Enabling What Now?

[eumelia]

This post discusses the prevalence of sexual assault, rape-culture and why I get annoyed about Bills that create different "standards" of rape.

Because the subject matter can be a traumatic trigger, it is here under the cut.

Yesterday the trial of Ex-President Moshe Katsav for rape and other sex crimes went under way.
After nearly four years of trying to get him in court, smear campaigns against the women who brought the charges against him (some of which illegally revealed the names of one of them).

I've written about rape before, and whenever the subject comes up IRL I often get (from women as well as men) the "false-charges" spiel.
So many women accuse someone of rape in order to get back at them.
So many women just regretted the sex in the morning.
So many were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The onus, obviously, is on the women and not the fact that a crime was committed against them. Usually, by a man she had previously known in some way.

There are times when I usually snap and say: "It would have probably been easier if she was rape AND murdered, then there would be no doubt that something was committed against her".

The amount of "false-charges" when it comes to rape is pretty much the same for any other crime.
Misogyny is a powerful thing, the entitlement awarded men in our culture is such that a victim of a violation of her body, always against her will, by a man who has been taught he should be awarded for merely being is something that needs to be combated by us, all the time.

Men are raped as well, children of any sex and gender are victims of sexual abuse and incest.
Rape is not about getting sex, it is about subjugation and power.
More often than not, it is committed upon those who are in a position of powerlessness.

Women, as a social group, are in a position of lesser power than practically any man in a similar subgroup - the intersection of race, class, gender expression, sexuality and ability has to be taken into account here and I hope that it's obvious.

Apparently, there is such contention about the fact that men do in fact have more cultural power in our society that the Knesset has approved a bill proposal that will enable rape charges to be filed against women.
Now, seeing as the law states that only men can be charged with rape, I think it's good that people who were assaulted by women can press charges and not be looked at as though they were crazy.
Because honestly, anyone is capable of violence.

However, when the proposal includes a double standard clause that states:

According to the bill, a woman would be committing rape should she "cause another to insert an object or limb into her genitals," by force or coercion.

The bill states that in special circumstances, the likes of cases involving doctor-patient relations or any relations between an adult and a minor, a women would be committing rape should she even "enable" such an act.

Let's look at the language there shall we.

First of all there is the heterosexist assumption that penetration=sex, this same distinction is what differentiates a whole lot of "mere" sexual assaults from rape, making traumatised victims think they're over reacting when it comes to the crime committed upon them.

There's the "enabling" thing.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Merrian-Wbster says:

1 a : to provide with the means or opportunity <training that enables people to earn a living> b : to make possible, practical, or easy <a deal that would enable passage of a new law> c : to cause to operate <software that enables the keyboard>
2 : to give legal power, capacity, or sanction to <a law enabling admission of a state>

Maybe I'm the one confused here, but how does enable an act against someone's will, if not by force or coercion. It seems redundant, but it brings forth the notion that women need to be manipulative and "seductive" in order to sexually assault someone.
All juxtaposed with the idea that all the men who rape are ferocious and unable to control themselves.
I hope that clause is dropped and not ratified in any way.

The culture of rape is male dominated, because it is an extension of the Patriarchal Heterosexist ideals that promote the idea that women are to be sexually available no matter what and that that in fact in their job in society.
A law that needs a special clause to show that women are "enables" of rape they themselves commit... is mind boggling.

Thoughts?

Comments

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

I think the underlying message here is that men are ultimately the powerful force in sexual activity; even if they are the victim. This of course severely trivializes the female's role in sex, especially when the sex is not heterosexual.

Here's what a Feminist RevLefter said a few months back on the same topic, though in response to some stupid movie:

Rape is non-consensual sex. Its not sex between an attractive woman and an unattractive man, between a drunk woman who would not have likely consented were she sober, and a less drunk man, or sex thats probably a lot more amusing to the male demographic the film is aimed at then women watching the same clip. Its non-consensual sex, and when you eliminate that distinction, call things that are not rape, rape, you are actually failing to take rape seriously by diluting the meaning of the word and therefore lessening the severity of the injury inflicted by rape. Thats not seen as "rape" because its not rape, not date rape, not stranger rape.

