Loose Women, Lecherous Men (42 page)

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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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Page 168
known to lead jurors to doubt whether rape has occurred, despite the absence of such use immediately prior to rape. Her moral weakness and sexual attractiveness can often lead directly to perceptions that the victim was somehow responsible for what occurred, often prompting the rape victim herself to wonder what she could have done differently, despite the assertions of stranger rapists that "it could have been anyone." Women on the witness stand often fare little better with their church or families, who may find it easier to blame the victim than face the reality of an acquaintance rape by one of their own. Indeed, the victim herself may remain emotionally dependent on the man who raped her or be convinced that she could not survive with her children alone, making either his arrest or his prosecution that much more unlikely. The emotional dependency of a marital rape victim will be especially acute if the rape has been preceded by months of physical and verbal abuse that effectively destroy her self-confidence and self-esteem.
36
A single, ninety-year-old woman who is raped by an intruder in her own home is not provocative, in the wrong place at the wrong time, drunk, "asking for it," "loose," or putting herself at risk, outside of living alone and independently. Yet such beliefs about the stereotypical rape "victim'' are precisely those that have encouraged prosecutors, judges, and juries to look for special evidence that would reveal the victim's "true" predicament. Many feminists point out that it has been largely through feminist efforts that changes have been made in recent years in the legal requirements for corroboration and proof of resistance for successfully suing against rape, which more closely resemble such requirements in assault cases. On the other hand, some feminists argue that comparing rape to assault underestimates the psychological trauma the rape victim suffers and fails to critique the violence done to women
through sex
; others charge that overemphasizing such trauma restigmatizes women as hysterical and would reduce the penalties for the "lucky" rapist whose emotionally stable victim was not seriously traumatized.
37
The prostitute and the promiscuous woman are especially vulnerable to the charge that their livelihood or lifestyle makes it impossible for anyone to have raped them. From this perspective, women as sexual subjects demanding payment or initiating sexual advances are already "used goods" whom forcible sex cannot further defile, who like being "forced" into sexual acts that they really want and thus are responsible for whatever sexual abuse they receive.
38
Such beliefs are consistent with a Western cultural ideology, epitomized in female representation from pulp novels to pornography, that encourages female sexual accessibility with the curious rationale that since women really want to be raped (taken, used, ravished), there is no use asking them: "no" will always mean "yes." Men's gender role socialization in such a milieu is that male
violence
toward women is a legitimate expression of what men want or need from women. It is for this reason that Diana Russell describes rape not as a deviant behavior but as an
overconforming
one, an extreme acting out of qualities regarded by the rapist's culture as masculine: aggression, force, power, strength, toughness, dominance, competitiveness, independence. Russell refers to a belief in the appropriateness of such qualities in men as a belief in the "masculinity mystique" or the "virility mystique." Julie Allison and Lawrence Wrightsman contend that such overconforming behavior derives from an identification with "hypermasculinity," which encourages a man to believe that danger is exciting and that violence is de-
 
Page 169
sirable and a sign of masculinity. As a result, hypermasculine men's sexual attitudes toward women are exploitative and callous. Allison and Wrightsman also found that such attitudes are exhibited more strongly in men who engage in coercive sex than those who do not. Catharine MacKinnon and others would argue that rape is a conforming behavior
simpliciter
, since heterosexuality and violence are culturally congruent. Whether conforming or overconforming, such socialization brings down reporting rates and causes many young girls and women to expect (and tolerate) at least some abuse from their husbands or boyfriends.
39
Heterosexual men have been known to try to "cure" lesbians by raping them, while rape between lesbians, when it occurs, may recreate or reflect masculine/feminine sexual power dynamics more than it exposes an underlying violence in the lesbian community. Lesbians are understandably reticent to politicize sexual violence among lesbians, since the tendency in the heterosexual community is to use such exposure as a way of condemning women's homosexuality.
40
Women of color are especially wary of making rape a political priority. Given the white world's stereotype of the violent black male or the sexually volatile Latino, these women believe that the men of color in their communities will inordinately bear the responsibility for rape. Furthermore, given the stereotype of the prostituted, sexually voracious black woman, African American women who are victims of sexual violence are even more skeptical than their Anglo counterparts that they will be believed by police, judges, and juries. In addition, poor women who do not own a car or who live in high-crime districts are particularly vulnerable to rape. Even though most rapes are intraracial and black women are raped four times as often as white women, black feminists note that African American men have been disproportionately executed for rape, and they argue that rape reform laws need to be enforced fairly against white and black men alike and enforced with equal diligence when whites perpetrate such crimes in the black community. Vindictive, southern slave-owning white women were known to accuse slaves and black freemen of rape, and black men were lynched for purported assaults on white women that never in fact occurred. As a result, black feminists are wary of dismissing out of hand the claim that women lie about being raped and suggest that many white women have little conception of surviving in a culture that encourages intraracial violence as a way of maintaining dominance over women and men of color.
41
Racism is a factor in the violence and violation of woman battering as well. A young black woman may refrain from seeking help if she thinks that a white establishment will not take her seriously or if she sees only a limited educational or career future for herself, staying in an abusive relationship where she believes she can "make things better." Because they combine a gender identity that keeps young women dependent economically and socially with a youth that inhibits access to resources for power and independence, young women of color are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse by their husbands or boyfriends. Teen pregnancy only adds to this powerlessness. Social pressure to be a "couple" and a desire to become more independent of her family are further inducements to stay in a relationship that nevertheless may be unremittingly invasive. Men of color are arrested more often than white middle-class men for similar battering, despite the pervasiveness of abuse within white, bourgeois communities. Feminist women of color argue that such com-
 
