In recent years, members of legal, law enforcement, media and
academic circles have portrayed rape as a special kind of crime
distinct from other forms of violence. In "Framing the Rape Victim,
" Carine M. Mardorossian argues that this differential treatment of
rape has exacerbated the ghettoizing of sexual violence along
gendered lines and has repeatedly led to women's being accused of
triggering, if not causing, rape through immodest behavior,
comportment, passivity, or weakness.
Contesting the notion that rape is the result of deviant behaviors
of victims or perpetrators, Mardorossian argues that rape saturates
our culture and defines masculinity's relation to femininity, both
of which are structural positions rather than biologically derived
ones. Using diverse examples throughout, Mardorossian draws from
Hollywood film and popular culture to contemporary women's fiction
and hospitalized birth emphasizing that the position of dominant
masculinity can be occupied by men, women, or institutions, while
structural femininity is a position that may define and subordinate
men, minorities, and other marginalized groups just as effectively
as it does women. Highlighting the legacies of the politically
correct debates of the 1990s and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the
book illustrates how the framing of the term "victim" has played a
fundamental role in constructing notions of agency that valorize
autonomy and support exclusionary, especially masculine, models of
American selfhood.
The gendering of rape, including by well-meaning, sometimes
feminist, voices that claim to have victims' best interests at
heart, ultimately obscures its true role in our culture. Both a
critical analysis and a call to action, "Framing the Rape Victim"
shows that rape is not a special interest issue that pertains just
to women but a pervasive one that affects our society as a
whole.
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