)

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ii. Difference from the construction in politics, law, by feminist organizations? (e.g. strive to be commercially successful, define crime not as it is legally defined etc.) iii. Mechanism of social control or an arena where counter-discourses can be represented? iv. Media as a mouthpiece or a watchdog? 2. Can you tell me about the relationship between media coverage of sexual violence and public policy? i. How did media coverage change with the way [name of country] public policies concerning sexual violence changed? ii. Can media influence the political agenda in [name of country]? Why? Why not? (examples) 3. Is there an interconnection between media coverage and public opinion? i. How did media coverage change with [name of country] public opinion towards SV changed? ii. Can media influence the public opinion in [name of country]? Why? Why not? (examples) 6. (Activism) 1. Did you participate in any projects and campaigns connected with SV? In which? 2. Who did these projects/campaigns try to influence? 3. Did these projects/campaigns try to influence the media and representation of SV in [name of country] media? If yes, in which way? 7. Influence 1. Would you say, in general, that academia and researchers can influence the media representation of SV? i. What are the ways in which you can influence the media? Which ones are the most effective? ii. Is there any kind of support you need to influence the media in a more effective way? iii. Do media representatives contact you to know about your organization’s vision? 2. Who do you feel is responsible for the representation of SV in [name of country] media? Who plays the decisive role? 3. Do you have the impression that your voice as a researcher counts in the decision-making process regarding media representation? 8. Research 1. Is there a tradition of studying of sexual violence / construction of sexual violence / construction of sexual violence in media? 9. Recommendations 1. In your opinion, which changes are necessary in:

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i. Researcher’s interactions with media, legal system and politicians concerning SV, ii. Media portrayal of SV in [name of country]?

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Appendix II Example of coding

Many Sex Offenders Live Near Schools [dramatization]

A new register reveals [surveillance] that many convicted sex offenders live close to schools, according to lawmaker Yoo Ki-hong [actor] of the main opposition Democratic Party.

Yoo triangulated the homes of sex offenders to within a 1 km-radius of elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide using the website www.sexoffender.go.kr.

Out of 11,575 schools nationwide, 41 percent [statistics] had at least one sex offender living within 1 km-radius [spatial proximity] as of March this year, he said.

Some 549 schools [rhetoric of ubiquity] were close to the homes of at least six sex offenders each, 263 of them primary schools [emphasis on the young age].

In densely populated Seoul, sex offenders live near 71 percent of 1,326 schools, and 233 schools are near the homes of at least six each [typical victim: child].

But schools are often oblivious [rhetoric of risk]. One principal [actor] at an elementary school in north Seoul said, "We tell the children frequently to take care when coming to and from school as there are crime-ridden areas nearby, but I didn't know how many [novelty; rhetoric of threat] sex offenders live around here, and I've never done anything about it."

Chosun Ilbo Sep. 12, 2013 08:18 KST

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Appendix III Example of interview transcript

Interview with a Public Prosecutor.

Date: 07.04.2015 Time: 73 min Place: Cologne, Germany

Q: So maybe you could first tell me about what your occupation is and how long you've been working here?

A: So I'm a prosecutor in Germany for about eight years and at the moment, starting from January 2014 with special department and taking care of cases of sexual violence committed by adults. So adults, against adults and with minors as victims and started January 2014 we are four prosecutors focusing on these cases.

Q: Ok, and what are your duties when, in these cases?

A: Like all the prosecutors in Germany, we lead the investigation, meaning, we receive the files from the police and with them try to make up an opinion where are this case has to be an indictment and brought in front of the court or there are some more investigations are necessary to end the case and to decide if it's not possible to prove the crime. Then we have to write a letter to the witness and tell them why his case is not... There are not enough proof in order to make an indictment.

Q: And do you also present the case in court?

A: Yes. So generally, in Germany you don't go only to your own cases, but you go to the tribunal... to any case, may be indictments from another prosecutor. But because most of our cases go to a tribunal, and court is of the second instance, so for more severe crimes generally we go to our own cases, we bring them in front of the tribunal and this is why we generally go to our own cases, we represent, we read the indictment and we take care of, we take part in all of the trial. We are allowed to ask questions to the witness or to propose some more witness... and in the end we make something, like, proposal to the judges what kind of punishment we find to be appropriate. And after the verdict is made, we have the right to check if we are satisfied with the result or if we want to take it to another revision. And we going to stand like... this is like... we lead the investigations from the office, in the way, and prepare the trial. We also take care of the trial so this is ... divided to several prosecutors but all of us do both of these duties.

Q: Could you describe what actions are considered to be sexual violence in German law?

A: I'd say, generally on German law we have two parts of crimes linked to sexuality. And the one is like violent, so... meaning by using force or specific threats or to take advantage of the helpless situation of the victim and using this situation without any chance of escaping or finding help to reach sexually motivated aim - this is one part of German Penal system. And other one is abuse. And this is not linked to violence of any form, but just taking advantage of different level of power, I would say. For example, if an adult has sexual intercourse with the child, he doesn't have to use force in ought to be punished just because it's person under the age of fourteen, they are protected against any kind of sexual contact to anybody. So it doesn't have to be any more specific action to make it a crime but just because it's a child it's protected. And there are some other constilations [provisions], for example, a doctor, he is not allowed to have sexual contact to a patient of his. So there are some relations that should be kept free from sexual contact. Or parent should not have sexual connection to their children and this is like we call abuse. So the other one is linked to violence. This is like the biggest kind of definition you can give.

