A Book Review by Jocelyn Crawley

As many radical feminists know, the ongoing degradation and dehumanization of women within and under the contemporary regime of global male supremacy translates into the continual trivialization of female experiences in a myriad of profound and devastating ways. These ways include the erasure of the reality of rape as an integral element of the female experience and male social control, as well as the ongoing refusal to acknowledge the gravity of sexual assault within the educational, political, economic, and social sectors of society. In her important book Is Rape A Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto (20), Michelle Bowdler, an award-winning writer, public health executive, and rape survivor, discusses what she terms the “underinvestigated, trivialized, and excused” (1) nature of rape in the contemporary world. In this book review, I examine the many important observations Bowdler makes regarding the reality of her own rape and how individuals across multiple ideological perspectives respond to the presence and proliferation of sexual assault within their communities.

Rape Is a Joke

In the introduction to her book, Bowdler points out that rape is “enacted as an international weapon of war and referred to for a sure laugh at a comedy club” (1). She thus immediately inundates her readers with language that reveals how rape denies women their humanity by reducing them to pawns who can be punished with “sexualized” forms of pain to win wars set within a cultural landscape that glorifies male violence. Simultaneously, Bowdler demonstrates the way rape trivializes female suffering by reducing sexual violence against women to joke fodder. 

In explicating the emotional and experiential upheaval that her own rape engenders in her mental and material world, Bowdler discusses how she will articulate the reality of being raped in recognition of the opposed interpretations of sexual assault that she and her attackers maintain. Specifically, she asserts, “I wonder whether I’ll be able to describe what happened to me as torture when my attackers seemed so at ease, so relaxed” (18). Herein lies the reiteration of two recurring themes which give this text both a unique flair while simultaneously situating it within the logic of radical feminist discourse: 1. the minimization of female experiences–particularly the reality of being raped by a male or males–works to normalize the dehumanization and degradation of women; and 2. women experience profound forms of pain confluent with torture and PTSD as a result of male violence. When taken together, these two recurring themes underscore what I conceptualize as yet another patriarchal reversal negating material reality. In this case, the patriarchal reversal is expressed in the way that men inflict profound pain on the women they victimize while simultaneously asserting that these women’s pain is minimal or even nonexistent. The attitude of ease and relaxation maintained by the men who sexually assaulted the writer underscores the presence of what I deem a rape-based patriarchal reversal in which male reinvention of reality transpires in context of sexualized violence. 

The Reality Of Rape: Differentiating False Consciousness From Material Reality

Bowdler’s assertions regarding being raped by men existing in confluence with the reality of torture despite her attacker’s nonchalance is not the only reference she makes to the minimization of harm women experience as a result of male violence. For example, she asserts that “real life does not mirror TV shows, which contribute to a false narrative that rape victims’ complaints are investigated routinely and seriously” (21). Here, the writer reiterates an assertion that many radicals have long since maintained regarding mainstream/malestream culture, which is that the realm of media is the sphere through which men in power promote those forms of propaganda they deem useful in maintaining the system of male dominance. In this case, television shows fallaciously promote the idea that rape is taken seriously by society, with evidence of this “reality” being seen through routine, serious investigations of sexual assault. Yet, as the writer points out, this fictional narrative perpetuated by the media is a misrepresentation of the reality that rape cases are routinely dismissed and disregarded by the legal and judicial systems. 

As Bowdler’s narrative unfolds, her descriptions of the events following her rape reiterate the integral theme around which the book is shaped: the minimization of rape in all sectors of society. For example, Bowdler references reports indicating that upon being collected, rape kits are consistently neglected: “The Boston Globe headline that stunned me one day as I drank my morning coffee read, “Crime Lab Neglected 16,000 Cases–Evidence Was Never Analyzed, Probe Finds” (124) She goes on to note that, following this audit, the culpable institutions and individuals who catalyzed this neglect never truly rectified their substandard treatment of the rape kits: “Disappointingly, two years after the initial audit, only five hundred of the sixteen thousand had been tested, and testing only happened if a district attorney had requested it” (129). In summarizing the role that the minimization of rape kits and, by extension–rape itself–plays in trivializing women, the writer references awareness that “Our evidence kits were turned over by hospital personnel to the police only to be shelved like a mediocre paperback” (128).

