"A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions." - Wilson Mizner

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"Popular culture texts that discuss rape in the context of feminism claim there is a “murkiness” surrounding rape, and they blame that murkiness (at least in part) on feminism. For example, while Ellen Goodman(1991) and Naomi Wolf(1991a, 1991b) both take feminist perspectives in their articles, each depicts contemporary US. culture as confused about rape, in part as a result of feminism. Drawing on two conflicting versions of feminism—one that encourages women to be free to express their sexuality and another that warns women to protect themselves from sexual violence—Goodman writes that as a result of social changes surrounding sexuality, “cultural cues are no longer universal and the likelihood that two people who meet will share the same assumptions isn’t as high as it once was.” Furthermore, she suggests that supposedly new definitions of sexual assault and consent, again implicitly available because of feminist activism, “lead to enormous confusion around the words that infiltrate [women’s] single lives with less terror than the word rape: words like sexuality, sexiness and the nature of ’consensual sex.’ It is as if a huge gray spot has covered these topics too, making it hard to see clearly.”... Goodman uses the gray spot as a metaphor for what feminist activism against rape has done to all (hetero)sexuality: made it hard to see clearly. While Goodman, unlike Barbara Amid (1994), holds men (not women) responsible for sexual assault throughout her article, she nonetheless implicitly suggests that the way feminism has been incorporated into women’s lives (she reports on several interviews with “young women” in the article) has led to the blurry “postfeminist images” of both rape and sexuality... While Wolf articulates the feminist position that “consenting to sex with one or more men in the past does not indicate consent for all future time to anyone who demands it” (274), she also suggests that the confusion around sexuality and rape is caused by the contradiction between a pro-sex feminism and news coverage and court practices that depend on women’s asexuality to ensure credibility. Thus, (her version of) feminism, which introduces women’s active sexuality into the mix, is at least partially responsible for that confusion.

For antifeminist feminist postfeminist Katie Roiphe (1993, 1994), the confusion around rape is produced entirely by that all-powerful postfemmist-defined feminism that supposedly controls college campuses and makes women’s lives miserable. Drawing heavily on Neil Gilbert in her book The Morning After, Roiphe argues that the “rape epidemic” is an exaggeration, produced simply by a change in perspective, “a way of interpreting” (53) that feminists use to “sequester feminism in the teary province of trauma and crisis” (56). Furthermore, like Wolf, she aims to reclaim sexuality for women, holding feminists’ “interpretation” of rape responsible for a “denial of female sexual agency that threatens to propel us backwards” (84)... both Wolf and Roiphe argue against a “victim feminism” and for a pro-sex feminism. Roiphe makes this typical postfeminist argument by rejecting women’s claims of rape1 and Wolf makes this same argument by criticizing rape culture and legal practices. Despite their differences, however, both Wolf and Roiphe say that rape is confusing and that feminism (at least in part) produces that confusion...

With this brief discussion of the representation of rape in the popular press, I hope to begin to illustrate the way these representations intersect with postfeminism, particularly antifeminist feminist postfeminism, backlash postfeminism, and pro-sex postfeminisrn. In the process, particular versions of feminism emerge in relation to rape. For antifeminist postfeminists such as Roiphe and Amid, feminism sees women as victims; paradoxically, feminism is also powerful enough to confuse people about what rape is. For profeminist postfeminists such as Goodman and Wolf, feminism demands women’s “equal” access to sexual expression and behavior, as well as their right to “choose” to say no, no matter how many times they may have said yes in the past. From both perspectives, however, it is the changes feminism has wrought that lead to confusion around rape and sexuality...

I argue that some aspects of feminism have been absorbed into popular culture so fully that they have become truisms that help redefine rape in particularly narrow ways. Furthermore. I argue that rape narratives depend on a postfeminist assumption that feminism has been successful. Paradoxically, such narratives hold women responsible for using the (now improved) law to end rape and view men, who know more about the new laws, as better feminists than women. Overall, this chapter argues that many post- 1980 rape narratives in film and television draw on and contribute to a cultural concept of post-feminism in a multitude of ways that collectively suggest there is no need for continued feminist activism, even against rape...

Paradoxically, even texts that explicitly articulate an antirape perspective can also inadvertently contribute to these backlash representations. For example, perhaps the most well-known self-defined antirape mainstream film, The Accused, includes a graphic rape scene (through a witness’s flashback) at the end of the film. The culmination of courtroom testimony, this scene emphasizes the horror of rape and illustrates the idea that even if a woman dresses and dances provocatively in a public bar, she is not responsible if a gang rape follows. But, the graphic representation is also explicit in its visual and aural depiction of sexual violence toward women, thus increasing the amount of violence against women that exists in popular culture representations. Thus, in this film the graphic rape scene functions, paradoxically, both to challenge rape myths from a feminist perspective and to contribute to the existence of violence against women in media

This paradox of discursively increasing (and potentially eliciting pleasure in) the very thing a text is working against is not unique to the representation of rape. The same argument can be made about representations of graphic war scenes in antiwar films, or of explicit racism in antiracist films, for example. [Ed: Once again, talking about the problem is a problem, even if not the problem.]

... Despite the potential backlash against women and feminism in any representation of rape, most 1980s and 1990s rape narratives intersect with aspects of postfeminism that seek to absorb and transform (rather than violently expel) feminism. As I discuss in chapter 1, rape narratives historically often linked rape to women’s independence, depicting a two-way causality in which rape illustrated that women needed to be more independent and less vulnerable, or in which independent behavior led to rape. Not surprisingly—given that women’s relationship to independence is a central concern of postfeminism—these narrative structures continue throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In the context of a postfeminist tension between independence and family, these narratives often use rape to help bring these two aspects of women’s lives together, linking women’s independent behavior to rape in the service of protecting the family. In these texts, experiencing rape helps women “have it all” (independence and family).

For example, thrillers or horror films that incorporate rape or the threat of rape specifically in order to produce spectatorial anxiety often resolve that anxiety through an independent woman character who triumphs in the end. Furthermore, these texts define this postfeminist New Woman’s independence through her capacity to overcome victimization in order to protect herself and her family... In the film Trial by Jury (1994)... At the trial, she stares blankly ahead, twisting her hair and looking incapable of making an argument (let alone a decision) for either guilt or innocence... he goes to her apartment and rapes her, making good his verbal threats through a physical assault. This rape transforms Valerie from a frightened and confused woman into one who is powerful and in control, a role naturalized by the initial portrayal of her character as independent.

After the rape Valerie takes over the narrative in an effort to save her son and prevent further assaults on herself. No longer twirling her hair in the jury box and waiting to see what Rusty will do, she persuades three other members of the jury that Rusty’s constitutional rights have been violated. leading to the hung jury that Rusty demanded of her as prevention against further assaults. Furthermore, she begins to stand up to the jury foreman in a way that emphasizes her independence as a woman, telling him, for example, that her name is not “Mrs. Alsion.” Thus, the film explicitly links her newfound post-rape persona to feminism."

--- Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture / Sarah Projansky


God. 'Antifeminist feminist postfeminist' is such an awful term.

"The teary province of trauma and crisis" is a good characterisation of the "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" mentality; the Revolution(s) will never be over, safe or finished, nor will the Nation ever be complete or safe.