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Q: And in this case, something like human trafficking or forced marriages, or exploit pornography... These things in the first part, like, of abusive violence?

A: I wouldn't say because in a way there are... we don't work on these crimes you just told about, because we focusing on these crimes we call ‘hands-on’ delicts. It's all a crimes but we ... there’s direct contact between the victim and the perpetrator, finding, have they meet or have contact. If you expose pornography to a child this is a crime too but in a way it's something... it's also protects sexual development of minors but it's not (?) in any way. We don't work on that cases in this department. I think, it has something to do with the way you find out about an investigation. We are focusing on talking to witnesses and to see if they are telling something true or they lie to us. And these pornography crimes, they very often linked to technical, IT investigations and it's not our focus and this is why we don't work on these crimes. And human trafficking, this is in another department too. Of course it's sometimes it's linked with sexual violence, may be to break the will of the victims, there are some cases which combine both crimes, but generally I wouldn't take it to the inner circle of sexual violence. So it's for our definition of this prosecutor’s office it's not... human trafficking it's not something seen as the sexual violence in a complex sense.

Q: May be you can tell me what kind of evidence is necessary to charge somebody with sexual violence crimes?

A: There are several ways. So of course it's very nice to have something like a confession, if the perpetrator admits "I did this" but normally you don't have because there are hard punishments, so generally they try to hide as long as possible and they admit in the end or cry in the order to make the judges giving them a mild punishment but generally we... There are some traces we can use, for example, like DNA. This is something... there are traces on the body of the victim. This is might have or... Traces of violence, for example. There are specific kinds of wounds and hematomas, and we have some forensic experts telling us, which kind of wound stands for specific way of defending you. Sometimes there are cases people may be the victims itself puts this wound to its own body. You can find out, if it's another person committed, like a hit against you. So we can have these traces on the body of the witness and confessions, and may be like biggest thing, as I told before, is interview with the victim, what it tells you. Generally the police does this, because they are better trained, how to make interview and they have some... Sometimes this is several hundreds of pages, they talk with the victim, may be with child. There are some cases of incest for several years, so it's very complex history of crime developing. And sometimes there are hundreds of pages. And we are trained, we have to find a way to find an answer to the question. Is it something that can't be told from motivation of lie? Or this specific story can be told by this specific witness only if he really experienced this kind of actions he is telling about. And this is the main question. Most of the time we only have the victim telling us something and the perpetrator or defendant may be, is telling us another story, and we have to find out whom to believe. And if we can't find out we say we don't know than ok, it has to be acquitted, we cannot make an indictment or make a charge, because we have to be sure, we have to give proof to the court, to explain, why to start the trial, why to punish him. And if we don't know, we cannot find out, the defendant was lucky or maybe he was innocent, of course, sometimes it's also... There are criteria for this specific psychology, we call it "the psychology of witness-based evidence". There are some criteria. They say there is the difference between person telling a lie and person telling about something he really experienced. And if you compare this two kinds of interviews there should be some differences. And we try to find out there criteria of the true story they are fulfilled, and we can tell that probably is true what witness telling us. This is like the main part we do, we sitting on the table, reading these interviews and trying to imagine how could've 6 year old girl tell something like this, in case she didn't experienced it.

Q: And would you say this comparison could be done more efficiently with experience because sometimes you can't understand?

A: Experience like a prosecutor? Yes, of course! If you read an interview with 5 year old boy for the first time you might think "Oh, this doesn’t sound like the perfect story" but may be the reason is just because of his age, 5 year old boy, or maybe it's because the story is not true. And if you read several

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Q: And which evidence is sufficient for bringing the case before the court?

A: So the question we as prosecutors have is finding answer - is it more probable that he would be sentenced, there will be punishment or not, so you could say, if you refer to mathematic, is there probability 51% that he would be punished, than we are asked to make an indictment, and if we can say it's 50/50 or less, than we are not allowed. Of course this is not something like a calculations, if you cannot say, this evidence and this, and this, so there is something you have to decide for yourself and you have to try to convince the judge "ok, these are my reasons". You cannot write an indictment "I feel it's true, it has to be true, a child wouldn't lie". But you have to find arguments you can explain, and the judge has to try and... and if he understands and he agrees. So you have to convince, in a way. And as I told you we have these criteria of a good interview with a witness and if we can name some of these criteria "look, it's fulfilled", there are some... It's a complex story, there are lot of details and it is very... It doesn't sound like a story but it sounds like real life, so vivid, may be, and if we find some arguments like this then we can give a reason why we think this has to be a trial for court.

Q: And would you say there is any unique or specific nature of prosecuting crimes, sexual violence crimes in Germany compared to other countries?

A: As far as I know... I'm not experienced... I haven't leading investigations in another country. Sometimes you read the files from another countries or their crime defendants move from another country to Germany. Sometimes they send the files and ask "can you continue this investigation?". Or sometimes you read like an excerpt of foreign files but generally I think that Penal codes are similar, you are not allowed to have sexual contact with the child. This is something in Europe, for example, it's wide-spread. And I think the way they try to find out is similar. We all have the same problem, we only have witness and these crimes happened secretly, not on an open public, witness telling you "oh, I've seen", but they are committed at home when nobody is there - we all have the same problem. Only few witness and very often these are children, the sexual rape very often happens husband and wife, so within close connection between the two people, defendant and witness, so the constilations are similar between the countries. And this is why, I think, in general, they shouldn't be such a big differences, but I am more in detail how other Penal codes or codes of procedure try to solve this problem, but these are severe crimes, that are very hard to prove them. I don’t know if they have other rules but I don't know I couldn't imagine how could you proceed in different way from Germany. I couldn't imagine what else could be better

Q: You say that it is possible to have an indictment here in the situation of “he said, she said”, when there are no witnesses or physical evidence. How perspective persecution of such crimes is, f.e.in terms of having guilty verdict.

