Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault by Maria Bevacqua

A Review by Jocelyn Crawley

As a woman who is committed to critically analyzing the reality of rape and rape culture as integral elements of existence and limited female agency under patriarchy, one conclusion that I continually draw regarding the ongoing war against women through male sexual violence is that the lack of attention granted to this issue precipitates its perpetuation and proliferation. I know that the lack of attention given to rape in all sectors of society results in part from the devaluation and objectification of women such that the dehumanization and degradation we experience through rape are minimized by men whose lives and preferences are automatically more important than those of their female counterparts. I also understand that the prevalence of sexual assault persists in part because of a lack of awareness regarding what rape is, the types of situations and circumstances in which it is most likely to occur, and how a woman can decrease her susceptibility to this form of abuse. 

In her important book Rape On The Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault, Maria Bevacqua discusses a plethora of feminist responses to the ongoing role that sexual assault plays in the contemporary world. From enumerating the elements that are present in anti-rape social movements to discussing the development of an all-woman rape investigation unit in the police department, Bevacqua’s work provides anti-rape strategists with multiple ideas that individuals and groups can use to catalyze institutional change that contributes to the development of a safer, saner world for women and girls. In this book review, I highlight several key passages that provide readers with a broader understanding of how anti-rape movements have evolved and operated in the modern American landscape.

In Chapter One, Bevacqua presents readers with a framework through which to conceptualize anti-rape activism as a social movement with specific goals and strategies. First, she notes how political scientists Nancy E. McGlen and Karen O’Connor categorize these activist groups, noting that they “postulate that a social movement arises when various factors are in place: an organizational base, a network of communication among potential organizers, shared consciousness of a common oppression, and a critical mobilizing event or events” (26). Additionally, she notes Claire Fulenwider’s assertion that the purpose of these movements is to develop ideological change within society and amongst individuals while also generating structural change (26). This delineation of how social movements become constitutively active exists against the backdrop of Bevacqua’s awareness that anti-rape activism surfaces as a social movement that previously operated within the larger women’s movement. In recognizing the convergence and divergence of anti-rape activism and the women’s movement, she poses this question: “…is the effort against rape simply a faction or element of the women’s movement, or can it be considered a social movement unto itself?” (27). This is one of the most significant questions that I have stumbled across in all of the anti-rape literature I’ve read over the past year, and the significance of the interrogation is multifarious. First, feminists need to think critically about the level of importance afforded to rape as a byproduct of patriarchy in the context of its other egregious manifestations. Second, feminists need to consider whether their ruminations may lead to the conclusion that hierarchically prioritizing sexual assault as the social issue that warrants the most oppositional energy is valid given the unique forms of devastation and degradation that victims experience in the context of sexual trauma. If sects of feminists draw this conclusion, reconstruing anti-rape activism as the social movement rather than a part of other forms of activism that transpire under the broader umbrella of the women’s movement, significant ideational and structural shifts can and should happen within the radical sector of resistance to patriarchy. Deciding which form of oppression we organize around and against determines where our energy is directed, and we need to individually and collectively understand why we may or may not view some forms of patriarchy as inherently more harmful than others.   

  In recognizing the gravity of rape given its ability to have a long-standing, adverse impact on the psychological well-being of victim-survivors, I was pleased that Chapter Two of Rape On The Public Agenda was devoted to discussing anti-rape organizing and strategies. Some of the strategies discussed in this chapter include law reform efforts, rape crisis centers, take-back-the-night marches, guerrilla tactics, and self-defense. In discussing these tactics, Bevacqua notes that the practice of self-defense creates the conditions in which “women might reverse or resist their socialized passivity and dependency on men, which contributed to the problem of rape” (67). While much of the discourse regarding the method of self-defense reflects knowledge feminists have already amassed (such as awareness that everyday objects can be turned into weapons), I was pleasantly surprised to note the text’s articulation of how the practice of self-defense reflects an ideology and praxis confluent with both radical and liberal purviews. Specifically, self-defense constitutes a radical praxis in the sense that “it allowed women to dare to behave in unfeminine ways, to advocate defensive violence, and to flout conventional assumptions about womanhood” (69). At the same time, self-defense strategies reflect a liberal approach to grappling with patriarchy and the male violence it precipitates because it “promotes change one woman at a time and seeks to empower individuals to overcome their own passivity and submissiveness rather than rooting out that oppression” (69). In recognizing how radical and liberal values converge through the practice of self-defense, feminists can begin reflecting on how, although complex in its melding of antithetical modes of thought about how to act against oppression, this anti-rape strategy can still equip women with the knowledge and bodily strength necessarily to reduce their susceptibility to sexual assault.

