Woman-to-woman sexual assault:
A situational analysis
Thèse
Kelley Anne Malinen
Doctorat en sociologie
Philosophiae doctor (Ph.D.)
Québec, Canada
RÉSUMÉ
Selon la méthode d’analyse situationnelle élaborée en théorie ancrée, cette thèse explore l’expérience d’agression sexuelle entre femmes telle que vécue par les survivantes et abordée dans la théorie, les discours et la prestation de services. Ce travail examine les enjeux de reconnaissance et de déni et leurs impacts sur les vies de survivantes d’agression sexuelle entre femmes. Les deux premiers chapitres étudient l’invisibilisation de cette violence sexuelle par les théories datant des années 1970 jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Suivant Butler, je propose une perspective théorique sur l’agression sexuelle permettant la coexistence des normes de genre et de leurs transgressions. Je soutiens que les normes de genre appliquées à la violence sexuelle ont une incidence sur ces actes et sur leur reconnaissance. Dans le chapitre trois, des récits de survivantes sont interprétés en mobilisant la théorie phénoménologique; je souligne en quoi les émotions et l’espace sont co-impliqués dans les expériences d’agression sexuelle des participantes. Je présente un parcours commun aux participantes décrivant la transformation du sentiment d’être pris dans un piège vers un certain degré de liberté dans les espaces de guérison. Inspiré par Becker, le chapitre quatre déploie une analyse des « mondes sociaux » qui fournit un contexte institutionnel à ces agressions sexuelles. Je décris comment les pratiques et discours liés à l’agression sexuelle et aux milieux de prestation de services évoluent d’un paradigme genré vers une version non genrée. J’identifie les fournisseurs de services et les survivantes qui reconnaissent les agressions sexuelles entre femmes comme membres de l’« Anti-Violence Project Subworld » (« sous-monde du projet anti-violence »). Les personnes qui comprennent l’agression sexuelle comme forme de violence uniquement perpétrée par les hommes contre les femmes sont identifiées comme membres du « Violence Against Women Subworld » (« sous-monde de violence contre les femmes »). Dans le chapitre cinq sont identifiées quatre approches discursives appliquées aux agressions sexuelles entre femmes. Elles sont : « Gendered Silencing » (« silence genrée »), « Gendered Contextualizing » (« contextualisation genrée »), « Degendered Agentification » (« agentivité dégenrée ») et « Degendered Agentified Contextualization » (« contextualisation dégenrée avec agentivité »).
ABSTRACT
Based on the Grounded Theory Method of Situational Analysis, this dissertation examines woman-to-woman sexual assault as experienced by survivors, and as negotiated in theory, discourse, and service provision. It illuminates dynamics of recognition and denial that influence the lives of woman-to-woman sexual assault survivors. It begins in Chapters One and Two by looking at ways woman-perpetrated sexual violence is obscured by theories dating from the 1970s to present. Drawing on Butler, I advance a theoretical perspective which accommodates the coexistence of gender norms and their transgressions in thinking about sexual assault. I suggest that gendered norms for sexual violence influence acts on the one hand, and recognition on the other. In Chapter Three, survivor narratives are framed by phenomenological theory as I focus on how space and emotion are co-implicated in participant experiences of sexual assault. I present a common trajectory in which survivor participants describe going from feeling trapped to finding some degree of freedom in healing spaces. The fourth chapter deploys a “social worlds” analysis, in the tradition of Becker, to provide an institutional context for woman-to-woman sexual assault. I describe the ways practices and discourses in sexual assault and related contexts of service provision are moving from a rigidly gendered paradigm toward a de-gendered one. I conceptualize providers and survivors who recognize woman-to-woman sexual assault as members of the “Anti-Violence Project Subworld.” Those who understand sexual assault as a fundamentally man-on-woman form of violence are conceptualized as members of the “Violence Against Women Subworld.” Finally, in Chapter Five, this dissertation identifies four discursive approaches to woman-to-woman sexual assault. They are referred to as “Gendered Silencing,” “Gendered Contextualizing,” “Degendered Agentification,” and “Degendered Agentified Contextualization.”
CONTENTS RÉSUMÉ ... III ABSTRACT ... V CONTENTS ... VII LIST OF DIAGRAMS ... XI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... XIII FOREWORD ... XV INTRODUCTION ... 1
Rationale and Review of the Literature ... 4
Methodology ... 5
Recruitment ... 5
Semi-Structured Interviews ... 6
Interviews with Survivors ... 8
Interviews with Service Providers ... 9
Questionnaires ... 10
Analysis ... 10
Structure of the Dissertation ... 11
A Word on Terminology ... 12
Chapters One and Two: Theoretical Critiques ... 12
Chapter Three: Space and Emotion ... 14
Chapter Four: Institutional Networks, Openings, and Change ... 15
Chapter Five: Provider Discourses about Sexual Violence. ... 16
CHAPTER ONE ... 19
THINKING WOMAN-TO-WOMAN RAPE: A CRITIQUE OF MARCUS'S “THEORY AND POLITICS OF RAPE PREVENTION” ... 19
Terminology ... 26
Radical Feminist Theorizations of Rape ... 29
Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention ... 30
Argument One: End Gendered Assumptions, End Rapes ... 31
Argument Two: End Gendered Assumptions, Reveal Rapes ... 35
Synthesizing Arguments One and Two ... 37
On Physical Self-Defense ... 39
Conclusion ... 40
CHAPTER TWO ... 43
CHALLENGING THE MALE PERPETRATOR/FEMALE VICTIM PARADIGM: THINKING GENDER TRANSGRESSIVE RAPE ... 43
Male and Trans Survivors: A Brief Literature Review ... 50
Male Survivors ... 50
Trans Survivors ... 51
The Male Aggressor/Female Victim Paradigm and Gender Paradigmatic Rape ... 52
Orenstein ... 52
MacKinnon ... 54
Cahill ... 55
Implications of Gender Transgressive Rape for Queer Theory and Ethics ... 58
Conclusion ... 59
EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES OF WOMAN-TO-WOMAN SEXUAL ASSAULT ... 61
Narrating Emotional Geographies of Woman-to-Woman Sexual Assault ... 69
Violations and Resistance ... 69
Boundary-Crossings, Discomfort, Disorientation ... 69
Sexual Assault: an Experience of Eclipsed Freedom ... 71
Destination Safe Space ... 76
Institutional Road Blocks ... 76
Reclaiming Space ... 78 Escape... 78 After-Affects ... 80 Reorientation ... 81 Conclusion ... 82 CHAPTER FOUR ... 87
“THIS WAS A SEXUAL ASSAULT”: A SOCIAL WORLDS ANALYSIS OF PARADIGM CHANGE IN THE ... 87
INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE WORLD ... 87
IPV Worlds: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Paradigm Change ... 93
Isolation From the Violence Against Women Subworld ... 95
Support from the Anti-Violence Project Subworld ... 100
