Often the 1960s are thought of as a time of hippies and the fight for peace and love. However, this does not mean that young women were not facing the same problems they always have and continue to face. Joyce Carol Oates investigates the sexual assault and abduction of one such young woman in the 1966 short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” In this story, Connie, a fifteen-year-old girl in the suburban US, is initially fighting all the battles that fifteen-year-old girls typically face, a budding sexuality, tension between her and her family, and a desire for independence. Around a quarter of a way through the story though, a new character Arnold Friend is introduced, a roughly thirty-year-old man with an unsettling appearance who drives a gold jalopy. He drives up to her house one afternoon as she is home alone and invites her along for a ride with him. Connie is reluctant and her paranoia is confirmed and exacerbated as she realizes discrepancies in Friend’s presented persona. Eventually, Friend manipulates Connie into the car through threats of violence against her and her family. The story ends with them driving off into the countryside, with Connie assumed to be never seen again. Through Oates’ characterization of Connie, she critiques the way that victims are often blamed in cases of sexual assault in a way that connects to what is contemporarily known as rape culture.
Rape culture has been defined by the Marshall University’s Women and Gender Center as “an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture” (“Rape Culture”). All too often, sexual assault is blamed on the victim because they supposedly “led him [the assaulter] on,” “was asking for it,” was dressed too “provocatively,” or such assaults are normalized, dismissed as typical young male behavior with the destructive cliché that “boys will be boys.” Not only do some of these sentiments just dismiss the crime, but they also shift blame onto the victim, making the attack seem like something that could have been helped and that was not solely the fault of the assailant. As this rhetoric becomes prevalent throughout a culture, sexual assault becomes almost normalized, and the assailants face fewer and fewer consequences. Though the rape culture has recently been receiving more attention, the issues it addresses have been around for centuries and were especially prevalent in the 1960s, when this short story was written. Oates brought to light major facets of rape culture throughout this short story, an impressive feat given the time period it was composed in.
Throughout the story there are countless mentions of Connie trying to present herself as older and more desirable for the boys around her. Oates explains that “everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (para. 5), discussing how Connie changed things such as her mannerisms and how she wears her clothes to be more appealing as she went out with her friends. This especially can be seen as Oates states that “her walk, which could be childlike and bobbing, or languid enough to make anyone think she was hearing music in her head.” (Oates para. 5). Oates here is trying to lure to reader into sympathizing with the rhetoric of rape culture, specifically the message “well, what was she wearing” and the way that it places blame on victims for simply being perceived as sexually provocative. She intentionally wants the reader to conflate Connie’s attention to her appearance with her attempting to be perceived as sexually provocative and consenting to whatever anyone does to her as a result of her appearance. Through this, Oates is walking the reader through the rhetoric of rape culture, allowing them to experience the shifting blame before she ultimately shatters the façade by showing how in the end there was nothing Connie could or could not have done any differently to escape.
The concept of blame can be seen again later in the story as we first meet the major antagonist, Arnold Friend, while Connie is out on the town one night. Rape culture may make the argument that the attention she gave to him that night, or her failure to reject his creepy behavior then and nip it in the bud, would make his later actions her fault and not his. Later, at the starting point of her second meeting with Friend, additional arguments could be made towards her being the one to blame for her alluded assault. Oates mentions how, as she initially sees the car pulling up to the house, instead of being worried about the unexpected visitor, she instead worries over her appearance stating, “her heart began to pound and her fingers snatched at her hair, checking it, and she whispered, ‘Christ. Christ,’ wondering how bad she looked” (Oates para.15). She then goes on to engage with Friend in conversation and does not immediately decline his offer for a ride and send him away. Oates continues to demonstrate the rhetoric of rape culture by coaxing the reader to view the situation as Connie’s fault convincing them to view this perceived initial interest almost as a version of consent under rape culture. Until once again reminding them how she is a fifteen-year-old girl staring down an over-thirty-year-old predator.
Despite all of Connie’s characterization however, Oates is careful to never assign blame to her. While the story is kept mostly neutral, the little blame there is to assign is placed squarely on Arnold Friend. She especially clarifies this point following Friend’s rant about how he has canceled out all Connie’s other options for a future with there now being only him and his way through Friend saying “you know that and always did know it” (Oates para. 151). She never had a chance to escape what he had planned for her, no matter how she may have dressed or the attention she may or may not have given him, especially as he later shifts his tactic from manipulation to threats of violence against her family.
Her other characterizations are further exacerbated by Oates also giving Connie traits that women are often told to adopt to lower their risk of being sexually assaulted. Connie is incredibly observant and picks up on and analyzes others’ behaviors extremely quickly. We can see this even before she meets Friend as she is analyzing her family, their motivations, wants, and desires in a way similar to her own mother who was said to have “noticed everything and knew everything” (Oates para. 1). We continue to see this as she analyzes Friend and begins to recognize just how much of a threat he poses to her. Not only does she notice every little detail about him and lists them back to the audience, but she comes to the realization that something is wrong about the persona he presents as Oates states how, “all these things [about Friend] did not come together” (Oates para. 77). Oates makes the point that teaching women these behaviors instead of teaching men not to sexually assault others is simply a continuation of shifting the blame and responsibility for the crime onto the victim. By the conclusion of the story, Oates makes it very clear to the audience that no action of Connie’s could have stopped Friend in his goal of abducting her.
Throughout the story, Connie represents almost every common argument against the legitimacy of sexual assault, but despite this, Oates never once blames Connie for what happens to her. Instead, the story focuses on revealing the ways that Arnold Friend has deceived her and shows how the second he pulled up she had no chance of escape. Through this, Oates is emphasizing how illegitimate these arguments against the validity of sexual assault are, by showing how they had no impact on Connie’s fate. Through this, Oates calls for putting an end to the blaming of victims of sexual assault rather than the perpetrators and an end of a culture that would continue to allow it. Not only an end to shifting this blame, but an end to these types of crimes as a whole by teaching men to simply respect others and understand consent. Especially relevant for her time as the women’s liberation movement would not gain traction until later in the seventies, this message arguing for the ridiculousness of rape culture is still pertinent today, showing the amount of work that must still be done to put an end to this issue.
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