At the moment I am reading the book Rape: a history from 1860 to the present by Joanna Bourke. It is a very fascinating and interesting though depressing read and will explore the issues she raises in the book more fully once I have read it. But as the book title states, it is a historical and political examination of the history of rape, how the perception of rape has changed and shifted over time, power relationships within patriarchal capitalism, and the intersection of class, race and gender.
I have read a couple of chapters and I think I will be having fundamental political differences with Bourke (but I will write more once I have finished the book). She decided to write the book after being shocked after reading the Home Office report (2005) that stated that only 5% of rapes reported to the police in the UK ever end in conviction.
When she looks back historically at the way rape has been understood and the meaning constructed over time it is a very depressing and grim read. Male physicians, legal experts and so on gave their interpretation of rape in various journals. Myths abounded usually concerning the social class of woman.
“Women of the lower classes are accustomed to rough play with individuals both of their own own and opposite sex. Their capacity for defence rendered them capable of frustrating the attempts of any ravisher”. Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, 1898
In other words working class women couldn’t be raped and if they said they had been then they were lying. Other pearls of misogynistic “wisdom” include, “almost impossible to rape a resisting woman” (Manual of Medical Jurisprudence, 1831). Under the heading of whether a woman can be violated against her will: “A fully matured woman, in full possession of her faculties, cannot be raped, contrary to her desire, by a single man” and “a certain class of woman would make a point of resisting before yielding”.. (Medical Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, 1898).
And onto the 20th century, where pathologising women alleging rape by labelling them as “hysterical” and “neurotic”. In other words, simply, they are mad, liars and cannot be believed:
Women, who made allegations of rape, were “degenerate”, “hysterical, psychopathic, notoriety-seeking or simply vicious..” (William Robinson, Sex and Marriage Problems, 1928).
These misogynistic beliefs about it being impossible to rape a woman were still kicking around in 1970s: “The average woman is equipped with effective obstacles to penetration by means of the hands, limbs, and pelvic muscles”.. (The Crimes of Violence, 1973).
And lets not start on marital rape as that wasn’t an offence until 1990. A woman being seen legally as the property of her husband and bound by her marriage vows!
I am only read a couple of chapters but my blood pressure is already skyrocketing due to the anger of reading dismissive, patriarchal and misogynistic writings reducing women as being mad, bad, liars and dangerous to know. Even now with the political shifts in society that is more consciously aware due mainly to the the influence of feminism and the women’s liberation movement, the views maintained above still exist and permeate society.
Women still have an uphill struggle of being believed. Whether she is described as “asking for it”, her sexual history being brought into the equation, the clothes she was wearing, leading the man on, minimisation (including internal minimisation including self-blame), that “no” really means “yes”, cuts in rape crisis services, patchy/inconsistent police responses, sexist criminal justice system and the fact, as that Bourke maintains, only 5% of rapes ever end in conviction. Sexual violence is wedded in the patriarchal capitalist order. At least we have an awareness to challenge and counter these myths prevalent in this society but that too is an uphill struggle.
A useful companion to this book is Heroes of their own Lives by Linda Gordon who researchs the history of family violence from 1880s onwards. Gordon analyses the contruct of the family unit with more of a class dynamic and how patriarchy is intertwined with class.
Posted by harpymarx 