Conclusion ... 108
CHAPTER FIVE ... 111
NEGOTIATIONS OF WOMAN-TO-WOMAN SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THE DISCOURSES OF SERVICE PROVIDERS ... 111
The Violence Against Women Subworld and the Anti-Violence Project Subworld ... 118
Four Discourses ... 118
Gendered Silencing ... 118
A Brief Preliminary Note on Determinism, Libertarianism and Compatibilism ... 122
Gendered Contextualizing ... 122
Degendering ... 125
Degendered Agentifying ... 129
Degendered Contextualized Agentifying ... 132
Conclusion ... 137
CONCLUSION ... 141
From Silence to Paradigm Change ... 143
The Synthesizing Power of Performativity ... 146
Where Do We Go From Here? ... 147
Limits to the Study ... 149
Directions for Further Research ... 150
Conclusion ... 151
REFERENCES ... 153
APPENDIX A: CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS (ENGLISH) ... 163
APPENDIX B: CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS (FRENCH) ... 167
APPENDIX C: CONSENT FORM FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS (ENGLISH) ... 171
APPENDIX D: CONSENT FORM FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS (FRENCH) ... 179
APPENDIX E: CONSENT FORM FOR SURVIVORS (ENGLISH) ... 187
APPENDIX F: CONSENT FORM FOR SURVIVORS (FRENCH) ... 195
APPENDIX H: QUESTIONNAIRE (FRENCH) ... 209 APPENDIX I: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS (ENGLISH) .. 215 APPENDIX J: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS (FRENCH) ... 219 APPENDIX K: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR SURVIVORS (ENGLISH) ... 223 APPENDIX L: INTERVIEW SCHEDULE FOR SURVIVORS (FRENCH) ... 227 APPENDIX M: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS FOR PARTICIPANTS ... 231
LIST OF DIAGRAMS
Diagram 1: Space, Emotion, and the Trajectories Experienced by these Survivor
Participants...84 Diagram 2: Paradigm Change in Social Subworlds...107 Diagram 3: Paradigm Change in (Provider) Discourses...137
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I thank the participants who shared their time and their stories with me, without whom this work would have been impossible. My gratitude also goes out to my parents, Allan Malinen and Jodie Turner, for their constant encouragement. I particularly appreciate my mother’s faithful and effective proof-reading. I am grateful to Thomas Henderson for the generosity he showed in depriving himself of sleep to fix formatting issues and dramatically enhance the physical presentation of this document. I thank Nancy Mallet for her valuable support during several years of this process. François Quirion-Blais and Julie Moffet were a great help with translating documents into French, and have been there for me in many other ways as well. I am indebted to my supervisors, Dr. Stephanie Rousseau and Dr. Michel Dorais, for their patience and academic guidance. I also wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 752-2009-1261; Fonds de recherche société et culture under Grant 131821; Sexuality and Gender Diversity: Vulnerability and Resistance Research Team, based at Université du Québec à Montréal; and the Sociology Department of Université Laval.
FOREWORD
The five chapters presented here are intended for publication, have been submitted for publication, or have already been published. In each case, I am the sole author. Published articles have been adapted to APA format. Some sections have been removed to avoid repetition. In some cases, this has also required addition of short passages so the text would flow naturally. Further, the preceding abstracts were rewritten to bring them closer to 150 words each, and have been translated into French by Trina LeBlanc. Article versions of Chapters One and Two have been published in Sexuality and Culture (Malinen, 2012), and the Queering Paradigms series of volumes (Malinen, 2013), respectively. The article corresponding to Chapter Three is currently under review at Gender, Place & Culture. Chapter Four coincides with an article forthcoming in Symbolic Interaction (Malinen, in press). An article corresponding to Chapter Five has been written, but not yet submitted for publication. François Quirion-Blais and Julie Moffet were responsible for proof reading of French consent forms, interview guides and the questionnaire.
The present dissertation by publication considers woman-to-woman sexual assault as it is experienced by survivors, as it is dealt with in service provision, and as it is considered in theory and discourse. It sheds light on dynamics of recognition and denial that profoundly influence the lives of woman-to-woman sexual assault survivors. Further, it suggests some relationships between these areas of interest.
While working on this study, I have often been asked how woman-to-woman sexual assault is possible. This is a topic which remains in relative obscurity. Heterosexism erects multiple barriers to recognition. For lesbian, bisexual, and queer-identified survivors, there may be a perception that to speak out is to betray one's community. Straight-identified survivors, or those who have not publicly identified as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer), may worry about the taint of homosexuality. Such considerations lead many researchers to conclude that woman-to-woman sexual assault is almost certainly under-reported (Renzetti, 1988; Girshick, 2002; Ristock, 2002; Burke & Follingstad 1999; Rothman, Exner & Baughman, 2011).
Another issue is that many feminists have taken on sexual violence by representing it as the expression and perpetuation of structural, sexist inequalities. In so doing, they have often characterized women monolithically as victims and/or carers (Morrissey, 2003; Marcus, 1992). Researchers agree that survivors of female-perpetrated violence frequently struggle with their own and others' assumptions that women are physically or psychologically incapable of doing harm (Ristock, 2002; Giorgio, 2002; Turell, 1999). Rigidly gender-based discourses create an environment where woman-to-woman survivors have reason to fear disbelief.
Despite its heavily gendered take on sexual violence, the second wave of feminism created a climate that continues to favour revelation of previously unrecognized forms of victimization (Alcoff & Gray, 1993), some of which in fact challenge gendered second wave framings. One result has been that some state bodies have moved to more expansive definitions of sexual violence (Rumney, 2008; Girschick, 2002). For instance, in Canada, what had been legally termed “rape” was subsumed under the broader auspices of “sexual assault” by 1983. Bill C-53 aimed in part, as Prime Minister Jean Chretien put it, to “degenderize” the law (Los, 1994, p. 29). Another result has been the ongoing renegotiation of how sexual violence is defined
and theorized in areas of service provision. These renegotiations and their effects on survivors are among the issues raised here.
