Private and Political Violence: Rape Remedy and the Persistence of Patriarchy

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on Intimate Violence and Gendered Peace

Abstract

Abstract: How and why do attempts to remedy sexual violence fail survivors so profoundly? In industrialized democracies, government consensus that rape is something to combat has done little to reduce its prevalence. A rich corpus of literature in political science focuses on the causes and consequences of public violence while ignoring private violence altogether. We argue that private violence is political by virtue of both its wide prevalence and the stark failures of remedy. Moreover, the depoliticization of private violence serves an essential political purpose: maintaining existing power structures that subjugate women and sexual minorities. We posit that dominant institutional responses to sexual violence in most advanced democracies reimpose rather than challenge patriarchal power in their interactions with survivors. Drawing on autoethnographic experiences supporting survivors of sexual violence, we demonstrate how existing models of judicial, health and familial remedy facilitate ongoing gendered oppression by entrenching an equilibrium wherein decisions are made on behalf of survivors without need for their input. Since rape and sexual assault constitute violations of bodily autonomy, denying survivors control over their own bodies, decisions, or paths to repair, reinscribes gendered hierarchy often in ways that recall aspects of the original abuse.

Authors

• Alexandra Hartman, UCL

• Milli Lake, London School of Economics