In addition to discussing the minimization of rape in a lucid, logical manner which makes the ongoing erasure of female experiences glaringly evident, Bowdler uses language which indicates the profound impact of sexual assault on the individual subjected to this form of male violence. Specifically, Bowdler describes the process of allowing her body to be touched despite the newfound antipathy to intimacy she experiences after being sexually assaulted: “I arrive at Emmy’s and she pulls me to her. It feels like barbs piercing my skin, but I trusted her before the rapes, and so my body allows an exception to its new aversion to being touched” (32). Here, the reader learns how sexual assault impacts how she relates to her own body, causing the relationship that she has with her body to shift such that receptivity to intimacy is substantively stymied. The idea of physical touch becomes the realm for a type of vulnerability that is psychically held at arm’s length before deciding that somatic convergence is permissible. 

In addition to discussing how rape impacts the somatic relationship one has with self and others, Bowdler’s narrative also reemphasizes the ways that–despite one’s own awareness that sexual assault profoundly impacts one’s mind and body–women’s experience of violence is being interpreted in the context of the prototypical minimization and erasure by the larger, patriarchal society. The writer asserts: 

“When I think back to this moment in the apartment that will be my home for the next several months, I remember being terrified of the police and have spent years wondering why. They were there to interview me as a witness to see if the crime they had been assigned could be solved. I suppose I wanted them to solve it too if they could, but I needed something else as well–an acknowledgment that this experience had been life-changing and they understood the impact violence has on the human psyche. There was no line from them like, “We’ve got to go get to work on this and stop them from doing it again.” They seemed more interested in how Emmy made coffee than in the gravity of the severe crime they were there to investigate–a crime I hadn’t begun to process and wasn’t even sure I had survived” (40)

Here, the reader learns that her search for recognition as a rape victim is not honored by members of the police system who would seem to find matters of etiquette and amicability such as coffee-making more important than demonstrating sympathy, empathy, or solidarity towards an individual who has been subjected to sexual assault. Bowdler further explains the role the police officers play in minimizing her experience noting that, “If only they had told me that they had seen a lot of things that were hard but that, with time and support, this horrific thing would not destroy me. But they focused only on questions about the crime scene, and I failed them because I had been sightless and would be of no help” (40). Not only do the police officers minimize Bowdler’s experience in a manner that engenders a disquieting form of erasure, they also operate in a capacity that catalyzes the victim’s sense of ineptitude despite the fact that she has not failed anyone but has herself been failed both by the men who raped her as well as the male police officers who refused to who refused to take seriously the crimes against her or express compassion for her as a victim of violence.

To further explicate the role that societal structures such as the legal system play in exacerbating the harm women experience within the world of male violence which patriarchy sustains, Bowdler discusses the fact that 

many victims forego interacting with the criminal justice system because they know that this organizational framework repeatedly minimizes the voices of women. 

Specifically, Bowdler notes that “Low reporting numbers also reflect, in part, increased awareness that reporting sexual assault so rarely leads to an investigation, arrest, or conviction and that many experience their interactions with law enforcement as additionally traumatizing” (42). Bowdler’s assessments are doubly meaningful because they reflect both the criminal justice system’s erasure and/or minimization of the experiences of women as well as the fact that, in maintaining awareness of this erasure, many female people have opted to decline interacting with this apparatus of the state. 

Rape Mediation In Mainstream Culture: The Inefficacy Of “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes”  

While Bowdler’s book provides many meaningful examples that demonstrate society’s ongoing minimization of women and the accompanying trivialization of their bodily experiences with officers of the law, the book also engages other sociocultural realities that demonstrate patriarchy’s dismissal of female people. Specifically, Bowdler offers what I consider one of the most important observations regarding the epistemological and experiential underpinnings of men attempting to ideologically and materially align themselves as the allies of women who have experienced or are sensitive to rape. For many years, radical feminists have engaged in fervent, polemical discussions regarding whether men can and should play a role in the women’s liberation movement given that, as biological males, they themselves pose the most substantive threat to female vitality and freedom. In her assessment of efforts made by men to engage in activist work designed to support women, Bowdler references “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes,” a male-led project created to enable men to critically engage with and confront both gender-based stereotypes and the culture of male sexual violence. The pledge for the organization reads: “We will no longer knowingly participate in and reproduce patriarchy. We will actively work to reveal, know, and overcome our gender biases. We will actively work to end men’s sexualized violence. We will actively deconstruct patriarchy and toxic masculinity and re/construct and co/construct gender identities and gender relations that are:

• more supportive to those who identify as male,
• masculinities that do not diminish the identities or roles of anyone identifying as female, femme, nonbinary, or nonmasculine, and,
• masculinities that support a more ethical relationship to the earth and fellow living beings.”

In discussing the inefficacy of this project, Bowdler states, “Walking in high heels–a stereotypical symbol of female attire–will not help men understand the high risk of experiencing violence that women face over their lifetimes or its impact. It will not help them understand sexual violence or abuse experienced by other men, transgender persons, or children” (54). Interestingly, what Bowdler states will not happen through the process of men walking in women’s high heels–the creation of an environment in which men understand the impact that sexual violence has on female beings–is not explicitly identified as the intended outcome of the effort. Rather, the “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” website indicates that the purpose of men walking in women’s high heels to protest rape is to impact the ecology of the environment such that it becomes conducive to listening, learning, allyship, and commitment to the cultivation of a world in which the sexualized violence perpetuated by patriarchy is substantively challenged. Herein lies the significance of both Bowdler’s assessments regarding the inefficacy of this anti-patriarchal project and the organization’s own assertions about its vision. Bowdler’s assertion emphasizes that men wearing high heels to protest rape will not generate experiential understanding regarding women’s experiences under patriarchy, while the men who lead the organization place primacy on operating as allies who maintain a position of commitment to listening and learning about the complexities and import of sexual assault. In juxtaposing these two perspectives on what the organization intends to do, two issues that radical feminists have raised for decades begin to materialize again. First, one of the many ways that patriarchy perpetuates itself with ostensibly seamless, relentless precision is the lack of empathy and understanding that men demonstrate towards women and their experiences under male supremacy. Second, because men can never effectively empathize and understand female experiences under patriarchy, they should have no role in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Regardless of whether radical feminists agree with either of these assertions, juxtaposing “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” to Bowdler’s interpretation of the male-led activist effort makes two problems that have been articulated as the rationale for excluding men from participating in The Movement plain: 1. male insensitivity to women’s experience; and 2. male ineptitude in addressing and resolving patriarchal problems which impact female people.

Personally, I–like Bowdler–view “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” as problematic, and for similar reasons. Specifically, men do not experience existence, autonomy, and volitional will as women do given that embodiment within the realm of sexual dimorphism means that there are two distinct sexes with their own unique biological characteristics precipitating socioculturally specific gender-based modes of being human which typically entail male domination, female submission, and conformity to life scripts which privilege men while depriving women of autonomy, individuality, and volitional will. During those rare moments in which a woman or group of women substantively resist this life script and its patriarchal patterns, they experience unique forms of silencing and subjugation as women, not men. Thus being female under patriarchy profoundly impacts the depth and scope of experiences women have, making their experiential realities substantively divergent from those of their male counterparts, including those who sympathize with their experience of subjugation. As such, men–as Bowdler effectively argues–cannot understand the vast, convoluted world of being female under patriarchy through a symbolic act such as wearing high heels. Moreover, the men who do attempt to reflect solidarity with women through these symbolic acts will remove the high heels at some point and resume existing in male bodies, thereby attaining all of the social, cultural, economic, and political privileges that result from being a member of the master class. (Interestingly, although not intentionally, I cite a certain ideological similarity between men wearing high heels to express solidarity with women and men who assert that they are women through acts such as wearing women’s clothes and attaining surgery such that they can claim a biological femaleness which is never actually operative following bodily modification. Both men who decide to wear a form of female clothing confluent with stereotypical hyperfemininity and men who utilize trans-logic to assert their femaleness seem to assert that their perspectives regarding womanhood and femininity are authoritative despite the ongoing assertions from women that the way female beings are represented should be left up to women, not men. Yet–whether through the objectifying, sexualized lens of high heels which come to constitute quintessentially vulnerable femaleness even though many women do not wear these types of shoes, OR as entities whose female embodiment can be co-opted, mocked, or erased into the realm of trans-led performativity such that the material reality of female beings systematically denied or erased to entertain people who think that anything associated with womanhood is fair game for ridicule, derision, and amusement–MEN keep asserting that they have the right to define what a woman is, how she should be represented, and which articles of clothing accurately signify or symbolize the way she exists in the world.)

