The word “victim” is a loaded one indeed — particularly in a feminist discussion. “Victim” seems to apply most especially to women; in modern times, there has been much backlash against usage of the word, as women around the world protest against being labeled “victim” simply because of their gender. Perhaps what they fear is that acceptance of the term, the label, would foist further negative social implications on the female gender. Beyond just the gendered suggestion, however, is the fact that “victim” is an inherently problematic word — at least based on the way society has used and treated the term and anyone labeled as such. “Victim” allows for others to perceive that marked individual in a certain way; “victim” means that person is brought down to a lower station in life, is helpless, desperately requires the help of others “above” him/her, etc.

On Saturday, Jan. 23 of this year, the Rice community was rocked by a public alert of a sexual assault that had been committed on campus at an unregistered party. While the perpetrator was, according to RUPD, caught, the backlash that followed was shockingly revealing — and not in a good way. People in every community always tout that crimes should be reported, that there is a support system in place for “victims.” But following this particular incident, peers and outsiders alike responded with an overwhelming negative perspective: Some claimed the attacker wasn’t even a Rice student (even though he was), and worse, that the assault hadn’t occurred at all, that this girl who suffered a horrible crime had told a malicious lie. Furthermore, the administrative emphasis seemed to be placed on the alcohol present at that event, rather than the crime that occurred, and one outsider (a resident who apparently lives on the outskirts of Rice campus) said he/she did not feel comfortable living close to a campus that allows for alcohol in such settings. As a result, after seeing this profound neglect and lack of support for this sexual assault “victim,” one individual on the anonymous messaging board app Yik Yak posted, “The response to this makes me really grateful I didn’t report my sexual assaults.”

This past semester, I read a disturbing account of sufferers of a disease called dystonia musculorum deformans, which manifests most frequently in young children. Prior to the 2000s, children with dystonia were falsely diagnosed by actual professional physicians; there was a horrific denial present in many of the depicted interactions between the sufferers of muscle dystonia and the sought-after doctors. One parent noted, “You go to so many doors, and all the doors are open but only a quarter open. The first trouble was not believing [Susan] was physically ill … And then, after discovering what she had, after the diagnosis was made, they still won’t believe it. It’s the vanity of these physicians who really have great power … that’s so hard to take."

People see what they want to see. The physicians who initially saw this girl, Susan, who very clearly suffered muscle dystonia, prescribed a certain condition to her without further examination, deeming her hysterical; the condition, as more than one supposedly professional physician claimed, was “conversion hysteria." In doing so, they were able to place the blame squarely on the girl's shoulders, that she suffered because she refused to improve. They delved into her mind, trying to extricate some evidence of a twisted experience in her youth, to explain away her apparent refusal to get better. Young muscle dystonia patients were shepherded from doctor to doctor, inspected, and then deemed the ones to blame over and over again.

Individuals who suffer sexual assault undergo a similar question of validity. They’re placed under the spotlight, interrogated. One reason so many sexual assault crimes go unreported is the “victims” don’t want to go through that excruciating process of reviewing and re-reviewing possibly the most harrowing experience they’ve ever had — and then having those moments’ validity scrutinized and judged by complete strangers.

Such a hostile environment is not something unique to any one place. What happened in January on Rice campus, for example, was by no means an exclusive event — the recent Stanford University rape case decision more than proves this. The kind of look-the-other-way attitude portrayed by authority figures, such as judges presented with a rape case, school administrators dealing with the backlash of sexual assault, superior doctors interacting with patients, or even simple passersby unaffected personally by trauma, is unfortunately a very common occurrence. It appears to be the universal human tendency to shift blame, to find some means to relieve a sense of duty. If the sexual assault didn’t really happen, then no institutional changes need to be enacted; it’s merely an individual problem of that one girl who told the lie. If alcohol was the real problem, not the crime itself, then the situation is easier for administration to deal with and crack down on. If Susan didn’t really have muscle dystonia, then it’s, again, strictly her issue — a reflection of her personal weaknesses. The correction would stem from her and her alone, thus removing the responsibility from the physicians’ shoulders, in a sense.

Sexual assault in particular is easy to point out as a crime whose victims are unfairly treated, since it’s the most publicized, to the point of occasional sensationalism. However, this attitude of willful ignorance and complacency occurs in other instances as well. Poverty and homelessness especially receive this viewpoint in America. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, for instance, highlights this:

It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor… This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful.

People justify walking by the homeless without a second glance, or lying through their teeth when an impoverished, shabby individual asks for a dollar, with the incorrect notion that those who are poor have no one to blame but themselves. As such, this mindset benefits the middle- and upper-class members, who now believe they have valid reasons to keep their wealth to themselves instead of helping those in need.

The general underlying theme here is that people — and this seems to apply to Americans in particular — like to claim that certain poor conditions are the fault of the “victims.” And those who reassign the blame do so in a way that will benefit themselves.

The second film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise"The Dark Knight," presents a moral dilemma in a scene involving two ferries, both rigged with explosives; one is a ferry full of average citizens, the other, with convicted prisoners. Each ferry is equipped with a device that will set off the other ferry’s explosives, killing everyone on board. If neither ferry activates the device, both ferries will be blown up. One of the convicts actually throws the device into the sea in their collective refusal to participate in the Joker’s twisted game, while the average citizens on the other ferry clamor to activate their device because of the simple fact that the other ferry holds criminals. Ultimately, however, they can’t do it. It’s this kind of moral conundrum of evaluating something as arbitrary and dangerous as human worth, and realizing that it’s impossible to do so, that makes life worth living. Say one has to choose to prioritize the operation of an intelligent, degree-holding doctor versus that of an 11-year-old child. Who’s responsible for making that decision? When is it appropriate to do so? Never.

The label “victim” allows a single identity to be plastered on otherwise completely different individuals likely suffering completely different afflictions — emotional, mental, physical, all of the above, etc. But the term “victim” doesn’t just force the aforementioned into a box, it also provides a means for others to elevate themselves into potential positions of power and superiority; it gives them the ability to assign blame and dole out judgment as they see fit. In a sense, a label such as “victim” essentially endorses the notion of quantifying human worth.

Words — signifiers, one might say — give humans the illusion of heady power and consequent ability to quantify others. But the fact is, every life is different, and no one has the authority to evaluate whether one is worth more than another.