The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[DanaC]

Bruce is right about the institutional focus. But culturally, the issue of male rape by a female perpetrator and how we as a society define and respond to that, is part of that bigger picture.

It presupposes agency for the male victim, in a way that implies a corresponding lack of agency for their female counterparts. It suggests that rape is a male act - because it assumes that sex is a male act - something men do to women. At the same time, rape is a way to physically impose, it is an act of power - something we do not, as a culture associate with women.

Rape of a woman is a heinous act - and society condemns it (though with a high degree of victim blaming thrown in for good measure) - but rape of a man subverts the entire gender system in which we currently live. It threatens our understanding of what it is to be a man or a woman at a fundamental level. Our culture therefore finds it very difficult to accept and understand the reality of those victims' experiences.