A: Most of the cases in Germany, generally, but especially in this sexual department for sex crimes. Most of them are not formed into an indictment, so most of the times it is very hard. For example, there are some accusations by a private person and you read what they say and you think "Even if this is true, it would not fulfill the legal code". Maybe it's not very nice what the man did or it's not moral, from moral point of view this is not okay, but that does not make it automatically into a crime. So some of these, many are not brought to a court because you find it hard to prove. You think "I don't know, may be the defendant tells something and it is like this, or may be the witness is right, I don't know. I don't have any reason to tell I have to believe the witness. «This happens very often, but it's not impossible. You cannot say that if you don't have any third person watch the crime you don't have any chance. so many of the guilt verdicts we achieve, they are only based on what one person, what victim tells us. So it's not

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Q: You said there are cases when victims say: it was sexual violence, and you say legally we cannot charge it as one. Are there cases when it is the other way round: you tell them it was sexual violence but they don't want to believe it or something like that?

A: They except and they say "Oh, I didn't feel it like this". Yes there are. Especially if there are relationships that developed over the years. It starts, for example, when one of the couple behaves a little more rough and in a way they develop a special connection to each other. If you look at the way of their practice, sexual practice, you would say "Oh, it is sexual violence", for example, a husband commits against the wife. And you say it is not acceptable at al. She explains "I don't want to have any contacts now", the man is stronger and may be forces her, but for the victim, it got used to it. They start to accept, and for her it is the way this marriage is working, even if it's dysfunctional, so very often people get used to some kind of abuse they suffer themselves, and in a way they... They didn't study the law, so they don't know about rules or regulations, so from an emotional point of view... Or maybe they like the person, they are very nice in general, as long it is not talking about this sex issue, so they make a compromise: ok, I will accept this little negative aspect of this relationships. Sometimes you are very surprised how could this defendant go on with crimes for so many years and years, and at some point victim says "Ok, enough is enough" and go to the police. But it took this kind of crime for several years and you couldn't understand how could this go on, why didn't you escape the first moment, so at some point you are surprised at what people find acceptable or maybe they are afraid to go to police, I don't know. There are several reasons. So, both happens.

Q: In this case, can you proceed with prosecution without victim's support.

A: In general, yes. In Germany we have this, we are obliged. There are some minor crimes that say: ok, I need a written request of the victim "please, make an investigation", but if you don't have then it's impossible. This is like for using swear word, or going to the flat of another person without permission, so for this sexual crimes we are working with, in general, we have to investigate. And if the victim says "I don't want to go on, we are couple of love again, so please stop", it is not the legal reason for us to stop and say we cannot go on. But if the victim says: i don't want to give you any more information in general, we have an opportunity to ask them to come to the interview, and we have some ways to force them to give us information. We can give a fine if they do not cooperate, or maybe they can even be sent to a few weeks to a prison to break their will, to make them tell us the truth. F.e. of course if you think that there is a person who is raped, of course you wouldn't send the police and take her by violence and sit in front of her and give a threat to her, tell her "give me the information otherwise I will punish you". So you are the victim and I will make you the victim a second time from a moral point of view generally we don't do. And many of the persons involved in cases like this, they have a right not to say anything because he's my husband, he's my father. If there's closer relationship, like in a family, they can say: I don't want to e a witness. They have the right to say: there's inner conflict for me - I have to say the truth, butI want to protect my family member. And in most cases it is like father or uncle abusing the nieces, nephews, or child. Or husband and wife, this is like a combination we work on very often. So they have not the possibility to say I don't want to, stop the investigation. But they have a possibility to withdraw from the investigation if they don't want to cooperate, And if we lose the victim, how should we prove the case if we don't have a confession. Sometimes they take the video of the deeds to keep it as a memory. If we have something like this, objective proof, then we can go on and make an indictment. But if we only have what witness told us and the witness says: I will not repeat it in front of the court, so.

Q: I wanted go back to the general definition of sexual violence. Can you maybe describe how the legal definition of sexual violence changed through time. Maybe you know different new actions were considered as sexual violence, for example, or new victims were recognised as victims?

A: So we had some changes, For example, until some years ago it wasn't like rape if it happened inside the marriage. Part of the definition was "if you rape a woman that is not your wife" that would be rape. Otherwise it wouldn't be rape. But only like a minor crime like threatening or violence, but not sexual violence with this harsh punishment. Also taking crimes between husbands and wives being part of the

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Centre for German and European Studies definition of rape, this was something like. And it's not very old, like the middle of the 90s. This is something like a new definition, and at first we had only 2 ways of action concerning the actions of the defendant: one was using violence, using physical force, and the other was threat, telling the victim "cooperate or I will kill you". Something like this. And then there were some cases when the defendant was so much stronger than the victim, he didn’t have to use force, he didn't have to threat, bc his level of power was so much higher than the victim he didn't have to say anything bc the victim was clearly aware: I start to defend myself and he will torture me. And this is may be in a way. There were some acquittals bc of this. But the legal system tried to find an answer and made this third alternative: using the helpless situation. If you have a very weak person in a room where’s nobody else, He doesn't have any chance to use a telephone or go to the window and scream help, when there is a big level of isolation. And if the criminal is aware of this, and taking advantage of this. This is also like sexual violence, although there is no real violence, but just in a way abuse of a state of helplessness. And this is something like the legal definition became bigger also to find good answers to specific situation that practice find out. This is something maybe that changed and we had some changes referring to the age of the victim. At first, there were some specific legal definitions. Now peopel protected older than 14, but younger than 18, but for some times they were protected only until the age of 16, so you were not allowed to have sexual contact with a person younger than 16 if you offered some money or advantage. And in the last years political system found 16 is too young, and now it was changed to 18, so victims are protected for a longer time. This is how the definition of sexual violence changed in a way.

