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WhyArePeopleAfraidOfTalkingAboutRape 4 - 05 Apr 2010 - Main.MatthewZorn
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| | When we went over rape in our criminal law class, I made a comment about the role gender plays in our society in determining the definition of "rape". While I still believe in the truth of my comment, I realized immediately that I had not made any friends because of it. I could hear whispers around me and I knew that many thought I had crossed some sort of line. My comment was fairly benign, but many of my classmates still saw it as insensitive and possible chauvinistic.
I am not writing this to try to vindicate my comment. My frustration is because the topic of rape was such an emotional issue that there was no room, even within the halls of an academic institution as prestigious as Columbia Law School, to discuss the topic in an academic manner. I felt like even considering defending the side of the alleged rapist was an obvious taboo, something to be hidden like an unconscious racist assumption. The law is supposed to be inherently unemotional, but people refuse to treat it as such when discussing this specific topic. | | | Again, this post is not to prove my point from class but to ask why the comment garnered such negative attention. | |
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To support Mike's assertion, in Georgia, gender is actually outcome determinant. The crime of rape is committed when one "has carnal knowledge of a female against her will." Under this construction, a man could never be raped under any set of circumstances.
I am far from an expert on the history rape, but here is my cursory understanding of the issue: Even as late as the early twentieth century, rape was seen more as an offense against men and not women. I know there is one academic school of thought US rape laws were enacted, in part, to protect white women (and their husbands) from black men. I also know that in World War I rape was used as a propaganda tool to draw the ire of men (husbands). Modern rape cannot be separated from its past historical manifestations when the law (and society) treated women more like property and less like men. In these societies, rape was, practically speaking, an offense against men or against society/civilization, but not really the woman as an individual.
In this sense, rape is no different than any other "law," which, originates as a manifestation of social values or beliefs. I think the irony of the current situation is that the original values rape laws were designed to protect are so wholly different from the values people purport them to assert today (even if statistics may demonstrate that in practice rape laws operate along racial lines).
Of course, I don't really share the same reaction that you do Mike in regards to "obstructions" to creative or realistic thought. First, I don't think the law is supposed to be unemotional. On the contrary, I see the law as a codification of societal values and a means and structure of imposing those values. Social values are inherently emotional.
-- MatthewZorn - 05 Apr 2010 | | | |
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