An assertion has been made that to prosecute rape in the same way that nonsexual crimes are prosecuted would rob rapists, or potential rapists of their power. One of the beliefs underlying this line of thought seems to be that society gives rape power in the way that it treats female sexuality. Society seems to cordon off female sexuality as something special, isn’t it true? And since we do view it as an object, it can be stolen, just like shoplifting a calculator or a loaf of bread, but much more thrilling, and also more physically satisfying for the ‘thief.’
So, our claim is that society cranks up the value of a women’s sexuality. One way is through treating it as a special crime aside from regular assault. This is rational for a patriarchal society. After all, on top of assaulting a human being you are also stealing something, hence the greater punishment. But the greater punishment reinforces the objectification of women. By elevating the status of these crimes, the system is basically legitimizing this objective way of seeing women’s sexuality. So I would say that, yes, to remove that special status would be a sort of top-down way to negate rape, and even to take back equality for women. Theoretically it would serve as a way to ‘de-victimize’ women. This makes sense to me, and I think that it was really courageous of futurebird to walk the walk in this respect. She is a very principled person whom I could never call a ‘victim.’ I admire this.
Unfortunately the criminal justice system is not the only force within society that reduces women to objects with regard to their sexuality. There are many such forces, but the worst of all is the hegemonically cogent mentality instilled in women themselves through the process of gender socialization. Women hold up their own sexuality as something especially valuable, because this is what they have been taught, in both an overt fashion and via covert social indicators, ranging from the subtle to the incredibly blatant (see certain advertising pitches, as Andersen mentions below), so as sexual objects they become especially valuable and more at risk. A criminal is getting away with more when he rapes a woman than if he just, say, robs her. He’s also showing her his power over her as a male, all due to the fact that her sexuality is a more valuable commodity than his own.
Speaking of codifications, the above is just a way of paraphrasing a fairly basic line of feminist thought about rape. The sixth edition of Thinking About Women, by Margaret L. Andersen, is a basic text for Sociology of Gender courses. It’s an older edition from about 2003, but on page 282 it says:
Feminists suggest a fourth perspective on rape that explains violence against women as founded on the political and economic status of women in patriarchal and capitalist societies. This political-economic theory states that women historically have been defined as the property of men in these societies. For example, the rape of African American women by White slaveowners is evidence of the relationship between rape and the property status of women. Although women in contemporary society are no longer explicitly defined as the property of men, their use as sexual objects in advertising reduces their sexuality to a commodity. Images of violence against women in advertising and the popular media legitimate violent behavior against women and reiterate their status as sexual objects. To become an object is to become a piece of property, and this status, according to feminists, dehumanizes women and makes them an object for male violence.
The fact that most rapists do not believe that they have done anything wrong shows that violence against women carries some degree of legitimacy within the society. Those women who are perceived as the least valuable in the society are apparently most likely to be raped. This fact explains why African American, Hispanic, poor, unemployed, and unmarried women are those most frequently raped. The evidence is that high rates of poverty and divorce have the strongest relationship to the likelihood of rape. This is a suggestive finding, since we have already seen the increasing linkage between divorce and poverty.
But good fucking luck with eliminating the legitimization of rape as a special category of especially nasty crime. What politician would ever jump off that bridge? Once they get into power, they like the power and want to stay in power. As Andersen goes on to say on the next page (283), “criminal justice institutions minimize or cover up violence against women; and legal institutions resist radical change in policies to protect women from violence.”