Page 170
munities can simply hide women's violation better from legal authorities, whose profile is higher in poorer and more racially or ethnically mixed neighborhoods, where private therapy is less accessible. Also, women of color may feel the pressure alluded to in my discussion of rape to protect their partners in order to avoid the disintegration of a family and community already suffering from racism; in doing so, men of color may feel the power of patriarchy at home even if they do not feel it in the public domain. Believing that the only system designed to protect women of color has historically subjugated and exploited them, many women of color will be suspicious of the social services and legal resources designed to aid the battered woman. Poor women may simply perceive violence in the home as part of their overall struggle to feed, clothe, and shelter their families.
42
Invasion and intrusion of the battered woman's sense of self are the hallmark of abusive relationships, identified by hypercritical or demeaning verbal barrages, with or without physical or sexual violence, alternating with the batterer's displays of affection, remorse, or passionate sex. In this way the batterer effectively physically and emotionally ties the battered woman to him. Rosemarie Tong describes the general character of woman battering as assaultive behavior between adults in an intimate, sexual, theoretically peer, usually cohabitating relationship; the relationship can involve physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse, or the destruction of property or pets. Cigarette burns, sleep deprivation, enforced social isolation, deprivation of medical care, beating, and threats of increased violence are not uncommon. Ola Barnett and Alyce LaViolette add that battering is not an isolated, incidental instance of hitting or verbal abuse but a systematic means of dominance and control of the battered. Some men are thought to batter to reestablish the traditional sexual division of labor lost with feminist advances at home and in the workplace.
43
The sexual intimacy of the partners distinguishes woman battering from at least some sexual harassment and rape and makes the criminal justice system especially reticent about interfering. Feminists debate over how much the state should regulate family, sexual, and reproductive life. However, we typically agree that many women's emotional and economic dependence on abusive partners makes it almost impossible for them to escape their sexual violation without readily available social services and legal resources. Given that almost 25 percent of all police homicides result from handling family disturbance cases, and that a woman's credibility is still a thorny issue with some policemen who may themselves be batterers, police may be slow to respond to domestic violence calls. Indeed, police arrest more women who batter in self-defense than men who offensively batter, despite the fact that a woman uses extreme violence against her partner less often than men and that women's violence against men is more often retaliatory than offensive. When a battered woman refuses to press charges out of fear of reprisal, community recrimination, or isolation, she only reinforces in the minds of the police that their call was unnecessary. Yet restraining orders are difficult to enforce even when police adopt a "pro-arrest" policy in battery investigations to inform a battered woman of her legal options, and shelters are often already full of women and children without the financial or family resources to move elsewhere. Issuing restraining orders that successfully ban the batterer from the house may only further enrage him, with no guarantee that he will not continue to threaten and harass his partner when she leaves. Thus, she effectively be-
 
Page 171
comes a prisoner in her own home with or without his presence. Prosecutors and judges are often insensitive to the emotional or economic predicaments of the battered. If the batterer is charged and convicted, his prison term may mean real financial hardship on his family. Therapy as a condition of probation is often met with indifference, if not outright hostility, and is often without the radical feminist slant that many women feel is necessary for ultimate prevention. Many women may simply feel too overwhelmed by a legal bureaucracy that cannot appreciate the fact that they do not have the time or energy to appear at court hearings and that they still care for their partners; they just want the battering to stop.
44
The same tradition of woman as sexual property that is used to rationalize rape is used to justify the battering of women. Some sociologists have called a contemporary marriage license a "hitting license," reminiscent of traditional "wife chastisement" laws that permitted a certain level of physical abuse for purposes of patriarchal stability and control within the family. Rosemarie Tong reports that as late as 1977, the courts treated a husband's assault on his wife as "acceptable practice." Barrie Levy notes that as of 1991, only three states included dating relationships within the definition of relationships under the protection of domestic violence laws and allowed women under age eighteen to seek redress under those laws.
45
If violence is (hetero)sexualized by a cultural ideology of male dominance and control, then a battered woman's violation will often be sexual in that she will be battered into sex, battered on the breasts or genitals, or battered by a man whose sexual satisfaction derives from being dominant and abusive. Conversely, if heterosexual pleasure translates into male sexual conquest and his conquest into brute force, there will be little of her heterosexuality that will not involve battering. Together, these claims are the driving force behind Catharine MacKinnon's assertion that men's erotic arousal from depictions of violence against women means that the violence just
is
the sex.
46
Denise Ganache reports that compared to other battered women, women sexually abused in their battery are significantly more severely injured, frequently beaten, ashamed of their bodies, likely to have stress-related physical symptoms, more likely to blame themselves for the abuse, and more in danger of either murder or committing murder.
47
The irony is that in the absence of social services or legal resources, or lacking any community awareness and support of such resources in isolated or rural communities, women do not report their abuse for fear of reprisal, social isolation, or homelessness; thus, such resources are not developed in response to the need. Lesbian couples are especially vulnerable if they live in areas where they fear that homophobia will punish them for attempting to seek help. Experiences of sexism and internalized homophobia can create the kind of low self-esteem that inhibits some lesbians from taking any action against their abusive partners.
48
The same woman who complains that a man's abuse of her is a violation of her emotional and physical integrity may also say that she regards her battering as his plea for her support or for more affection and tolerance on her part. A boyfriend's jealousy or abrupt and uncontrollable anger is often cited by a teenage girl as a prelude to his battering, reinforcing her belief that her batterer really does love her but that
she
is responsible for the unhappiness in the relationship. Battered women's shelters and judge's restraining orders are not always available to juveniles suffering from battering by their boyfriends. High school administrations often have no public pol-

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