There is much debate about the terms victim and survivor, especially when used in the context of sexual assault and domestic violence. When possible, journalists should ask sources which terms they prefer.
Use the Right Words: Media Reporting on Sexual Violence in Canada, a guide produced by femifesto, a Toronto-based, feminist organization that works to shift rape culture to consent culture, offers this guidance on use of these words:
Victim:
The word “victim” conveys that “someone committed a crime against this person, and that they were injured by it.”
But the word victim can imply “passivity, acceptance of one’s circumstances, and a casualty.”
“Victim” is also “a noun which identifies a person solely according to what someone did to them; it conveys nothing about what they did to resist or respond, or anything about any other identity they may have. In this way, it also plays into our ideas about what a victim really looks like: passive, perfectly compliant with police and prosecutors’ demands, not angry, sexually pure (which isn’t just about personal history, it’s about race, class and other identities and what meanings are attached to them).”
“Victim” can be seen as ignoring coping and resistance strategies that people who have experienced sexual assault develop to survive violence.
Survivor
The term “survivor” can convey agency and resilience. It can be seen to imply “ingenuity, resourcefulness, and inner strength.”
At the same time, “the word survivor, is, like victim, a noun. It describes a person according to their experiences of (and resistance to) violence, and nothing more: it is one-dimensional.”
Replacing “victim” with “survivor” can mean a total rejection of “victim.” “Rejecting ‘victim’ and everything that goes with it canbe particularly harsh on people with identities such that society
expects them to be strong, e.g. black women.”
Alternative Language
Examples of alternative language you can use to avoid the victim/survivor dichotomy:
- “a person who was subjected to sexual violence”
- “a person who was sexually assaulted”
- “a person who survived sexual abuse”
- “complainant” (applicable in court cases)
This language depicts sexual assault as something that happened to a person — it doesn’t define their whole life in relation to the experience of violence.