Feminist Legal Studies 10 (2):131-148 (2002)
Abstract |
This article proposes that feminist legal critics need to be able to explain how some rape cases succeed in securing convictions. The means by which rape cases are routinely disqualified in the criminal justice system have received widespread attention. It is well established in feminist legal critique that female complainants are discredited if they fail to conform to an archaic stereotype of the genuine or ‘real’ rape victim. This victim is not only morally and sexually virtuous she is also cautious, unprovocative, and consistent. Defence tactics for discrediting rape testimony involve exposing the complainant's alleged failure to comply with the sexual and behavioural standards of the normative victim.This understanding of how rape complain(an)ts are disqualified is not predictive, however, of the complainants whose cases succeed in securing convictions. This article reviews some successful Australian rape cases and considers the ways in which they disturb feminist understandings of how rape complaints are discredited in the criminal justice system. It proposes that recent research analysing the discourse of rape trials provides a way of explaining the apparent discrepancies between the ‘ideal’ rape victim and successful complainants
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Keywords | complainant discourse analysis rape rape defences rape victim resistance sexualisation trial process |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Reprint years | 2004 |
DOI | 10.1023/A:1016060424945 |
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References found in this work BETA
Preventing Sexual Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Overcoming a Rape Culture.[author unknown] - 2014
Unequivocal Victims: The Historical Roots of the Mystification of the Female Complainant in Rape Cases. [REVIEW]Kim Stevenson - 2000 - Feminist Legal Studies 8 (3):343-366.
What is a Fair Trial? Rape Prosecutions, Disclosure and the Human Rights Act.Thérèse Murphy & Noel Whitty - 2000 - Feminist Legal Studies 8 (2):143-167.
Citations of this work BETA
Credibility Excess and the Social Imaginary in Cases of Sexual Assault.Audrey S. Yap - 2017 - Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 3 (4):1-24.
Blaming the Victim of Acquaintance Rape: Individual, Situational, and Sociocultural Factors.Claire R. Gravelin, Monica Biernat & Caroline E. Bucher - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 9.
Falling Rape Conviction Rates: (Some) Feminist Aims and Measures for Rape Law. [REVIEW]Wendy Larcombe - 2011 - Feminist Legal Studies 19 (1):27-45.
Marital Rape and the Marital Rapist: The 1976 South Australian Rape Law Reforms.Lisa Featherstone & Alexander George Winn - 2019 - Feminist Legal Studies 27 (1):57-78.
Sex, Sexism, and Judicial Misconduct: How the Canadian Judicial Council Perpetuates Sexism in the Legal Realm.Caroline Dick - 2020 - Feminist Legal Studies 28 (2):133-153.
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