Q: And what about gender of the victim of the offender?

A: In general, I think we have one crime that can only be applied to a man as a defendant. It is exhibitionism. If you display your sexual organs in public this can only be committed by a man, but generally our legal definitions are, looking at the point of gender, open. A woman could abuse a child, so this happens very rarely, or it's not that often that we hear of this, Maybe there is different... There are some discussions. If boy don't want to tell "I was abused by a woman" because they feel very ashamed, because it is not suitable for a man to be abused, but I think this is kind of rare, so most of the defendants are men. But al these laws also apply to women. So there's no definition. There was one crime about homosexuality. It was a crime to have homosexual intercourse, but it only referred, I think, to men. It didn't apply to women, but it was abolished 30 years ago, so it's not very modern.

Q: Is it still fair to say that even now there are some changes in legislature concerning sexual violence?

A: There are. We had, some months ago, we had another discussion, some very old cases referring to the church came up. People were saying they were abused by the priests, and now they came, 40-50 years later. They said: now I'm prepared to talk about this. And there were some discussions, and they changed the period as long as you can investigate this crimes. Do you know what I mean? So you cannon investigate any crime as long as you need, but there are some crimes, f.e., murder you can investigate all the tome, there is no point where you stop and say ok, now it cannot be investigated. And before if you abused a child it was like the period you can make an investigation was like 10 years. And then there was earlier, many years ago: ok, 10 years, but starting from the 18th birthday of the victim. So you had to wait until he's 18 and then you said: ok, now he's old enough to decide do I want to make an investigation or do I want to make a therapy first or keep it for me, so starting 10 years. And then this level was raised to 21st birthday of the victim, and now we have something like the 30th birthday of the victim. So we have the prolongation of the period we can have the investigation. This is some legal changes we had in the last month, actually. But not referring to the period of the penal code, but it's something referring to procedure.

And there is a big discussion. there are some groups taking care of the rights of the victims, and they want to change, to apply the definition of sexual violence in a much bigger range. So, f.e. if the victim says: no, I don't want this, so the moment there's sexual intercourse and the victim says all the time "no, i don't want, please, stop" and the defendant continues, it wouldn't be a crime, because just doing something against the will is not the German definition of sexual violence, you have to use force, threat or helpless situation. And now there are some discussions if it would be better to have a definition that tells you if someone says please stop, and if you go on, this would be a crime. Now it is not, but some political groups want it and there's a big discussion. Some say why. Many groups say that Penal Code should not apply to every situation in life, there have to be some spaces of liberty and not everybody has to be protected. Grown-ups who are not mentally ill don’t need that much of protection. This is

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Centre for German and European Studies something like a discussion for the moment, but I am not sure how this will be put into practice any time soon. I couldn't imagine how to work on these files to proof. The victim says: ok, we had this sexual intercourse. And the defendant says: yes we had this sexual intercourse. But the victim says: I said no. And the defendant says: no, she didn't say no. What should I proof? So the difference between a crime and normal sexual intercourse would be just one word. And how should I prove which one was right? I don't think it would be feasible to find out the truth.

Q: And would you say, which factors, or groups, or individuals influence these changes in legal definition? For example, some Church groups try to influence or may be human rights organizations propose new laws.

A: We have some organizations taking care of the rights of victims or we have some organizations that protect the female rights, so this is some area where people are working on improvement of female rights. They see this as a very important point: where does sexual violence starts and where does it stop? So I think they try to put some information into the discussion and they try to find out about the verdicts, the decisions of the prosecutor's office that they don't agree and they try to publish it and try to say: we need to change the legal foundation in order to cope with cases like this. I think this is some NGOs working on this, of course lawyers. There are some lawyers in Germany specializing in a way not to defend a criminal but how to take care of the interests of victim. And of course they see a lot of cases in front of court and they see: this is an acquittal because of this reason. So the lawyers at some point. Putting input into the discussion. And of course the political parties, they have some different ideas about this too. So they have a discussion anyway. And there are some NGOs influencing, but I think this is like the main actors in a way talking to each other in media.

Q: And how would you say, in which way sexual violence cases from all other cases? F.e. is there a need for special protection for victims or just a need of special communication with offenders?

