Image shows mannequins covered with slogans against sexual violence [perfect victim myth]

TW: This article contains details of sexual assault.

Kim Machray

The idea of the “perfect victim” is a patriarchal concept that is typically used when discussing victims of sexual assault.

This phenomenon often raises a series of predictable questions: What types of victims are viewed as credible sources? What types of victims are worthy of justice? Did they deserve what happened to them? Will they be believed in court?

What is the ‘Perfect Victim’?

The perfect victim, according to Dr Jason B. Whiting, is someone who is weak or vulnerable and “involved in a respectable activity at the time of victimization”. Therefore, the victim must be “blameless in all aspects of the interaction” with their offender, who is a stranger to them.

This checklist suggests that the core facets of the “perfect victim” are vulnerability, believability and respectability. In 1986, Nils Christie first introduced the concept of the “ideal victim” as someone capable of garnering the most support and sympathy from society.

“the ideal victim-survivor must be White, cisgender and feminine”

In his article, Christie offers an example, referring to the victim as “she” he aligns her with “desirable notions of (White) feminine demeanour.” He also notes that she is “unknown to the perpetrator” and thus “has not precipitated her own victimization.”

In a 2017 Vice article, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, associate professor at John Lay College of Criminal Justice, explained that respectability is a presupposed fact for some victims, whereas people of colour, poor people and immigrants are tasked to “create respectability”. That is, to justify their deserving empathy and justice as victims.

While respectability is a required characteristic for the “perfect victim”, so too is being of the “correct” race, gender, social class and sexual orientation.

Failing to Fit the Mould

So, if the ideal victim-survivor must be White, cisgender and feminine, what about everyone who doesn’t fit that description?

Researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University analysed US workplace discrimination data between 1997 and 2016 and found that “Black women were significantly more likely to be subjected to sexual harassment at work than their white peers.” Additionally, a 2022 Trades Union Congress report highlighted that 54 per cent of Black women reported unwanted touching at work, compared with 34 per cent of white women.

The disproportionate rates of harassment for Black women may be seen as an example of Misogynoir, which can be defined as the “hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against Black women.”

The UK Government’s  2020 Sexual Harassment Survey found that 75 per cent of victim-survivors who have at least one discriminated characteristic – i.e. race, disability, age or sex – felt that their identity played a factor in their harassment.

When looking at victimhood through the framework of intersectionality, individuals with multiple identity characteristics experience the world in a complex, multifaceted way. Instances of homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism, religious discrimination, and classism may often be encountered simultaneously.

A combination of forms of oppression might also shape how a victim-survivor interacts with authorities. Due to the documented history of inadequate and negligent responses from criminal justice systems, victims who are actively discriminated against in society may feel averse to seeking justice.

Implications of the ‘Perfect Victim’ Myth

The narrow definition of what makes the “perfect victim” encourages the scrutinisation of victims rather than holding the alleged perpetrator accountable. In cases of sexual assault, victims undergo a thorough and critical examination: what were they wearing? How much did they have to drink? Why did it take them so long to come forward?

Put simply, their accounts are torn apart. If they don’t remember the assault, how can we possibly believe them? But if they remember it too clearly, it must be a curated story to ruin a good man’s reputation.

“he shared misconceptions that would deem someone the ‘perfect victim’ are structurally dangerous”

Neeraja Sanmuhanathan, a sexual assault counsellor, told ELLE Australia that this impossible standard hinders victims from coming forward to authorities. As victims face an internal battle of determining whether they are the ideal victim-survivor, they are confronted with what Sanmuhanathan calls the “Goldilocks dilemma.”

She describes this dilemma as the need to be the perfect survivor. To be “someone who has a clear recall of what happened, who came forward merely hours after an assault to report a crime, was not intoxicated, is ‘trustworthy’ in the eyes of the community, and hopefully someone who can ‘prove’ their sexual assault with evidence.”

The societal obsession with scrutinising victims’ responses to their assaults, rather than focusing on the perpetrator and the systemic flaws of the criminal justice system, perpetuates myths regarding sexual violence and victim behaviour.

True unless proven false

The shared misconceptions that would deem someone the “perfect victim” are structurally dangerous, to the extent that they only protect a small minority of people. The stark contrast between who is deemed a credible victim and the number of people who have sexual violence is a societal failure.

Going forward, instead of treating perpetrators as innocent until proven guilty, the focus should undeniably be on framing victim accounts as true unless proven false.

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Featured image courtesy of Mika Baumeister on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.

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