Defining “Abuse” Is A Crucial Task
“Poverty is not neglect.” It’s a theme that’s been repeated often in recent years, and a statement that’s undoubtedly true. But, as I argued almost two years ago in my Substack column, repeating it as a mantra can lead to bad outcomes in which children who are suffering poverty as well as child abuse and neglect are ignored.
How we define a problem determines our response. Sometimes under-defining a problem causes us to overlook serious issues, such as the dangers of children living in homeless camps. Other times over-defining a problem causes us to overreact, as when parents are arrested, and children placed in foster care, simply because the parent allowed the child to walk to town “unsupervised.”
The Problem of Defining Abuse
In recent weeks, I’ve been following a number of developments that raise an important related question: who, exactly, is a “victim,” and what is “abuse”?
In a world of limited resources, providing an answer to those questions is critical to society’s ability to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm and exploitation. If everyone’s a victim, resources are diluted to the point that those most in danger are left undefended. If no one’s a victim, there’s no reason to provide protection, and those affected are left to suffer. Labeling something “abuse” demands that society punish the abuser and prevent future abuse. Defining an act as not abusive means it’s allowed regardless of the negative consequences.
Two Contrasting Examples
On the first issue, I’ve been following renewed fallout from the sex abuse issues at the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2022, the denomination undertook an extensive investigation of its historical approach to sex abuse allegations, leading to a report that excoriated many church leaders and named some of them as “abusers” or as those who had tolerated or covered up abuse. Some of the male pastors and church leaders singled out in the report as “abusers” were found to have engaged in extramarital or morally inappropriate relationships with named adult victims. In response, a number of those leaders filed lawsuits in which they have argued that while their actions were immoral, to label them as abusers and the women involved as victims is improperly inflammatory and defamatory.
Without going into the details, suffice to say there’s currently a battle on X/Twitter following materials produced in the litigation that question whether one prominent church leader’s ongoing, long-distance relationship with a woman not his wife represents a case where an abuser exploited a victim or, instead, a case of a consensual inappropriate relationship.
On the second issue, the British Journal of Medical Ethics recently published an article by 25 academics questioning whether female genital mutilation is actually a problem. Remember that FGM, the forceful, painful, and damaging removal of a girl’s clitoris against her will, has been long deemed a harmful practice by the UN and is outlawed in many countries, including the UK and US. According to the article’s authors, labeling FGM as abuse promotes racial stereotypes, marginalizes certain cultures, and “objectifies women and girls as passive victims.”
In both scenarios, we’re challenged with defining a problem: what is abuse? Who’s a victim?
In the first scenario, if a religious leader in a position of authority seduces an adult into an affair, do we characterize that as abuse the same way we do when a youth pastor molests a child in his congregation? If so, do church leaders have the same safeguarding responsibilities to otherwise independent adults that they have to children? What effect does such a rule have on how we treat each other in a religious organization? Must we view every pastor as a potential abuser and every member of a congregation as a potential victim? What does such a broad definition of abuse and vulnerability have on the organization’s ability to protect those with known vulnerabilities, such as children or adults with disabilities?
In the second scenario, how does redefining FGM as merely a diverse expression of cultural values help those who have involuntarily undergone it, many of whom are the leading advocates against it? Is society now barred from determining what constitutes abuse if doing so renders a cultural judgment, and are vulnerable individuals now protected by those determinations simply left to the wolves? Are we required now to tolerate slavery, pedophilia, female infanticide, and child marriage, practices once valued by certain historical cultures and still done in some places?
A Possible Solution
Language matters, but context matters even more. In his masterpiece about the brain, The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist describes how the “right” hemisphere of our brain is the source of our empathy, our relationships, and our context. The right brain is focused on values: goodness, beauty, truth, and the divine. The left brain, on the other hand, gives us language and our ability to categorize things, but it does so out of context and without regard to the value of relationships and other people. Unfortunately, says McGilchrist, we often consider the self-centered left hemisphere the superior, “civilized” part of the brain.
McGilchrist’s work may present a good explanation for the problems we as humans have in defining what is right and what is wrong. Do we use our right hemispheres, taking context into consideration, considering the needs of individuals and our responsibilities to them, putting ourselves in the shoes of the vulnerable, and making value judgments? Or do we take a left hemisphere approach, manipulating language for our own ends, categorizing human actions out of context, and labeling them without thought of the impact? Maybe better, let’s use both sides and accept definitions that actually protect victims.