Rape Literally Destroys Lives

As the book’s themes continue to unfold, the theme of minimizing and erasing female experiences emerges again as Bowdler recounts the experience of another woman recollecting the psychosomatic impact that abduction and rape have had on her. Specifically, this woman recounts that 

“Before the abduction, I had dreams about who I wanted to be–a teacher, a writer, an actor. Afterwards, plans were out of the question. Believing your life may end at any moment makes envisioning a future practically impossible. I was only able to work in bursts–a few months at a time–before the symptoms of PTSD and depression made it impossible, losing the momentum necessary to sustain a meaningful professional trajectory. That’s one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with: the lost time, the lost life and career–my lost self” (75,76). 

Here, the fallaciousness of minimization becomes egregiously evident. Rather than existing as minor infractions of human dignity with little to no longstanding impact on the volitional will and vitality of the victim-survivor, sexual assault dramatically alters the individual’s energetic efficacy such that she becomes unable to pursue the vocational path of her choosing in life. The victim-survivor repeatedly contextualizes the energetic inefficacy resultant from rape in terms of loss. Specifically, she uses the word “lost” three times, referencing the absence that is lost in the context of temporality, vitality, vocation, and selfhood. Although each of these losses is uniquely disquieting, the loss of self is the most disorienting because it reflects the role that sexual assault plays in erasing or reorienting the victim’s individuality such that the proclivities, predilections, and inclinations which make the person a distinct and operative entity in the universe are reduced to nothing or to an absent or amorphous, ambiguous personhood which lacks distinct import and expression. Bowdler’s iterations of the minimization principle–which are an integrally operative element of patriarchy and its commitment to normalizing male violence–is rearticulated when she cites Dr. Judith Herman’s findings regarding the psychosomatic impact of rape on victims. Bowdler notes that 

“…the psychiatrist Dr. Judith Herman published Trauma and Recovery, a groundbreaking book that analyzes the long-term effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. It transformed our understanding of the experiences of sexual assault survivors. Herman likens rape survivors’ experiences to torture and their trauma response to victims of war or those in concentration camps” (85)

Here, the reader learns that Bowdler is not alone in her understanding of rape as trauma, while also grasping that the trauma induced by sexual assault is comparable to the response of concentration camp survivors. In considering these assessments, the reader experiences the inversion of the minimization principle induced by patriarchy, recognizing sexual assault as the profoundly dehumanizing and disorienting process that it is. Here, the reader might also attain a newfound understanding of the term “perversion,” with the sexual perversion that is rape essentially involving and amounting to the Latin origins of the term: to overturn, subvert. With the sexual violence they perpetrate, rapists commit an act of perversion that overturns and/or subverts their humanity and vitality such that they experience substantive psychic degradation and/or somatic degeneration.

Conclusion

In leaving this narrative and its detailed depictions of the dissonance and dissociation caused by male violence, I am left contemplating the ongoingness of sexual assault as an integral, inalienable element of life for women and girls around the world. As made plain by Bowdler’s enumerations and elucidations of male violence, sexual assault remains central to the lives of female people, yet is consistently minimized such that victim-survivors systematically receive little to no attention regarding the trauma they have endured. Although this is dire information to digest, women need to acknowledge the ongoing reality of their dehumanization and erasure such that the logic of female separatism, female-only spaces, and cultivating good feelings, deep thought, and strategic work around the process of building sisterhood remains crucial to the way we think about how we–as biological women–want to exist in a world which is still structured around the ideology and praxis of male supremacy.