A: Yes, both of this true. In a way there are severe punishment compared to theft or something like that, We are talking about long years of punishment, and some very bad situations of proof, so you have to work very careful about this. And careful, it is very delicate things you are talking about. If you ask the defender: did you do this? If you ask them: did you steal a watch? It's maybe easier to them to admit, than if you say: did you abuse a child? so there's a lot of shame both for the defendant and maybe for the victim as well, you have to be careful talking to the victim, because they may have a trauma, so they don't just "oh, I was stolen 5 hundred euro. Bad day" and the like, but for them all their life might have been damaged, very hard to repair. And you have to be aware. You have the right of the victim and you have to protect them, but you have to find out what truly happened. You cannot send an innocent person to prison. This is why you have to find out exactly what happened, but this might be very hard for the victim to go back in his mind to the situation and tell you everything. And there are questions from the judge, from the prosecutor, from a lawyer who's defending, and maybe some critical questions. Sometimes some people telling them "I'm not sure if I can believe you". This might be very hard for a victim, being very brave and saying "Ok, now I will talk about this" and then he will find walls of criticism against what he's telling. So you have to work subtle in a way, be aware that this is very emotional thing we're discussing for all the people involved into this. I think this makes a big difference. And we have a lot of forensic psychology questions, because most of these defendants, they do this because of some bad experience, or because they have some mental illness in order to commit this crime, so you need to keep in mind some information about the reasons, why do people do crimes like this. So you have to be open not only from the legal point of view, but also for some other sciences. I think this is maybe the fascination if you work on cases like this.

Q: And could you describe which judicial ruling usually these cases end with? Is it often that you can prove guilt?

A: If we go to court we have to make up our minds before we make an indictment to say what kind of proof do I have. So we don't have only what two people say, but we have to communicate writing an indictment sometime and we have to write long texts, and we have to have reason why we say: ok, he's suspect of this, we have some proof. And for most of the cases we bring for the court, they are guilt verdicts, they are not acquittals. So an acquittal in general in Germany is kind of rare, because the first step of the investigation when the police and we do before the court starts. And this is the main work,

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Centre for German and European Studies we try to find and to hear all of the victims, and we do not leave it open like oh, let's see at the trial, let's hear the witness for the first time and hear what he tells us. But we do careful investigations before. As I've told you a lot of cases are stopped before the indictment, we stop them here and try to finish the case, so if we bring it in front of court there are big majority of guilt verdicts in this sexual... I will ask my colleague, I would say 80-90% [asks for more information] 95%.

Q: May be on the basis of your experience you would say that some kinds of characteristics, the nature of the crime, the way it is committed influences the court ruling or if you want to prosecute it or not. F.e. if it is especially brutal. I mean if the case gas more chances of being put forward in front of the court.

A: I have to. Okay, if I tell them: this is the case, this is my reason, the judge have to make up his mind and make a decision. If he says: no, I don't see enough proof, I won't prosecute this case, then I can go to higher court and tell him to do, but it's not something he can say do not want to, do I find this case brutal enough, is it interesting for me - these are not the criteria. We have to find: is this action, does this fulfill the criteria of a crime, and if it does, the court has to. It cannot say, we have procedural rules that tell us that in minor case you can say "ok, ma be he committed it, he stole something for 2 Euros, who cares about the case", but the court can say only in agreement with prosecutor, they cannot say "we're not interested, sorry, we leave it". We have to find an agreement between both of us. And in this sexual abuse cases they cannot say: oh, this isn't big enough. If there is some sexual intercourse the victim was forced to by physical power, they have to. And if it's more brutal the punishment will be higher, but they have to lead the case anyway. Even if it is not super brutal, if the criteria are fulfilled they have to. Q: And do you take into account f.e. how the judge would perceive this case? F.e. is believable or not believable, or may be serious or not serious? Do you consider it in the investigation? A: I try to, and I think this is an advantage that we don't only go to our cases and we see the investigation like the police. They put a lot of work to it, and then they give the file to us, and they do something with this, and if we are lucky a year later they will hear from the media, they will call us and ask: what happened to this case, did you make an indictment, did you get a guilt verdict. But for us it's more like we go to the cases and see what is the judge focusing on. Which kinds of questions he finds very interesting and this influences your work during the investigations. You try to find out: if I was a judge, what kind of information would I need? and how would I try to find reason to my verdict? And I try in a way to imagine to giving him enough material for what he needs. And I try to imagine. We have the same training, we studied at the same law faculty, and had 2 years of internship, some practical time. So we are on the same level when it comes to qualification, so in a way it's easy for us to mentally swap sides and imagine how would the prosecutor think, how would the judge think. We are kind of similar. This is what I guess, I try to imagine, although he's the one to make a decision, what might he need and han he focuses on. I try to. Q: And what about the correspondence with some stereotypes about such crimes? for example, there are statistics, but also stereotypes that usually women are the victim. Does it become more difficult to present cases where the victim is a man? A: In general, I think this is something you learn as you work on cases like this. There are hardly anything that you can say "Oh, this is impossible. It could not have happened." Some many strange, or absurd situations that we've seen on pictures or the victim comes to the police, tells her story. You think: almost impossible, why should the defendant do it? Finally you find out it was exactly like this, so all the stereotypes you lose in a way. Your criticism thinking, like this is not the normal way. There is a big variety when it comes to sexual preferences, I would say, and you become aware of this working in this area. And then, it's not hard to find, to present the case that is against these stereotypes. In a way it's more fascinating and interesting. If the cases are very similar, some like classical husband has some argument with his wife and in the end he rapes her. This is a severe case that has to be worked on, but in a way this is not as fascinating when you think: oh, I'm at a new territory, something very specific. So it's more interesting to have cases with uncommon situations. It's not a problem. We don't have to convince the judges telling them: oh, be prepared, something new, please give it a try. Generally, they are curious. If they are good judges, they are curious about new situations. Q: And would you say that, for example, some characteristics of influence the judge ruling? F.e. their age or their behaviour during the crime or court hearing?

