I Can Protect His Future, but She Can’t Be Helped: Himpathy and Hysteria in Administrator Rationalizations of Institutional Betrayal

Abstract

It is well-established fact that sexual assault survivors who report the violence they endured are retraumatized by the reporting process, but there is limited research on how these institutional betrayals are enacted. The current study draws on ethnographic observation and interview data to explore how 24 administrators use gendered rationalization frames to justify betrayal in Title IX cases. Specifically, administrators invoke himpathy to define their primary role as protecting the futures of young men. To defend this view from critique, they condemn how survivors use Title IX by casting them as hysterical women who are either mistaken in labeling an experience as sexual assault or suffering from trauma too severe for a Title IX process to repair. Taken together, these frames portray institutional betrayal as moral, even as these ideologies reinforce gender inequality.