Washington Votes Forum

The subject of rape is similar to that of sexual harassment in that the debates about rape in the last two or three decades have been stimulated and, to a large extent, given focus and direction by feminist philosophy and legal theory. But unlike sexual harassment, the awareness of rape as a distinct phenomenon and a moral, legal, and political problem has a long history. The best pills for the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Until several decades ago, both the interpretation of rape and the laws pertaining to it were, by and large, informed by the traditional sexist view of relations between the sexes. On this view, the social and legal status of woman is essentially determined by her relations to her husband or, if she is unmarried, to her father or brother: her interests and rights are taken to be included in those of the man. The corresponding account of rape, seldom spelled out but operative none the less, finds the wrongness of rape not so much in the violation of the raped woman's rights as in the infringement of the man's rights. If the woman is unmarried, the father or brother is assumed to have an interest in her virginity, which is a condition of marrying her off. If she is married, the husband is held to have the right of exclusive sexual access to her.

This account helps understand the wide incidence of rape in war. In war, an almost exclusively male pursuit until quite recently, raping enemy women was but another way of hitting at the enemy himself. It also permeates much of the traditional rape law, starting with the usual definition of rape as something only a man can do, and only a woman can suffer, and as something a man does to a woman not his wife. It also helps explain such an apparently aberrant state of affairs as the virtual impossibility of a prostitute successfully suing for rape. As Keith Burgess-Jackson explains, according to the traditional view, "a prostitute 'belongs' to nobody, not a father and not a husband. By taking up this trade, she forfeits her entitlement to the law's protection. Materially, of course, she can be raped; but in reality the prosecution is likely to fail."

But then, proving rape in a legal system based on the traditional sexist outlook was not easy for any woman. Both substantive laws and the laws of evidence and procedure were unfavorable to women, since they were predicated on the traditional view of male and female sexuality and sexual behavior as basically different: the former active, assertive, even aggressive, the latter initially passive and subsequently responsive to male initiative.