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A: At some point it has to. F. e. if your are abusing a child. And 14 years is the border. And if the child is 13 years and 11 months it is less severe that if it is a 3 year old child. This is protected... There is a bigger difference to this border, and the younger the child the bigger the punishment will be. But in general there is a difference. You can say that a punishment will be less severe if a stranger in a park attacks a woman, forces her to have sexual intercourse. It is seen in German legal system more severe than if it's a couple, they are having sex all the time and at one time disagrees and a man forces her. And they say: oh, they had sexual relationships before anyway, and it's not seen as that severe. When you find the concrete punishment like 5 years or 7 years, then there's a difference in the relationships between the victim and the defendant before the crime and afterwards. There was something like... if he expressed his feeling of regret or something like this. There is also the behaviour of the victim might have a difference. There was some discussions if prostitutes are protected from German law for sexual violation. If they say, generally I'm prepared to give away this, but I want tot have money for this service, in a way. And there was some discussion if they are protected as well. Because, in a way, they offer their bodies themselves, but now I think this discussion is over and it's clear that they are protected the same. But may be the punishment wouldn't be that hard than to another woman. Have I answered the..?

Q: Yes. I was wondering maybe there is some characteristic of the offender, the accused that influences the ruling?

A: Yes, if he had normal life before, and worked and paid taxes and did a lot of good deeds. The punishment will be less severe than if it is someone who committed rape tree times before and was sent to prison and has experienced this punishment and says: Oh, I will go on anyway. So of course this is formalized. It has some influence. Or which kind of reason made him do it. Just some... having boredom and he says: I need some action, I do this. Or maybe there's some crisis inside of him and maybe some illness, some psychological illness. Some criteria like these also influence the punishment. Because we do not punish deeds, we punish individuals, and we have to find out which kind of guilt does this specific person fulfilling this deed. And of course his characteristics are very important for finding the right decision.

Q: I want to ask more about the procedure. Who do you interact during your work? F.e. colleagues, police, medical advisors...

A: Yes. Colleagues if we discuss cases in order to talk about experience and find an answer to the question: "What do you think about this interview, do you believe this witness?". And the police if we have to tell them what to do and to telephone or write, sending the file to them asking for more investigation. As well some medical experts. We can take any kind of expert if we find something... I don't know, defendant sat into the car of the victim. Police can take some scotch tape, I think you may call it, and you can take some fabric of the material trying to find what kind of clothes was the criminal wearing. And you can ask any kind of expert for any kind of science or anything. We have the chance to ask them and ask them for their knowledge. Sometimes witness. We can invite them and if they don't come to the police. We prefer them to come to the police, we prefer that because the police have more time, is better trained to make an interview. But they don't have to come to the police, and if they don't come we invite to us and they have to come to the prosecutors. So we sometimes have contact with witness. And can also ask the defendant to come to our office, but he has the right to say nothing, he just has to give his identity, data, but he doesn't have to say anything. If we invite him, he can say: I don't tell you anything. Short interview. And lawyers come, too. They want to discuss cases and to find good solutions for their clients of course. And we talk sometimes to judges, the call us and tell us that they need further information, and make suggestions how we can go on in a specific case. I would say these are the main persons of contact in a professional.

Q: And does it happen that, f.e., your view or position on a specific case does not correspond with the view of, f.e., the representative of police?

A: Yes, it happens but it's kind of easy. the conflict [is] decided easily. We lead the investigation, we ask the police: do this, do that, and we have to make the final decision, and we lead, in a way. So we win if there's a conflict, and generally there's not a big problem. In a way they accept that we're more experienced in this forensic question. Is this enough? Can we believe this? So in a way, they're trying to make their job as good as possible, but in a way they're that the responsibility of the final outcome, they

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Centre for German and European Studies can send the file and say: Good luck trying to make something out of this case. So there's not a lot of conflict with them. We try to work closely with them and cooperate, explain them our decisions and not to be very strict or pull this hierarchical card and tell them "we are higher", but we try to be in discussion with them and cooperate. It works kind of well.

Q: And do you interact with social workers and psychologists, or something like that?

A: Psychologists? We have psychological experts, especially for making interviews with children, yeah. And the children, they sometimes have illnesses, like deficit syndrome of... The word recognition or...

Q: Yeah, I understood. Внимание. I know in Russian, but I forgot the word in English.

A: So there are some illnesses that might influence the opportunity of this child to be a "good" witness. And they we need. We're not trained for this, and then we need some psychological, some psychiatrist, and we send then the file and they make something like expertise and send back to us. So more like writing letters. And sometimes we call them or ask them in front of the court, but generally we send them files. And social workers. Sometimes when there's guilt verdict and defendant is sent on probation, we received some reports telling us how probation time is used. The defendant is cooperating, and everything is working fine, and he's doing what he was asked to do. Taking part in therapy or something like this. And sometimes they write us reports and say: probation isn't working at all, and then we have to think about the consequences. But that's it mostly.

Q: From what I understood, both victim and the defendant have their own lawyers that represent the case. Right? And do you have disagreements with them or different vision of the crime that was committed?

