Since Susan Brownmiller first wrote Against Our Willthe landmark feminist reconceptualization of rapefeminists have worked on clarifying the fact that rape is less about sex than it is about rage and power. Too many people still conceive of rape as a mans overwhelming urge to enjoy the body of a woman who has provoked him by being attractive and within reach. As is true in many traditional cultures, much of India still imagines that the violation was one against her chastity, as Aswini Anburajan writes at Buzzfeed. But conceiving it as primarily a sexual violation places the burden on women to protect their bodies purity. It means that the question that gets asked is this one: Why was she out so late at night, provoking men into rage by being openly female?
But seen from a woman's own point of view, rape is quite different: It's punishment for daring to exist as an independent being, for one's own purposes, not for others' use. Sexual assault is a form of brutalization based, quite simply, on the idea that women have no place in the world except the place that a man assigns themand that men should be free to patrol womens lives, threatening them if they dare step into view. It is fully in keeping with bride-burnings, acid attacks, street harassment, and sex-selective abortions that delete women before they are born.
Ive now read a number of commentaries exposing Indias, particularly New Delhis, culture of street violence against women. The most memorable, by Sonia Faleiro in The New York Times, talks about the fear that was instilled in her during her 24 years living in Delhi:
As a teenager, I learned to protect myself. I never stood alone if I could help it, and I walked quickly, crossing my arms over my chest, refusing to make eye contact or smile. I cleaved through crowds shoulder-first, and avoided leaving the house after dark except in a private car.
Things didnt change when I became an adult. Pepper spray wasnt available, and my friends, all of them middle- or upper-middle-class like me, carried safety pins or other makeshift weapons to and from their universities and jobs. One carried a knife, and insisted I do the same. I refused; some days I was so full of anger I would have used it or, worse, had it used on me.
The steady thrum of whistles, catcalls, hisses, sexual innuendos and open threats continued. Packs of men dawdled on the street ... To make their demands clear, they would thrust their pelvises at female passers-by.
Such endemic street harassment is not about sex; its about threatening women for daring to leave the private sphere. Its a form of control over womens ambitions and lives. And when such a culture is widespread, it gives men permission to use women as the target for any excess anger they might have.
Rape culture, as young feminists now call this, isnt limited to India. It lives anywhere that has a traditional vision of womens sexuality. A culture in which women are expected to remain virgins until marriage is a rape culture. In that vision, womens bodies are for use primarily for procreation or male pleasure. They must be kept pure. While cultural conservatives would disagree, this attitude gives men license to patrolin some cases with violencewomen's hopes for controlling their lives and bodies. In October, responding to Richard Mourdock's incredible comment about rape, I mentioned an absolutely essential piece by The Nation's Jessica Valenti in a way I want to reprise here, if you'll excuse the self-quotation:
As Tennessee Senator Douglas Henry said in 2008, Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.
In other words, only virgins can be rapedsweetly white-gloved, white-skinned virgins. Any woman who ever wanted sexyes, that includes married women who unconditionally give permission when they put on that ringdeserves what she gets. Valentis piece is a brilliant and absolutely essential manifesto on what still has to change to get from What about 'no' dont you understand? to the more advanced concept that women have a right to enjoy and control our own bodies. In this "traditional" vision of sexuality, it's not rape if you've already had sex, everexcept if you're married and another man violates his property. Your only role is to protect your purity for its future owner. If you don't do, you're fair game.