Rationale and Review of the Literature
Research touching on woman-to-woman sexual assault has tended to focus on intimate relationships. The National Violence against Women Survey of 1999 reported that 11% of 79 American women who had lived with a female partner had been raped or physically assaulted by her (Tjaden, Thoennes & Allison, 1999). Defining rape as forced and unwanted vaginal, anal or oral penetration with an object, weapon, hand or finger, Ristock (2002) found that of 102 lesbian-identified women reporting intimate violence, three survived rape attempts, twenty rape, nineteen sexual coercion and thirty-two emotional sexual abuse such as derogatory comments about sexual body parts. Renzetti (1988) reports that 48% of 100 victims of intimate lesbian abuse experienced incidents of forced sex, four involving vaginal insertion of a gun or knife. Waterman and colleagues (1989) indicate that of 36 lesbian students and activists, 30.6% reported forced sex in their most recent relationships and 8.3% admitted forcing sex on their partners. A 2011 review of 75 studies looking at sexual assault among gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans found lifetime prevalence ranging from 16 to 85 percent for lesbian and bisexual women. These studies often did not distinguish between same and opposite-sex attacks (Rothman, Exner, & Baughman, 2011; see also, Ristock, 2014). Irwin (2008) also offers testimony about rape between female partners. Girshick's (2002) monograph covers forty-nine assaults which took place in domestic situations and 42 outside such circumstances. Incidents include sexual harassment, statutory assaults, violations of authority by therapists, teachers, and a doctor, date and acquaintance rapes, ex-partners turned stalkers, and what she refers to as "S/M sex gone awry" (p. 109). Further incidents are described in Marlowe's (1999) autobiographical report, Twinley's (2012) interview with a survivor she calls “Lucy,” case studies by Gilroy and Carroll (2009), as well as Wang (2011), and Morrissey's (2003) text on female killers, including Karla Homolka and Valmae Beck. Further work on this form of violence promises to help extend the important conversation that these researchers have started and to multiply supportive opportunities for survivors to speak out and seek help. Theorizing is also crucial, because articulated and unarticulated
theories undergird recognition. Whereas there is now a rich tradition of highly theoretical work on men's violence against women, much of the research on woman-to-woman sexual violence is empirical in focus. Chapters offered here aim not only to overturn the rigidly gendered aspects of received theory, but to offer alternatives.
Embarking on this dissertation, I opened the door to theory building and critique with the question “What are the roles of gender in woman-to-woman sexual assault?” I was interested in where gender would appear relevant, and where it would be absent. Following previous research, I wanted to consider where and how gender-based ideas would prove problematic for survivors as they attempted to speak about and cope with their experiences of victimization. I also thought gender might be played out in components of participant subjectivities, through their narrated thoughts and actions. Looking closely at these matters promised to help establish which aspects of preceding rape/sexual assault theories could contribute to inclusive theorization, and which aspects should be rejected. At the same time, consistent with grounded theory methodology, I was fully prepared to follow data away from my opening query.
Methodology
Recruitment
Calls for participants (Appendices A and B) sought women and trans participants who could answer “yes” to one of two questions: 1) Has a woman ever forced you to have any form of unwanted sexual contact? Force can be physical, emotional or financial or 2) Has a woman ever taken advantage of your intoxication to have sexual contact with you against your will? Participants who had inflicted such violations were also invited to take part, but unsurprisingly, none did. Neither did any trans-identified people. In spring of 2011, advertisements were posted online, to list-servs, online forums, facebook pages, and on a website managed by a community organization. They were also displayed in real life venues frequented by survivors, service providers and/or members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. I additionally contacted key members of women’s and LGBTQ organizations, as well as organizations offering support to sexual
assault survivors. In both real life and online venues, I asked permission of organizers or moderators before posting my materials. Some of these individuals asked that I post “trigger alerts” with posters, which I did. In the course of these communications, I also sought the participation of service providers who had heard about woman-to-woman sexual assaults from clients.
Recruitment was challenging. Posters were not accepted everywhere, for a variety of reasons. There was sometimes concern they might trigger emotional memories and reactions in clients, or that a negative image would be created for the organization, or that the organization would be perceived as backing my research. Very often, people I contacted simply did not respond. On the other hand, some contacts obliged with numerous suggestions, including potential contacts. Several participants withdrew through the course of the study, for example by not showing up for interview and declining to reschedule, or by asking that transcripts and recordings be destroyed due to fear of exposure, despite the confidentiality of their information. This methodological issue is typical of research on sexual violence (Stewart, Dobbin, & Gatowski, 1996). In the end, six survivors and eight service providers saw the research process through.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Semi-structured, “intensive” interviews were used, as described by Charmaz (2006). Intensive interviewing accords with grounded theory methods, in that both “are open-ended yet directed, shaped yet emergent, and paced yet unrestricted” (p. 28). An unstructured, intensive interview would also have been appropriate to the methodology deployed. However, a semi-structured interview schedule is particularly useful to the junior researcher. It provides a roadmap to remind the interviewer of ground to cover, while having ample flexibility to respond to participant views and feelings, and the leads they suggest. Indeed, as Charmaz (2006) notes, the “first question might suffice for the whole interview if stories tumble out” (p. 29). A tape recorder is used so the researcher can make “steady eye contact” (p. 32) with the participant, while supplementary notes on key points plot follow-up inquiries. Throughout the intensive interview, the researcher attempts to understand and validate the participant’s experience. To this end, the interview is conversational in tone, but follows an
“etiquette” (p. 26) whereby the interviewee talks most, while the researcher expresses her interest and desire to learn more. This dynamic is useful for uncovering data, while simultaneously demonstrating respect for participants (Charmaz, 2006). Meanwhile, interviewers must be reflexive about how participants relate to them and their questions (p. 32). They must be aware of “how participants’ and interviewers’ past and immediate identities may influence the character and content of the interaction” (p. 27). Whatever the format of the interview, “the result is a construction-or reconstruction” (p. 27)
Interviews for this study took place in private locations such as offices and rooms reserved on campuses or in women's or community centres. Before interviews commenced,
participants received consent forms (Appendices C - F), which included an option to request plain language summaries of results. These summaries were delivered in May, 2014 (Appendix M). Participants were also given lists of LGBTQ-friendly emergency resources in their provinces or states. These lists are not presented in appendices, as I have withheld information about participants' locations.
Two interviews with providers took place over Skype and two over the telephone. One survivor's interview also took place over Skype. In these cases, the interviewee and I were alone in our respective locations. Providers included psychologists, social workers and counselors. Survivors described personal experiences of sexual violence, which took place during adulthood in four cases and during childhood in two cases. One spoke of a second survivor. Service providers shared knowledge of thirty-nine cases, making for a total of forty-five specific cases of sexual violence raised during fieldwork. In addition, at least six perpetrators discussed by providers had multiple victims. Finally, four service providers encountered woman-to-woman sexual assault so regularly that they were at a loss to quantify. People often assume that woman-to-woman perpetrators must be intimate partners to their victims, but this was not always the case. The first-hand accounts of survivors involved aggressors who were a partner, an ex-partner, a grandmother, a mother, an acquaintance/date and a “friend.” In addition to assaults in the contexts of intimate relationships and families, service providers told me about cases involving a co-detainee, a drug dealer, and three cases where women were forced into threesomes involving a man and a woman. Participants as well as people they name and other identifying information have been given pseudonyms. I
use real names only in referring to publicly available information about organizations researched online.