A: Generally the lawyer tries to tell us: no, my client is not guilty at all, he's a perfect man and you shouldn't blame him for anything. Some do. And we say: we try to find out, maybe you're right, maybe you're not. Very often they ask for the acquittal in front of the court and we ask for different. And it might be the other way round, like the lawyer of the witness (victim) tries to convince us and the judges that severe crime has happened, and if we say don't believe, we ask for an acquittal and these lawyers [are] disappointed. So there are some, of course. Some different views. Because they take care of the interests of one specific party in this trial and we're trying to be objective and trying to find the truth, but one disagrees with us. Either one taking care of the interests of the victim, or the other one taking care of the interests of the defendant. So there will be a conflict with one of them, probably.

Q: And what about the media, f.e., in your opinion, your vision of sexual violence that was committed, does it correspond with how it is reported in the media?

A: In general in Germany we have this discussion, I tried to explain to you, the laws became more strict. And there's always a discussion that child abuse - a terrible thing. And there's something like a panic, some kind of hype about this, and some severe concerns. And the discussion is getting, if you read as something, not involved in cases like this, "oh, there's more and more abuse and the cases become more and more severe", but generally in Germany we say the rates are going back, lowering. There's less cases than before, in a way ir's a good development, but the media is talking about this more and the normal people on the street think "oh, it becomes a big problem". But to be honest, there always have been cases like this and numbers are decreasing in a way. So they are not representing what the professionals think about these cases. There are spectacular cases and evidently this is terrible, but in general the development is improving. We have better therapies, in a way, to take care of defendants, and it helps to decrease the numbers of crimes.

Q: And does the prosecutor's office try to influence how, f.e., specific cases are presented in media?

A: No, we have something like, some prosecutors taking care of the contact with the media but if any of us is giving interviews, they are not active going to the media telling them: listen, new case. The media got information, and they come and ask. The prosecutor's office has to make a decision how many information can we... We have to take in mind public interests of spectacular cases and the interest of

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Centre for German and European Studies the defendant about his private data to be kept secret. We have to find a good way, acceptable for both sides of this balance. So I don't think that we're trying to give any kind of our opinion of the cases, to put it out and to put it into the media to make some public pressure on the judges, so this is not the way the German system works. The media coming to us want to know everything and we try to think where's the line, how much information can we give to them. But we don't use them as something... like a partner on our side, giving our opinion more power, in a way. this is not the way it works. Not necessarily. We don't fight judges and need some partners to improve our situation, but we try to make a good work and don't need media. We want to convince by our work and not by media, press report about our work.

Q: And do you know about any public discussions about sexual violence cases, f.e., not only in media but using flashmobs, protests or something like that?

A: Flashmobs and protests? I know there was something like flashmobs, may be? When the defendants are released from prison, and they have to find the flat. We want to enable them to get back to society. Rehabilitation is like the aim of our penal system. And they need a flat, and they need to try to find jobs for them. And sometimes we have public protests "why does he have to move to our village? we don't want to have a person who committed child abuse next to our, in our village". And this is something, there are some discussions about this. How to continue the life after the prison time is over? This is some, there are some discussions about it. I would say this is the only thing that I could imagine.

Q: So would you say there are differences in how the publics perceive issues connected with sexual violence and how prosecutors do? You said this about the perpetrators, but maybe there's something about the victims or the need to change something? In public's view?

A: You mean, would I like to change something about the public?..

Q: No, I mean, does the public think differently about the cases of sexual violence?

A: I would say, yes. I would say, they focus more on the interests of the victim. they see poor victim, and at some point they cannot imagine why should the victim lie or if this is not victim but something like wrong accusation. I think this is not in the awareness of the public. They think if the victim comes to the police, okay, she's the victim, for example, and the man is the evil. And they make their verdict too quick. This is one thing, maybe. And they want to be super strict, they want to send the defendant, or, say, he abused a child, send him to prison as long as possible, and they, maybe, it's hard to focus, to force yourself to also look at the weakness of the defendant and to try to be objective. To see the harm on the side of the victim, but also see what kind of history or biography made the perpetrator commit these crimes. How much he was himself in power to make decisions and how much did he suffer abuse himself, f.e. This is kind of very often that people committing these crimes were victims before in their childhood. And if you start to focus on this, then maybe your verdict becomes more mild because you try to see both sides. And I think in public discussions the rights of the victims are stressed more stronger than to have a perspective also on the lives of the perpetrators. They’re kind of poor person, in a way, that.

Q: How often does it really happen that it is a false accusation? I've read some research that ranges from 1% to 10%.

A: Sometimes it's hard to find out, because sometimes you have cases and think "ok, I cannot make an indictment against the defendant. I have a feeling that maybe the victim lied to me", but you're not sure, you cannot find out. You don't know one way or the other way. You say "i don't know, both is possible", so you cannot in a way say "ok, wrong accusation". You sometimes have the feeling. But it's kind of often. There are some constillations, if there's a couple and a woman has big expectations having a marriage, and in a way she feels abused after the time's over because she feels she was just used for sex, but there was no really interesting partnership, sometimes it's kind of revenge to make a wrong accusation of rape. I think we have this kind of often and some cases of child abuse. When parents divorce and father and mother, and one of them accuses the other of abusing the child in order to have the child in his family, to put harm to the other partner. I think, in these cases, victims sometimes are... there are some strategies behind to use these accusations of abuse or sexual violence to reach some

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Centre for German and European Studies aims, i don't know, other aims. So this happens, but I cannot give you numbers because of, you know. But it's kind of, you know, the feeling, 1% - I would say, much more often, to my mind.

Q: And the lat questions. Would you say that, in your opinion, there need to be some changes made in, f.e., legislature concerning sexual violence?

