Adaptación psicométrica de los cuestionarios "Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children" (TSCC) y "Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children" (TSCYC) en una muestra española de víctimas de abuso sexual infantil

El maltrato infantil y el abuso sexual, como tipo de maltrato en la infancia, supone un problema social que ha estado presente a lo largo de la historia, en todos los países, culturas, estratos sociales. El abuso sexual infantil ha presentado dificultades para su definición al no existir un acuerdo único y darse diferencias sobre los criterios definitorios. Las definiciones propuestas han sido múltiples, algunas son más restrictivas, mientras que otras tienen una perspectiva más amplia. Una de las definiciones más ampliamente usada y aceptada internacionalmente ha sido la propuesta por la OMS (2001), al incorporar los criterios de que el menor se encuentra inmerso en actividades o comportamientos para los que no se encuentra preparado ni física ni psicológicamente, sin disponer de la capacidad de consentimiento, transgrediendo la legislación vigente en cada país (Stoltenborgh, Van Ijendoorn, Euser y Bakermans-Kranenbirg, 2011, en Amado, Arce y Herraiz, 2015). En el campo de la investigación social, la mayoría de profesionales hacen uso de los criterios propuestos por Finkelhor y Hotaling (1984), ratificados en España por López (1994). Dichos conceptos han sido el de coerción y la asimetría de edad o diferencias a nivel madurativo, lo que conlleva a una incapacidad a una libre decisión. Dado que el abuso sexual se suele dar en la más estricta intimidad, resulta realmente complicado cuantificar y estimar su prevalencia e incidencia, dada la denominada “cifra negra” de este tipo de situaciones, puesto que parte de los casos no se han denunciado o ni siquiera se han notificado. A pesar de ello, algunos estudios, como el meta-analítico realizado por Pereda, Guilera, Forns y Gómez-Benito (2009), han notificado una prevalencia de entre 7,4% en el caso de los niños y del 19,2% en las niñas...

The Ultimate Secrecy: Feminist Readings of Masculine Trauma in Vietnam War Literature

It is a widely acknowledged and often unquestioned fact that patriarchy and its modes of behaviour and social organization favour the appearance of trauma on the weakest (and defenceless) members of society: women. In the last decades, trauma seems to have taken the baton of typically female maladies such as 19th c. hysteria or 20th c. madness. Feminists in the 20th c. have long worked to prove the connection between the latter affections (and their reflection in literary texts) and patriarchal oppression or expectations of feminine behaviour and accordance to roles and rules. With Trauma Studies on the rise, the approach to the idea of the untold as related to femininity is manifold: on the one hand, is not trauma, which precludes telling about one’s own experience and keeps it locked not only from the others, but also from ourselves, the ultimate secrecy? On the other hand, when analyzing works that reflect trauma, one is astounded by the high number of them with a female protagonist and an almost all-female cast: in this sense, a ‘feminist’ reading is almost compulsory, in the sense that it is usually the author’s assumption that patriarchal systems of exploitation and expectations favour traumatic events and their outcome (silence and secrets) on the powerless, usually women. Often, traumatic texts combine feminism with other analytical discourses (one of the topics proposed for this panel): Toni Morrison’s study of traumatic responses in The Bluest Eye and Beloved cannot be untangled from her critique of slavery; just as much of Chicana feminism and its representations of rape and abuse (two main agents of trauma) analyze the nexus of patriarchy, new forms of post-colonialism, and the dynamics of power and powerlessness in ethnic contexts. Within this tradition that establishes the secrecies of trauma as an almost exclusively feminine characteristic, one is however faced with texts which have traumatized males as protagonists: curiously enough, most of these characters have suffered trauma through a typically masculine experience: that of war and its aftermath. By analyzing novels dealing with war veterans from Vietnam or the Second World War, the astounding findings are the frequent mixture of masculine or even ‘macho’ values and the denial of any kind of ‘feminine’ characteristics, combined with a very strict set of rules of power and hierarchy that clearly establish who is empowered and who is powerless. It is our argument that this replication of patriarchal modes of domination, which place the lowest ranks of the army in a ‘feminine’ situation, blended with the compulsory ‘macho’ stance soldiers are forced to adopt as army men (as seen, for example, in Philip Caputo’s Indian Country, Larry Heinemann’s Paco’s Story or Ed Dodge’s DAU: A Novel of Vietnam) furthers the onset and seriousness of ulterior trauma. In this sense, we can also analyze this kind of writing from a ‘feminist’ point of view, since the dynamics of über-patriarchal power established at the front at war-time deny any display of elements traditionally viewed as ‘feminine’ (such as grief, guilt or emotions) in soldiers. If trauma is the result of a game of patriarchal empowerment, how can feminist works, not only theoretical, but also fictional, overthrow it? Are ‘feminine’ characteristics necessary to escape trauma, even in male victims? How can feminist readings of trauma enhance our understanding of its dynamics and help produce new modes of interaction that transcend power and gender division as the basis for the organization of society?