Interviews with Survivors
Survivor interview schedules consisted of eleven questions, including two “preliminaries” (Appendices K, L). First, I asked what term participants preferred to apply to their experiences. I then adopted the language indicated, in order to respect participant frameworks and encourage memories. The second preliminary was adopted because of the sensitive nature of the topic. It was crucial to remember that participant comfort trumps “obtaining juicy data” (Charmaz 2006, p. 30). Therefore, on the advice of Karina, a provider participant interviewed early on, I asked, “I'm wondering how you've been feeling lately about the incident or incidents that led you to participate? Is it feeling pretty traumatic for you, or are you basically feeling okay about it?” Once participants provided an initial response to this question, I explained why I was asking, and allowed a second opportunity to respond: “I ask because, when we touch on the actual incident, I won't ask you any follow-up questions if you'd be more comfortable just glossing over it. How do you feel about that?” Finally, I reminded participants that they could decline to answer any question at any time, as noted on the consent form. Only one participant indicated that she preferred not to discuss the specific assaults she remembered.
The first and longest section of the interview proper was designed to access narratives about sexual assault experiences and how they influenced participants' lives. I asked first about the context in which assaults occurred, encouraging participants to take this in whatever way felt relevant to them. In other words, they could begin as far back as they liked, or stick close to the violence in question. Next, I asked about the assaults themselves (except with the participant who wished not to discuss this). Then, I inquired about how assaults had changed participants' lives. Finally, to conclude this part of the conversation on an empowering note, I asked participants what they would like to say to their aggressors now, if they could. This highly effective strategy resulted in lengthy responses and an abundance of follow-up questions. Results of this section of interviews are most extensively framed in Chapter Three.
The second section of interviews aimed to access survivor participants' ideas about the roles of gender in their experiences. These questions were placed second because I did not wish to put participants in an unusually political or theorizing frame of mind before they narrated their memories; I did not want them to worry about fitting their narratives to previously articulated politics. Section Two of interviews was much less satisfying than Section One. Even with prompting and rewording, most participants seemed unsure how to respond. The responses they provided seemed thin and awkward. I sensed a couple of interviewees were offended by the idea that gender had anything to do with the narratives they had just recounted. Perhaps their participation was motivated by a desire to show the irrelevance of gender to the issue at hand, such that my line of inquiry seemed disconcertingly at odds with their reasons for being interviewed in the first place. Worried that this left respondents doubting my politics, I sometimes explained that I was essentially interested in their counterarguments to the rigidly gendered assumptions we both knew were incorrect. This strategy seemed to reassure, yet may have shaped responses in unintended ways. I have not drawn on this section of survivor interviews in the chapters to come. Finally, interviews closed with the question: “Is there anything you'd like people to realize about sexual violence between women?”
Interviews with Service Providers
Provider interviews consisted of seven questions (Appendices I, J). The first four asked about providers' professional contexts and levels of awareness regarding woman-to-woman sexual assault in these environments, frequency of professional encounters with woman-to-woman survivors, and the kinds of circumstances survivors faced. The next two questions asked about the role of gender in woman-to-woman sexual assault. Finally, I also asked providers what they would like people to know about sexual assault between women. While providers had many stories to relate of sexual assaults they had heard about, these were naturally less detailed or nuanced than the stories told by survivors themselves. What providers told me firsthand about the state of service provision and how it is changing turned out to be more valuable, as did the discursive framings they used to present their narratives. Theorizing about the role of gender came quite naturally to providers, as it was an essential aspect of the
development and delivery of service provision. Chapters Four and Five feature the results of these interviews.
Questionnaires
All survivors but “Leanne”, who was pressed for time, responded to a questionnaire following interviews. Questionnaires (Appendices G, H) began with a broad range of demographic questions and ended with a checklist of other forms of sexual violence participants had experienced at some point in their lives. I believed analysis might suggest connections between participants' narratives and their demographic situations or histories of sexual violence. However, I identified no such linkages.
Analysis
Transcripts were analyzed using a Grounded Theory Method. The specifics of my approach were guided by Charmaz's (2006) Constructing Grounded Theory and Clarke's (2005) Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. Transcription and analysis began following my first interview (Charmaz, 2006). I engaged in line-by-line, selective, and theoretical coding. Line-by-line coding consisted of labeling of each line to shake ideas loose and initiate a “general thematic analysis” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 51). Remaining close to transcripts at this point helped establish “fit and relevance.” Selective (or focused) coding was “directed, selective, and conceptual” (Charmaz, 2006, p. 57). It involved applying “significant and/or frequent earlier codes” to transcripts (Charmaz, 2006, p. 57). I identified “significance” where relationships and processes emerged. Coding with gerunds helped locate such dynamics (Charmaz, 2006, p. 49), as did my use of diagrams.
According to Charmaz, “[m]echanistic applications of methods yield mundane data and routine reports...Grounded theory can give you flexible guidelines rather than rigid prescriptions. With flexible guidelines, you can let your imagination flow” (Charmaz 2006, p. 15). My experience with Situational Analysis was consistent with this observation. I first attempted to create diagrams based on Clarke's (2005) situational maps, social worlds maps, and positional maps. However, my efforts to reproduce these ways of thinking proved
limiting. I ultimately followed the impulse to create other kinds of diagrams, which I repeatedly reworked into products that were elemental to analysis. Each has a unique structure, and serves to articulate dynamics within one of three areas of theoretical interest: 1) space and emotion in the experience of sexual assault and its context; 2) institutional networks, openings, and change; and 3) gendered discourses around sexual violence. Going into my study, I would only have foreseen the last of these areas, and even here I would not have predicted the nuances of the discourses identified (see below). The surprises that resulted from analysis underline the emergent quality of this work.
Diagramming laid groundwork for, and flowed into, theoretical coding. When it comes to the latter stage of analysis, as Charmaz (2006) explains, one can simultaneously draw on various coding families, which may be comprised of “analytic terms” or “sociological concepts” (p. 66). Theoretical codes may be situated various levels of abstraction. Similarly, Clarke (2005) encourages us to draw on “a broad repertoire of available concepts and approaches” (p. 146). She advocates openness to “multiple, simultaneous readings/codes” (p. 8). These are likely to be “coconstitutive,” since “origins, meanings, and change lie in relationality” (p. 66). Consistent with these recommendations, the three theoretical lenses developed in Chapters Three through Five deploy distinct literatures to elaborate processes and relationships within participant narratives. Indeed, some narratives are analyzed more than once, through different lenses, demonstrating the interconnection of the perspectives used. After introducing two theoretical texts that resulted from reviews of the literature, I will summarize three chapters that emerged from fieldwork, noting important linkages between them.
Structure of the Dissertation
The five chapters presented here have been adapted for consistent formatting, and to avoid repetition, from five articles. Article versions of Chapters One and Two have been published in Sexuality and Culture (Malinen, 2012) and the Queering Paradigms series of volumes (Malinen, 2013), respectively. The article corresponding to Chapter Three is currently under review at Gender, Place & Culture. Chapter Four coincides with an article forthcoming in Symbolic Interaction. Now that this piece has been accepted for publication, I shall soon submit the article upon which Chapter Five is based for consideration elsewhere.
