Men, Women and Rape (original) (raw)
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Since the first reports on gender-based crimes committed during the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992-1995 and the Rwandan genocidal war between April and July 1994, feminist legal scholars have produced hundreds of scholarly and journalistic works on rape and other forms of sexual violence committed either in peacetime or in conflict situations. New to this body of scholarly literature addressing the legal treatment of rape in the statutory laws of international criminal tribunals, in international and regional human rights treaties, and in a wide range of different domestic penal laws, is this thought-provoking work, edited by Clare McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University, and Vanessa E. Munro, professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Nottingham. The work under review started life as a collection of papers submitted to an international conference marking the 10th anniversary of the landmark judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in the case of Jean-Paul Akayesu, where he was convicted, inter alia, for rape as an act of genocide. This milestone judgement constituted a triumph for feminist legal scholars and activists. It was also a turning point for the international justice system, in general, and for the jurisprudence of the international criminal tribunals, in particular. The editors maintain in their introduction that the aim of this work is to provide the reader with a cross-cultural perspective and a critical evaluation of the latest developments in rape laws embodied in the statutory laws of international, regional, and domestic judicial bodies. Comprised of 22 concise chapters, the work is arranged thematically under four corresponding principal ideas: the theoretical complexities of responding to the wrongs of rape; the relationship between feminist activism and legal reform; the limits of law reform in bringing about social change; and finally, the secondary victimization of rape complainants during the criminal investigation and trial process. Moreover, the editors provide in their introduction a meticulous analysis of these themes and underline the need for a progressive reform of rape law, including reconceptualizing and criminalizing rape in international and domestic laws. Examining feminists’ debates and struggles at the national, regional, and international levels to protect victims and ensure their right to sexual and bodily integrity, they elucidate feminists’ responses to the wrongs of rape, their struggle for legal reform within international and national legal systems, and the challenges that prevent law reform from bringing about real changes. Overall, this book constitutes essential reading in view of its examination of the provisions of domestic and international criminal laws and for its exploration of the similarities and variances between rape in time of peace and in wartime settings. Moreover, by analysing and investigating different fundamental concepts in rape law, it brings together divergent perspectives of leading legal scholars from across the world on international criminal law, international human rights law, and domestic criminal justice systems, thereby moving the rape law reform agenda forward and ensuring appropriate justice for both victims and perpetrators. It is a remarkable, comprehensive work that should be read by legal scholars, jurists, actors in the criminal justice system, law students at all levels, and by those looking to deepen their understanding of the multiple tensions inherent in the shifting legal landscape of rape crime.
Legal Studies Working Paper Series Engendering Rape Engendering Rape Engendering Rape
This Article highlights a systematic bias in the academic, correctional, and human rights discourse that constitutes the basis for prison rape policy reform. This discourse focuses almost exclusively on sexual abuse perpetrated by men: sexual abuse of male prisoners by fellow inmates, and sexual abuse of women prisoners by male staff. But since 2007, survey and correctional data have indicated that the main perpetrators of prison sexual abuse seem to be women. In men's facilities, inmates report much more sexual victimization by female staff than by male inmates; in women's facilities, inmates report much higher rates of sexual abuse by fellow inmates than by male or female staff. These findings contravene conventional gender expectations, and are barely acknowledged in contemporary prison rape discourse, leading to policy decisions that are too sanguine about the likelihood of female-perpetrated sexual victimization. The selective blindness of prison rape discourse to count...
Crossing the line : feminist international law theory, rape and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina
1995
In writing this thesis, I was extremely fortunate to have two supervisors, Karin Mickelson and Susan Boyd, who spent innumerable hours reading and editing drafts, talking through ideas with me, providing encouragement and generally holding my hand through the rough spots. I was additionally fortunate to have the support and encouragement of my sister, Susan Buss, who was not only an important sounding board for my ideas, helped with editing and proofreading, but also put up with my thesis angst for two years. I would also like to thank the feminist coffee and discussion club who provided a supportive community and stimulating intellectual environment:
Sexual specificity, rape law reform and the feminist quest for justice 1
Recent rape law reform is most saliently characterised by a turn to gender neutrality in its definition of the crime of rape. The few possible advantages of a gender neutral approach to rape are offset by a series of disadvantages regarding gender justice when viewed from a feminist perspective. Formal gender neutrality does not safeguard against the effective influence of pervasive and enduring symbolic constructions pertaining to male and female sex-uality and of a normalised hierarchical binary constructed between the two sexes, in particular where sexual relations are concerned. Such efficacy may impede justice for both male and female victims of rape. The question about the place of sexual difference or rather sexual specificity within feminist theories of justice should be considered anew in light of this critical analysis of gender neutrality in rape law. You don't understand, you weren't there, says Bev Shaw. Well, she is mistaken. Lucy's intuition is right after all: he does understand; he can, if he concentrates, if he loses himself, be there, be the men, inhabit them, fill them with the ghost of himself. The question is, does he have it in him to be the woman? David Lurie in Disgrace (Coetzee 1999: 160) 2 1 The research contained in this article was made possible partly by NRF funding. Also I wish to express my sincere thanks to Minka Woermann and Azille Coetzee for their careful reading of my draft article. 2 The character of David Lurie in JM Coetzee's Disgrace at first assumes that he understands exactly what happened when his daughter Lucy was gang raped. In this excerpt he starts to doubt his capacity as a man to place himself in the position of a woman rape victim, and thus he starts to grapple with the possible limits to a person's capacity to transcend their embodied sexual specificity. This article raises a similar concern or problematic without necessarily resolving it.
The fixation on wartime rape: feminist critique and international criminal law
Since the early 1990s, wartime rape has been successfully prosecuted as a war crime, a crime against humanity and a crime of genocide. Feminist scholars, however, warn that the unprecedented attention to wartime sexual violence within international criminal law has had wide-ranging and unintended consequences. The aim of this article is to examine the heightened consciousness around wartime sexual violence and its ascendancy as a crime against ‘humanity’. The article draws attention to two discourses. The first is the feminist political project, which sought to delineate wartime rape as a crime of grave magnitude that warranted explicit treatment under international criminal law; the second is the postmodernist feminist discourse, which questions the desirability of fixating on sexual violence against women in conflict. The point of this article is not to situate myself in either camp but rather to examine the power of international criminal law to pronounce meaning, demarcate the gravity of crimes and silence alternative stories. I will argue that due to the impassioned political controversy over rape within populist, scholarly and legal realms, not only are the substantive problems associated with rape prosecutions often left obscured but problematic rape hierarchies are reified and victim experiences further marginalised.