A: In a way, I would say, we have these some paragraphs, I mean the legal code. And the legal system works on these paragraphs for years and years, 50-60 years, so there's a lot of decisions you can compare and a lot of cases were decided "ok, this is sexual violence, this is not", so the systems is kind of well-made, so it's not a lot of space for improvisation. Not a lot of places you think "oh, it's unclear", you don't know this is a crime or it's not crime. It's kind of well-made. I do think we do too many changes in a way. Like this discussion, it is ok to make a crime if the victim says "no, I don't want this". So I think we shouldn't over-stretch, in a way, the boundaries of what is a crime and what not. To my mind we should stop to make changes too quick. To accept that this is system like this and it works in a way. It's a fair deal between "this is a crime - this is not a crime". I don't see much space for improvement, I don't know. Maybe things might get worse if you try to make the crimes too broad, the variety.

Q: And what about the procedure of prosecution. Do you think it needs some changes or not?

A: I think this is, not from a legal point of view, but maybe concerning the financial means, f.e., the police. Sometimes it takes a lot of time if there's a computer taken from the defendant and you try to find if there's child pornography or something like this. And this takes, sometimes takes months, and we are waiting and waiting. And the case is not going on because the police does not have enough computers or police officer. And this is something, I guess. There’s always room for improvisation [improvement]. It's not a legal thing, but it's talking about financial resources. And the same at the legal system at the prosecutor's office. I think we have some, we need more prosecutors and more judges. There are some cases that are, for financial reasons, there are no people put to these specific parts. And this is something that maybe would help to make quicker and better decisions if we have better prosecutors working on these cases. So then we are kind of short of manpower. This is, to my mind, the biggest problem in Germany. This is not a legal problem.

Q: Yeah, that's quite a common problem, I guess. And the last question. Would you say there are some changes needed in the provision of support and help for the victims, or maybe the perpetrators, if you want to stop reoffending.

A: I think we have a good system. they can have lawyers and they don't have to pay if they're poor. They have chances to get financial support. We have some NGOs like Weisse Ring, the White Ring. They're taking care of victims of crimes. And they will send you to a lawyer, they will inform you about therapy. So there's a system of NGOs and help, so I don't think there's a lot of space for improvement. I don't think we have to do much more. In the procedure code there are a lot of rights of the victim to get information, to be able to take part in the trial and to make his voice to be heard, in a way. There are some rules about this, and I don't think we have this injust in a way of the victim is put to the side and cannot discuss. I think there are some good rules in Germany. of course, I only know this system, so I don't really compare. Maybe some other countries are much better. And I just cannot imagine this improvement, but to my mind it works. I don't have the feeling of [it being] so unjust of poor victims or poor defendants. I think they find protection in German legal system. I am content.

Q: and does it matter in court hearing if a person hired a lawyer or was given a lawyer by the government?

A: No. Those are the same lawyers, we don't have lawyers only working for the government and normal ones. these are the same. Sometimes they do cases like this and sometimes they do cases for money. So there are good lawyers and bad lawyers, but you cannot say the government ones are bad and those ones are good. They are prepared to put some work into cases and to work for the client, but generally I wouldn't say it depends if the client pays them or the government pays.

Q: It doesn’t matter in terms of workload? Maybe the government lawyers have more cases to defend?

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Working Papers WP 2015-07

Centre for German and European Studies

A: but they're not government lawyers, they're normal lawyers, and the government... F.e. the judge calls them: "oh, I have this case, do you want it" and the lawyer says: oh, i'm full, i have enough clients. And if they ahve enough clients paying for them maybe it's, they earn more, so in a way, maybe especially young lawyers try to start the career by working for this government, but I think all lawyers say "oh, it''s good". it's a good thing to do, some idealism. And they're prepared to work for the government and they become fair money, and it's ok for them so they can work on this, but maybe if they were very rich and can afford very good lawyers, they wouldn't maybe work for the government. They want much higher rate of money. ok, maybe they're more specialized, more legal experts. But in Germany the level of lawyers taking care of even if you don't have money to afford lawyer yourself is acceptable, I would say.

Q: One more question I forgot to ask. Again, about the victim protection during the trial. Are there any questions that victims cannot be asked, or something like that? That would bring prejudice against them.

A: Yes. Of course, and the judge's task and our task too is to take care that they're protected. And there are questions that have to be asked but we're not allowed to ask to make them feel ashamed. The lawyer cannot ask them just to attack them. And then the judge can say: I won't allow this question. You're not allowed to ask this question.. And, f.e., there are some rules to protect them. They don't have to tell everything, to give away anything and their personality should be protected. It depends on how the lawyer, how decent he behaves and how good the judge is prepared, how strong the judge is to say: I will do anything to protect anybody in my courtroom. The defendant as well as the victim. So there are the questions that are forbidden in a way. So you aren't allowed to ask [if] they just aim to make this person feel ashamed or they don't have any relation to find out about the case. Just in in order to compromise them. This won't be allowed. And there are some rules, f.e., if the person is very afraid of the defendant there's a chance to put the defendant in another room. The witness can ask: please, I cannot tell, I see them and the trauma will come back and I will collapse here. And if some doctor writes something, something like a paper about this, and then the defendant can be sent to another room to protect the victim. All the victims can ask to be interviewed in another room. There's something like a video situation, so all the people who stay in the courtroom decide the victim, he or she, sits in another room and is interviewed by television and don't have to be confronted by the perpetrator. So there are some rules to take care of emotional health or, how should I say, the victim.

Q: Thank you for answering all of my questions.

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