A Word on Terminology
In the five chapters presented here, my use of terminology varies between “rape” and “sexual assault.” The term “rape” articulates most effectively with the tradition of feminist theorizing my project engages and critiques. Hence, this is the term I use in the two
theoretical chapters presented first. On the other hand, the term “sexual assault” is sometimes understood as broader in scope, and is consistent with Canadian law. Thus, I used this latter term on recruitment materials, and have privileged it in the last three chapters, which are based on fieldwork. Even here, however, terminology varies. Although all survivors responded to recruitment materials seeking sexual assault survivors, some preferred the term “rape,” a preference I strive to respect as I write about the events they recall. I am perfectly comfortable with both categories, as I consider them to have socially similar, sometimes identical, and equally contested meanings. In fact, I maintain that they are essentially contested, as discussed in the next section.
Chapters One and Two: Theoretical Critiques
Before fieldwork was complete, I produced two texts containing reviews of the literature, each of which critiques existing theory and proposes solutions. Chapter One is drawn from “Thinking woman-to-woman rape: a critique of Marcus's 'Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention'” (Malinen, 2012). Chapter Two is drawn from “Challenging the male
perpetrator/female victim paradigm: Thinking gender transgressive rape” (Malinen, 2013). The first highlights evidence for woman-to-woman incidents, focusing on how they defy the gendered assumption that victims are always female and perpetrators are always male. The second draws our attention to evidence for various forms of sexual assault that defy heteronormative assumptions. The second chapter addresses a range of silencing theories, whereas the first focuses on Marcus's (1992) chapter, after which it is named. Marcus's piece is widely, and incorrectly, considered to have superseded problematic gendered assumptions. Many of the texts critiqued, including Marcus's, are shown to acknowledge non-heteronormative forms of sexual violence, before reinforcing perspectives that make such violence seem impossible.
These chapters also advance a new theoretical perspective for thinking about sexual assault, which accommodates the coexistence of gender norms and their transgressions. I see sexual violence as a norm presented to us by our society in highly gendered ways. This gendering supports and is supported by a pattern wherein most sexual violence is heteronormative in nature. I draw on Butler (1999) to suggest that gendered norms can nonetheless be repeated in surprising – or “transgressive” – ways, such as woman-to-woman sexual assault. Butler's (1999) work also helps us to see that gendered norms for sexual violence influence not only sexually violent actions, but also their recognition. Gender-transgressive acts of sexual violence are less recognized than those neatly fitting the normative mold, but are no less real or important. In addition, Chapter Two suggests that queer theory may not previously have been used in this way because it tends to approach gender norms as bad and gender transgression as good.
Chapter One introduces three key terms. First, following Reitan (2001), it presents rape as an Essentially Contested Concept (ECC). ECCs are terms with complex sets of characteristics, most if not all of which can be identified in “paradigm cases.” Less agreed upon cases involve fewer key features, such that there is argument about whether the case fits the term in the critical way. In other words, there is disagreement about which characteristics are crucial to begin with. These arguments are particularly heated because ECCs involve moral judgement. Over time, the ECC is variously defined and redefined, so that it shifts. Evidently, many have considered the heterosexuality of “rape” and “sexual assault” to be crucial, while I am among those who disagree. Hence, I understand my project as part of the ongoing debate inherent in use of these terms.
Second, the ECC is at the heart of my term “gender paradigmatic rape/sexual assault,” which I often apply to cases that are heterosexual in nature. This term underlines the dominant yet contested status of heteronormativity in theory and practice around sexual violence. Third, the term “gender paradigmatic” is contrasted with the term “gender transgressive,” which I often apply to rapes/sexual assaults that defy hetero/sexist norms. This last term is inspired by my deployment of Butler's (1999) performative theory of gender and its exploration of how gender norms can be reiterated in gender-troubling ways, ultimately leading to social change.
Chapter Three: Space and Emotion
Chapters Three through Five are based on interviews with survivors and service providers. Chapter Three draws on survivor narratives, and more specifically how they suggest co-implication of space and emotion in the experience of sexual assault. To apprehend this theme, I found a rich resource in the phenomenological treatments of space and emotion as aspects of "the lived experience of inhabiting a body" (Ahmed, 2006, p. 2). Armed especially with the thought of feminist phenomenologists Moi (2005), Young (1980), and Ahmed (2006), I trace largely common trajectories through the six survivors' stories. Trajectories begin with various, confusing boundary-crossings by perpetrators. These are followed by sexual assaults, during which survivors are temporarily immobilized by aggressors. These events have profound consequences for how survivors later occupy space. In the fallout, confusion is replaced by some level of clarity, and important changes in participants' situations ensue. Ultimately, the establishment of space free of aggressors where healing can occur leads to an enhanced sense of security, and finally new ways of connecting to others.
Given the differences between grounded theory and phenomenological approaches (Baker, Wuest & Stern, 1992), one might wonder if phenomenological theory befits my project. For example, it has been argued that phenomenology seeks to describe “psychological structures,” whereas Grounded Theory Methods are intended to “explain social processes” (Baker, Wuest & Stern, 1992, p. 1357). However, the phenomenological sources I draw on reveal psychological structures as situated by social ones. Phenomenologically speaking, “the situation” is a relationship between our freedom and the world (Moi, 2005). The situatedness of phenomenological experience articulates nicely with Clarke's Situational Analysis. For me, Situational Analysis has allowed focus on situated experience that appears in Chapter Three, as well as focus on the situating elements of service provision and discourse described in Chapters Four and Five. Further, consistent with phenomenological methodology, Chapter Three relies on narratives of “informants who have lived the reality being investigated” (Baker, Wuest & Stern 1992, 1357). Finally and most importantly, the suitability of this analysis is demonstrated by its very emergence from my Grounded Theory Method.
Chapter Four: Institutional Networks, Openings, and Change
The area of interest I refer to as “institutional networks, openings, and change,” emerged in relation to service provision. Service providers I spoke with accepted woman-to-woman sexual assault as a reality, unsurprisingly given their participation. They described strategies used to recruit unaccepting providers to less gendered perspectives and approaches. To articulate this aspect of my field, I looked for a fluid and impressionistic rendering of networks that would attend to institutional inclusions and exclusions as well as dominating and resisting discourses (Clarke, 2005). In this context, I identified Becker's (2008) approach. Becker's (2008) work belongs to a loose collection of social worlds analyses born of the Interactionist tradition (Unruh, 1980), which is in turn foundational to situational analysis and grounded theory more broadly (Clarke, 2005, p. 3). Following Strauss and Becker, Clarke (2005) understands social worlds as groups with shared goals, commitments and ideologies. She further sees them as social universes of discourse (see also Shibutani, 1955), related to practical fields (Clarke, 2005). She argues that society can be framed as “mosaics of social worlds” (Clarke, 2005, pp. 45-46).