         While Bevacqua’s reference to self-defense strategies is an important component of the text because it involves resisting the forms of normative femininity which involve passively accepting male aggression as inevitable aspects of human existence, her inclusion of discourse regarding disparate ways that rape is conceptualized contributes to the efficacy of her work in expanding awareness regarding how consciousness about sexual assault develops and evolves in specifically ideological ways. In some sections of the text, Bevacqua uses charts to facilitate more understanding regarding how rape is being thought of. Although Rape on the Public Agenda contains a plethora of meaningful charts which enable feminists to think critically about rape, the chart found on page 134 is particularly significant given its juxtaposition of the feminist and public agenda towards analyzing and devising solutions to the rape crisis. In this chart, Bevacqua notes that feminists define rape as an expression of patriarchy while the general public views it as a heinous crime. This is an important distinction because it reflects the public’s lack of a critical, political analysis of the sex and gender-based paradigms which create the conditions confluent with the maintenance of a social hierarchy in which, because men have more class power than women, they are able to sexually violate members of the female underclass without serious legal and social repercussions. In other words, viewing this chart can lead the reader to extrapolate that viewing rape as a heinous crime reveals both the public’s awareness of its egregious nature and a lack of awareness regarding the ideological and material realities that give rise to it.  

         Another meaningful juxtaposition found in the chart is the feminist assertion that sexual assault is “grounded in women’s socialized passivity and men’s socialized aggression” and the public’s assertion that it “cannot be explained” (134). As with the previous juxtaposition, this component of the chart reveals the feminist proclivity towards developing a clear, accurate epistemological framework through which to think about rape while the public, likely through lack of sustained attention to the issue, maintains an ambiguous, amorphous understanding of rape’s causes and underpinnings, with this lack of clarity obscuring the definitive, integral role that patriarchal values play in making women vulnerable to sexual abuse.

In Chapter Four of Bevacqua’s poignant text, the writer discusses the evolution of ideologies and institutional responses to the reality of rape from the 1980s until now. Specifically, activists developed a more nuanced approach to sexual assault, and their heightened awareness of various aspects and outcomes of rape generated a resurgence in policy-making as public consciousness regarding the reality of male sexual violence developed. For example, Bevacqua reports that “In the late 1970s and early 1980s, other types of violence, such as child abuse, child sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and wife battering, began to enjoy the kind of policy response that rape had seen during the preceding decade” (152). Yet even as ostensible progress was made in terms of people recognizing the multifarious forms of male sexual violence that women could be subjected to, the trivialization of sexual assault remained an integral, operative aspect of public consciousness. As pointed out by Mary Koss and Sarah Cook, rape was viewed as mere ‘rapette’ in the minds of many individuals, with the term rapette reflecting the public perception that date rape is “not as traumatizing as being attacked by a stranger” (155). This minimization of rape makes it problematic to view the development of categories for sexual assault such as date rape and acquaintance rape as a definitive contribution to the realm of anti-rape activism because this emergence has resulted in the hierarchical categorization of some forms of sexual assault as more meaningful and harmful than others.  

In addition to articulating the potentially problematic and polemical nature of categorizing rape in terms of date rape and acquaintance rape, Bevacqua utilizes Chapter Four to speculate about some significant outcomes which resulted from specific sexual assault cases. For example, she references the Big Dan’s case. In delineating the rape, Bevacqua writes 

“One of the most infamous rape cases to make headlines in the United States was a gang rape at Big Dan’s Tavern in New Bedford, Massachusetts. On 6 March 1983 a woman, aged twenty-one, entered Big Dan’s to buy cigarettes and have a drink. She was prevented from leaving by two men who dragged her to a pool table, and she was subsequently gang-raped by at least four men while perhaps another twenty or more bar patrons looked on and cheered” (157-158).

In discussing the response to this unconscionable gang rape, Bevacqua notes that the Massachusetts rape shield law prevented the sexual history of the Big Dan’s victim from being introduced at the trial, while other forms of information–such as another rape allegation she had made–were admitted. Bevacqua goes on to point out that some citizens of the area (New Bedford) questioned what type of woman would frequent a bar like Big Dan’s, insinuating that to do so meant she was “asking for it” (160). Additionally, after being identified by the press as the victim, Cheryl Araujo experienced a level of provocation so severe that, following the trial, she left the area “to escape the ongoing harassment that resulted from the common knowledge of her identity” (161). Bevacqua states that, in reviewing cases like Big Dan’s, the reality of persecution and provocation that victims experience when coming forward regarding sexual harassment becomes plain. She quotes Lisa Cuklanz as noting that “If anything, [the Big Dan’s] case was an eloquent argument for victims not to tell their stories” (161).Thus the ongoing analysis of sexual assault as a profound social problem has led anti-rape activists to note that identifying victims in publicized cases can function as a warning signal indicating the type of devastation a woman who reports sexual assault might experience.   

Bevacqua writes with the thorough lucidity of an individual who is determined to create communal clarity and awareness regarding the significance and scope of rape to engender more effective action against it. In so doing, she provides readers with a clear and expansive representation of how sexual assault has been discussed by anti-rape activists as well as the specific strategic attacks they have developed to contend with it. Radical feminists who have chosen the fight against patriarchy as the most significant form of resistance to the multiple oppressive regimes that unfold on the contemporary landscape can refer to this informative text when strategizing with other anarchic activists to develop a world where rape is continually contended and perpetually quelled.