Even beyond the fact that calling drunk but consensual sex, "rape", trivializes rape, it does something more disturbing: it trivializes consent! To suggest that a drunk woman's explicit affirmative verbal consent is non-material to whether or not she's being "raped" is to treat women as if they're children, to suggest that the crime is not to violate her will but to violate her body without regard to whether she was willing or not. This is objectifying and dehumanizing and the fact that it has so much currency among feminists suggests that despite all of the Feministing blogger's protestations, the ideological assumptions of patriarchy concerning male-agency and female-non-agency in sex are still very much present.

This is the original post. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1412104&postcount=2)

You might be interested in more of her posts. I feel like sometimes she is wrong, but she tends to offer a very radical feminist perspective which is needed.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

The amount of "false-charges" when it comes to rape is pretty much the same for any other crime.

You have statistics on that? On assaults and other explicitly sex-related crimes? What constitutes a "false charge", exactly?

Rape is not about getting sex, it is about subjugation and power.

One would think it is about both and that the dichotomy can be misleading.

Women, as a social group, are in a position of lesser power than practically any man in a similar subgroup

The queen's my bitch.

Now I got to the wording of the law, and hahahahaha. Boy is this tricky.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

The queen's my bitch.

You must have missed the "similar sugbroup" part, meaning that class privilege also has to be taken into account here.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

THIS. I saw the headline and was pleased at what seems like a step in the right direction, and then read the article/wording of the bill and started spluttering incoherently. Thanks for writing on this.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

...the idea that women are to be sexually available no matter what and that that in fact in their job in society.

Note that sexual availability is in general a good thing, and that certain cultural norms enable it more than others. Militant feminism arguably results in lesser sexual availability, to the detriment of all involved.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Uh... what about consent? You're saying that "militant" feminism is detrimental because it allows women the option of saying no? That pretty fucked up.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Women had the option of saying no long before feminism. And it isn't about consent, but about the subtler undercurrents that shape such crude binary operators like consent. Some brands of feminism are bad precisely because they never bother to consider anything more vague than a simple yes/no.

Yes, I did miss the "similar subgroup".

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Consent isn't just about yes/no, but about the ability to negotiate what you would like to participate in, and to have a certain amount of control over your own body. I'm not seeing how it's binary at all, can you expand on this?

I still don't understand what you mean by saying that some branches of feminism results in lesser sexual availability, if this ISN'T about women being sexually available when they don't want to be.

Some brands of feminism are bad precisely because they never bother to consider anything more vague than a simple yes/no.
I really have no idea what you're referring to here.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Ability to negotiate is something some feminists - precisely the militant kind - lack entirely, because it requires listening to someone other than themselves. I am not saying that arrogance is more widespread among feminists than in the general population, but a population that thinks it has Something Important to say arguably deserves more scrutiny than the layman.

I wonder if you think that every woman always knows what she wants.

[stateofwonder.livejournal.com]

Whoa.. that's a pretty intense blanket dismissal. I'm not sure how to respond to that, except to say that people who have something unpopular to say generally have to yell a little louder to be heard at all. I'm not sure why that deserves more scrutiny than people who hold normative beliefs. Shouldn't we be questioning popular logic as well as unpopular?

I wonder if you think that every woman always knows what she wants.
Nope, sure don't. But I do think that it's important for every woman to have the room to discover and discuss what it is that she wants, rather than being coerced/convinced/pressured into something she's not sure about.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Discussions about feminism in which I don't get called a pro-rape woman hater don't deliver. To redeem the situation I might try to claim that we don't know whether it is in general good or not to pressure people into conforming to some expectations, mostly because it is too general a statement to assess. I may, however, argue that no consistent radical stand on that question seems to exists.

[bitter-moss.livejournal.com]

Nothing to add, but that i agree with you.