Becker's thinking interlinks networks, conventions and resources. Conventions ground stratification systems “embedded in distributed resources and drawing upon existing networks” (Bottero & Crossley, 2011, p. 105). Chapter Four frames gendered processes of inclusion and exclusion in service provision with this understanding. As the ideologies and discourses that structure and delineate these social worlds are re/negotiated, patterns of access to resources are modified. Engaging with Becker's approach, and adopting language prominent in this world of service provision, Chapter Four conceptualizes providers and survivors who recognize woman-to-woman sexual assault as members of the “Anti-Violence Project Subworld.” It conceptualizes those who understand sexual assault as a fundamentally man-on-woman form of violence as members of the “Violence Against Women Subworld.” This theoretical area is linked to the previously discussed area of space and emotion. Both explore openings and closings of safe spaces, but from different perspectives. Profound linkages between service provision and our next theoretical area of interest, gendered
discourses around sexual violence, have already been suggested, but will be further developed, below.
Chapter Five: Provider Discourses about Sexual Violence.
Chapter Five identifies four discursive approaches to woman-to-woman sexual assault. Two are located within each of the subworlds of service provision outlined in Chapter Four. It follows methodological strictures of discourse analysis by going beyond paraphrasing to identify non-obvious happenings in the narratives presented. The approach is critical in nature: it investigates “verbal interactions with an eye to their determination by, and their effects on, social structures” (Fairclough 1985, p. 747). As Fairclough (1985) argues, these relationships are sometimes opaque to participants. To analyze these connections, he suggests identification of a “pivot” (p. 747) that connects social structures to local interactions. Fairclough (1985) looks specifically to institutions and the discourses associated with them, whereas my analysis links the discourses I identify to the Anti-Violence Project Subworld and the Violence Against Women Subworld. Like Fairclough’s institutions, these are mid-range categories.
Becker’s social worlds further share qualities with Fairclough’s (1985) institution that make each fruitful terrain for the pursuit of discourse as a social effect, determinant, and resource. Each facilitates and constrains action (Fairclough, 1985, p. 749, see also Becker 1982). Neither is monolithic. Rather, each provides “alternative sets of discoursal and ideological norms” (Fairclough, 1985, p. 750, see also Becker, 2008, Clarke, 2005), allowing for change. Chapter Five links discourses expressed in participant narratives to subworlds of service provision as well as broad gender structures. In this way, it attends to how “discourses are produced, by whom, with what resources, and under what conditions” (Clarke, 2005, p. 155). I refer to the discourses in question as “Gendered Silencing,” “Gendered Contextualizing,” “Degendered Agentification,” and “Degendered Agentified Contextualization.” Each discourse links to ideas about whether the violence in question is chosen by perpetrators or out of their control. Accountability for violence has long been discursively gendered so that male perpetrators, but not female perpetrators, tend to be held responsible for their actions
(Morrissey, 2003). The two de-gendering discourses identified challenge gendered binaries around sexual violence in distinct ways. They are affiliated with the Anti-Violence Project Subworld. The two gendering discourses reinstate this binary in distinct ways. They are affiliated with the Violence Against Women Subworld.
Each discourse is characterized by rules about what can be said. Impediments to the verbalization of ideas become visible where participants struggle to negotiate aspects of their worlds that challenge the positions they espouse. In exploring the relevance of the unsaid, I follow Billig (1997), who refers to repression in the context of talk as the “dialogic unconscious”. As with each of the other chapters, Chapter Five follows Clarke's (2005) recommendation to mind resisting discourses as well as dominating ones, thus amplifying traditionally silenced perspectives and revealing "sites of rejection" p. 175).
CHAPTER ONE
Thinking Woman-to-Woman Rape: A Critique of Marcus's “Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention” 1
1
Résumé
Ce chapitre se base sur le fait empirique du viol entre femmes pour critiquer « Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention » par Sharon Marcus. Lorsqu’une théorie exclut la possibilité de ce fait, je considère qu’elle est erronée. Quoique le travail de Marcus soit prometteur quant à son intention de déconstruire une vision binaire du genre, il représente une réaffirmation importante du dualisme qu’il tente déstabiliser. J’analyse deux différents arguments de déconstruction tirés de ce texte, les deux étant adoptés par différentes personnes. Le premier exclut la possibilité qu’une femme puisse violer une autre, et le deuxième lui accorde une place théorique. Le deuxième argument a le potentiel de déconstruire le premier. Suivant Butler sur la transgression du genre, j’en propose une synthèse. J’explore aussi les manières dont les stratégies d’autodéfense que propose Marcus pourraient accommoder les survivantes d’agressions qui transgressent le genre.
Abstract
This chapter uses the empirical fact of woman-to-woman rape as a lens to critique Sharon Marcus’s “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention.” To the extent that any theory forecloses this fact, we can assume it is erroneous. While Marcus’s work is promising in its intention to deconstruct binary views of gender, it largely reiterates the very dualism it seeks to destabilize. I explore two different deconstructive arguments that can be drawn from the piece, each of which has been adopted by some thinkers. The first forecloses woman-to-woman rape while the second makes theoretical room for it. The second argument has the potential to deconstruct the first. Following the logic of Judith Butler’s thoughts on gender transgression, I suggest a synthesis of these two arguments. Finally, I explore ways the self-defense strategies Marcus promotes can be made to accommodate survivors of gender transgressive assaults.
Woman-to-woman rape is a relatively recent revelation for the academy and an uncomfortable fit with most theories of sexual aggression. This is because existing theories, both academic and commonsense, rely heavily on the male aggressor/female victim paradigm. Survivors who find themselves outside this framing are at an elevated risk for invisibility. This paradigm delimits the praxis of various rape crisis resources in gendered ways, leaving woman-to-woman survivors with scare intellectual, legal, clinical and other options (Renzetti, 1988; Ristock, 2002; Girshick, 2002a, b). The present chapter examines Marcus’s (1992) “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention” (henceforth TPRP) to ascertain its capacity for accommodating woman-to-woman rape incidents. TPRP is of particular interest because it is taken by many to decouple womanhood and victimhood (e.g., Hesford, 1999; Herberle, 1996; Gatens, 2000; McCaughey and King, 1995; Robson, 2007; Mazurok, 2010; Binswanger, Samelius, & Thapar-Bjorkert, 2011; Lichtenstein, 2005). In some senses, Marcus does open discourse to women’s violence. Yet in important respects her piece reiterates the discourse it attempts to disrupt, foreclosing woman rapists. To the extent that any theory forecloses the possibility of woman-to-woman rape it can be empirically demonstrated wrong.
The first section below presents some key terminology used here. The presentation of “rape” as an essentially contested concept lends support to the term “gender paradigmatic rape,” which underlines the constructedness and contestedness of this category. Then, inspired by Butler, the term “gender transgressive rape” applies to non-paradigmatic possibilities in the context of hegemonic heterosexuality. It inheres particularly useful theoretical implications. In stark contrast to gender paradigmatic rapes, it is far from obvious to all that woman-to-woman rapes occur. To demonstrate that they do, the second section provides an empirical sketch of the phenomenon.
