Explanations of violence can sound structural while leaving responsibility unclear. In my Sociology Compass article, published on August 6, 2025, I examine Canadian newspaper coverage of sexual violence at St. Michael’s College School in Toronto.
The article develops the concept of privilege diffusion: a process through which blame is spread across abstract forces such as culture or masculinity, obscuring the actions of privileged individuals and institutions. In this case, seemingly critical language could soften accountability by presenting perpetrators as products of their environment and the school as a passive setting. The analysis shows why naming structural forces must remain connected to the people, practices, and institutional decisions through which harm becomes possible.
