{"id":39360,"date":"2018-09-04T10:43:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T07:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=39360"},"modified":"2022-03-29T07:08:58","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T04:08:58","slug":"hetoo-joseph-as-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/hetoo-joseph-as-victim\/","title":{"rendered":"#HeToo – Joseph as Victim"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[302,365,391,363,572],"acf":{"old_id":"39360","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":39060,"related_cahpter":"39","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A story to help us shift the balance back towards empathy","content":"

The vast majority of survivors of sexual assault are cisgender women. <\/span>It\u00a0<\/span>is important for women\u2019s stories of gender-based violence to continue to be\u00a0<\/span>uplifted through the #metoo movement. In addition, we should not forget the\u00a0<\/span>many stories of cisgender men, trans, and gender non-conforming people who are\u00a0<\/span>also survivors amongst us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The story of Joseph\u2019s assault at the hands of Potiphar\u2019s Wife<\/span> in Genesis 39<\/span> is just such a story.<\/span><\/p>\n

We could read Joseph as just any old straight man, or we might read his character with an overlay of queerness from the many hints in the Torah and rabbinic literature that Joseph had an extra flair of flamboyance in his gender presentation and sexuality. The Torah particularly focuses on Joseph\u2019s good looks and youth (Genesis 37:2, 39:6). Bereishit Rabbah interprets the emphasis on his youth to say that he liked to fix up his hair, and touch up his eyes to appear good looking. Contemporary readers looking for queer stories in the Torah have read these hints and others to create a reading of Joseph as queer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Torah may emphasize Joseph\u2019s beauty in his encounter with Potiphar\u2019s Wife, but I read her primary motivating force as the desire to assert power over another, as is the case with most instances of sexual assault. Potiphar\u2019s Wife makes repeated, unwanted sexual advances towards Joseph, culminating in the use of physical force. When Joseph flees, she wields the social and political power she holds over Joseph to accuse him of the very crime she herself has committed. This perpetrator narrative resonates with familiar tropes of victim blaming. Joseph has no voice to defend himself and is thrown in jail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether Joseph was straight, queer, asexual, cis-male or transgender doesn\u2019t matter in the slightest as a reason for his abuse, but these readings do allow the experiences of those not easily seen in the text of the Torah or the public discussion of sexual assault to be more visible. Oftentimes, initial judgments connected to a survivor\u2019s identity and the situation they find themselves in cloud our capacity to listen and leave us overly fixated on the \u201ctruth\u201d of what happened in a claim of sexual assault. This unfortunate default line of inquiry gives great power to our inevitable biases and makes the survivors\u2019 needs invisible. Once we have given so much power to judgment, it is hard to shift the balance back towards empathy. \u00a0The next time you hear someone brave enough to come forward with a story of assault, I encourage you to withhold judgment and ask yourself, \u201chow would Joseph want me to respond to this story if it were his?<\/span><\/p>\n

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