Next begins our theoretical discussion proper. Radical feminist thought is particularly relevant to rape theory because of its foundational relationship to current academic, legal and popular perspectives. Further, proponents of radical feminist views constitute Marcus’s principal foils and so are essential to contextualizing her work. A critical summation of some efforts in this vein will be presented in the third section. The fourth section constitutes a close reading of TPRP. Specifically, it explores two distinct perspectives drawn from the text under
consideration. These will be referred to as Arguments One and Two. Argument One highlights the normativity of man-to-woman rape, a point which should by no means be abandoned. Notably, where this argument is concerned, Marcus’s perspective is largely consistent with the very views she critiques. Like them, she exaggerates the strength of gender norms to the point of foreclosing woman-to-woman rape. On the other hand, Argument Two accommodates woman-to-woman rape very effectively, deconstructing the monolithic heteronormacy of Argument One and acknowledging myriad possible forms of sexual violence, something which cannot be done so long as we adhere strictly to the standard gendered paradigm. We shall see that TPRP has been taken up by a variety of authors in ways that are consistent with one or the other of these conflicting perspectives and as such, with quite different results. My approach is unique not only in proposing a resolution to this conflict, but in recognizing this conflict in the first place. The synthesis proposed will bring us back to Butler’s performative theory of gender. Argument One will be retained to account for gender paradigmatic rape’s discursive and statistical dominance. However, this will be done in a way that simultaneously makes sense of gender transgressive incidents and that does not conflict with Argument Two. Finally, a modified approach to the physical self-defense strategies Marcus suggests will be advanced in accordance with the synthesis proposed.
Terminology
Following Reitan (2001), I understand rape to be an essentially contested concept (ECC). ECCs are terms that inhere value judgments. They are based on complex sets of characteristics. Each ECC has paradigm cases about which there is general agreement. However, no such general agreement exists on which aspects render the paradigmatic cases paradigmatic. Thus, ECCs are the center of ongoing debate about which non-paradigmatic cases might belong under the rubric of the term in question. As Reitan (2001) argues, where rape is concerned,
[T]he paradigms involve, on the part of the perpetrator, physical violence, coercion, control, disregard for the woman’s wishes, a clear intent to overmaster the woman’s will, a divorce of the sexual act from feelings of intimacy, the
objectification of the woman, etc.; on the part of the victim the paradigms involve active resistance, the lack of desire, the lack of consent, powerlessness, suffering, a feeling of violation and dehumanization, etc. It is also clear that different theorists emphasize different aspects of the paradigms as being significant or essential, such that while they agree that the paradigms are instances of rape, they disagree about what makes them rape. (p. 49)
Notably, paradigmatic gendering appears in the above citation not as an element in Reitan’s list, but as an aspect of its structure. Thus, Reitan reiterates marginalization of gender transgressive rape rather than pointing to that marginalization as a politico-discursive opportunity. However, this issue bears only on his deployment of the ECC, not on its potential. Crucially, pushing the boundaries of an ECC is “part of the proper use of the term” (p. 45, original italics). Consistent with the ECC’s structure and to underline how heterosexual framing both limits thought and invites contest, I term rapes that are committed by a man against a woman “gender paradigmatic”. I refer to other rapes, which in their otherness may contest the male aggressor/female victim paradigm, as “gender transgressive.”
In using the term “gender transgressive,” I appeal to Butler’s (1999) performative theory of gender. That framework associates the Derridian observation that marks signify by referencing past uses in new contexts with the way we enter the world of hegemonic heterosexuality when declared girls or boys. From that moment on, we are socially shaped so that very often we come, generally if never completely, to identify with and embody those initial attributions. We embody and are animated by our genders through processes of subjectification, for gender attributions do not refer to nature but reiterate an illusion of it. Disciplinary acts which are only one element of this order range from subtle to violent. But order notwithstanding, these norms are inconsistently instantiated. Butler describes her project by saying, “I’m interested in the problem of cross-identification; I’m interested in where masculine/feminine break down, where they cohabit and intersect, where they lose their discreteness” (Cheah, Grosz, Butler, & Cornell, D., 1998, p. 24). Thus, her groundbreaking work has sought to theorize how conventions are inevitably used in gender troubling ways to address unexpected circumstances, giving rise to new subjectivities and collectivities. To varying extents and for a multitude of reasons, we internalize and perform
gender counter-normative comportments. Because normative genders are as reiterative as counter-normative ones, when girls learn boy things they own them as much as boys do and vise versa. Such transgressions create conflict which may reinforce gender norms, for example through punishment that makes an example of the offender. Alternatively or even simultaneously, transgressions may produce a new fold or opening in the social fabric. Butler’s (1999) discussion of butch/femme in Gender Trouble is a much cited example of this process. Since butch identification cites masculinity “against a culturally intelligible ‘female body’” it does not simply reproduce heterosexuality; it “is neither some decontextualized female body nor a discrete yet superimposed masculine identity, but the destabilization of both terms” (p. 156). As distinct from butch/femme, gender transgressive rape is a traumatic and wrongful transgression. Yet, analogous to butch/femme, it destabilizes the gendered norms for sexual violence that monopolize popular and scholarly understandings. Convention is at once deployed and transgressed. Despite the breadth of this term, rather than attempting to explore all of the many ways in which non-paradigmatic rapes can occur, I focus specifically on woman-to-woman incidents.
Even as I endeavor to extend the conceptual boundaries of the term “rape”, its use remains a risk insofar as for many it evokes only paradigms (Stewart et al., 1996). For example, some evidence suggests forced non-penile penetration and penetration of the mouth or anus remain unlikely to be labeled rape by survivors (Kahn, Jackson, Kully, Badger, & Halvorsen, 2003; Young and Maguire, 2003). Nonetheless, I privilege “rape” over “sexual assault” due to its greater force and also because, after struggling to name their experiences many survivors themselves come to adopt it (Girshick, 2002a; Young and Maguire, 2003). Rather than alienating survivors who don’t identify with this term, I hope to help broaden its scope and legitimizing power.
Encouragingly, a number of state bodies have recently displayed movement in this same direction. For instance, Rumney (2008) points to progress made under Washington and Michigan State laws. These jurisdictions have “adopted an expansive definition of sexual intercourse that includes penetration of the vagina, anus or mouth with a penis, hand, tongue or inanimate object” (p. 143). Michigan State defines penetration as “sexual intercourse,
cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse or any other intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body” (Criminal Sexual Conduct Act in Rumney, 2008, p. 143). Both of these states cover circumstances where the perpetrator forces the victim to penetrate her or him. This year, the definition of rape used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) has been brought much closer to these usages. Police departments have been asked to temporarily offer two sets of numbers, one under the old UCR definition and another under the new one, in order to make sense of the statistical surge the change is expected to generate (Savage, 2012).
Radical Feminist Theorizations of Rape
Radical feminism has been and remains enormously influential in academic, legal, and popular conceptualizations of rape. There is no doubt this branch of feminist thought and activism has extended protections and autonomy for women in important ways. These steps, however, have been based on a gender-paradigmatic framework. In the opening section of her groundbreaking 1975 text Against Our Will, Brownmiller mused:
In the violent landscape inhabited by primitive woman and man, some woman somewhere had a prescient vision of her right to her own physical integrity, and in my mind’s eye I can picture her fighting like hell to preserve it….Fleet of foot and spirited, she would have kicked, bitten, pushed and run, but she could not retaliate in kind. (p. 14, original emphasis)
Such dualistic thinking is what Marcus (1992) seeks to oppose. As the latter puts it, Brownmiller represents “rape as an inevitable material fact of life and assume[s] that a rapist’s ability to physically overcome his target is the foundation of rape” (p. 387). In terms articulated elsewhere in TPRP, such ideas enact “a gendered polarization of the grammar of violence in which the male body” is understood as invulnerable and dangerous while “the female body is predicated by this grammar as universally vulnerable [and] lacking force” (p. 395). As emphasized by Marcus (1992), if womanhood is coextensive with victimhood, feminism is a hopeless enterprise.
Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention
This section is a close reading of Marcus’s (1992) “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention,” a text which works to loosen the implicit determinism of radical feminist theory. The subsections below extract two distinct arguments from the text. The first (Argument One) proves antithetical to theorization of woman-to-woman rape whereas the second (Argument Two) proves amenable to it. From the start, this piece indicates its postmodern affiliation by taking issue with the view that language-based postmodern theories are incompatible with feminist anti-rape action. Rather, Marcus (1992) insists “rape is a question of language, interpretation, and subjectivity” (p. 387). Therefore, a feminist fight against rape requires on the one hand a language for this violence and on the other an understanding of this violence as a language. The underdetermined nature of this second conclusion is a concern beyond my present scope. I am more interested in how Marcus follows up on this position than how she reaches it.
TPRP suggests the language of rape can only be based on “political decisions to exclude certain interpretations and perspectives and to privilege others” (p. 387). It aims to replace the focus on “rape and its aftermath” with a “focus on rape situations themselves and rape prevention” (p. 387, original emphasis). Its means to this end is to see rape as “a process to be analyzed and undermined as it occurs” (p. 388). So far, so good. Marcus proposes we see rape as a process in two ways which will be crucial to this discussion: (1) by treating rape “as a linguistic fact” (p. 388, original emphasis) enabled by cultural scripts and imposed by changeable “narratives, complexes and institutions” (p. 389) and (2) by differentiating various rape and attempted rape situations to “develop the fullest range of prevention strategies” (p. 388).
My criticism rides on the observation that TPRP largely drops the second mode of seeing rape as a process to focus on the first, which, ironically, becomes rigidly gendered as it is developed. This occurs through the logic of what I will call Argument One. In the remainder of the current reading, I first explicate this logic then continue to the rest of Marcus’s text before offering examples of how Argument One has been used by other thinkers. Then I
return to Marcus’s second mode of reading rape as a process, which despite its underdevelopment, is emphasized by certain interlocutors.
Argument One: End Gendered Assumptions, End Rapes
Argument One holds that our assumptions about gender and sexual violence make men rapists and women victims. Essentially, the argument says, “end gendered assumptions, end rapes.” It is based on the insight that gender paradigms bear on what we do. Here, the male perpetrator/female victim paradigm subject to TPRP’s critique remains rape’s cause and effect. However, women’s capacities for violence constitute fissures in the rape paradigm that open it to deconstruction.
I shall now continue, tracing this argument as TPRP goes on to propose three ways of taking a linguistic perspective. It suggests we attend to (1) cultural representations of women as wanting, provoking or susceptible to rape (2) socially structured and internalized language that restricts the sexes differently, producing non-combative responses to rape attempts in women and (3) rape’s language-like structure which shapes verbal and physical gestures of those involved in a rape attempt.
Rigidifying of gender really starts to set in when Marcus defines rape “as a scripted interaction which takes place in language and can be understood in terms of conventional masculinity and femininity as well as other gender inequalities inscribed before an individual instance of rape” (p. 390). Later, rape is again defined, this time as “a sexualized and gendered attack which imposes sexual difference along the lines of violence” (p. 397). The metaphor of the script conveys three meanings. The first is narrative, suggesting rape is “a series of steps and signals whose typical initial moments we can learn to recognize and whose final outcome we can learn to stave off” (p. 390). The second is structural, referring to the “social structures [that] inscribe on men’s and women’s embodied selves and psyches the misogynist inequalities which enable rape to occur” (p. 391, original emphasis). Rape is here a scripted cause and effect of gender inequalities. The last is structural and deconstructive: the rape script as a framework for intelligibility which may be legitimized or exploded on the level of action. Evidently, Marcus intends her text to be explosive as opposed to legitimating.
The rape script’s form is “a gendered grammar of violence” (p. 392) which, like Brownmiller’s passage cited above, “predicates men as the subjects of violence and the operators of its tools, and predicates women as the objects of violence and the subjects of fear” (p. 393). In a nutshell, Marcus’s concern with the feminist approaches she critiques is that they have too often reproduced the linguistic conditions for rape she identifies in Argument One. Her views advanced so far display no doubt, however, that normative gendering exhausts the possible conditions for rape.
Now something happens that really gets deconstructive sensibilities tingling. The article imposes a suspiciously rigid distinction separating violence between men from sexual violence. It reads: “In subject–subject violence, each interlocutor expects and incites violence in the other, whereas in sexualized violence women are excluded from this community of violence…. Although on one level men are opponents, on another level they cooperate in their agreement to play the same game” (p. 396). These remarks delegitimize men as victims, thus enabling the binary being advanced. Contra Marcus, male civilians do not agree to be attacked. To argue otherwise is to reinforce the feminization of victimhood. Strangely, this last passage follows the recognition that woman are “neither in fact the sole objects of sexual violence nor the most likely targets of violent crimes” (p. 394). These facts, which belie the opposition between sexualized and subject–subject aggression, are in no way taken into account by the theory advanced; the article continues as before to foreclose them.2 To change
the script, Marcus (1992) recommends that we “develop a feminist discourse on rape by displacing the emphasis on what the rape script promotes—male violence against women— and putting in place what the rape script stultifies and excludes—women’s will, agency, and capacity for violence” (p. 395). She thus urges us to “place ourselves as subjects who can…respond to aggression in kind” (p. 397). Finally, she states, “While the ethical burden to prevent rape does not lie with us but with rapists and a society which upholds them, we will be waiting a very long time if we wait for men to decide not to rape. To construct a society in which we would know no fear, we may first have to frighten rape culture to death” (p. 401). This ethically unburdened “we,” contrasted with “rapists” and “society,” is 2For more on violence against and between men, see Island and Letellier (1991), Kendall (2005), Knowles
