Myles Cook, 2006

Theories of Rape
By Myles Cook Introduction
Like many other scientific explorations, the research into rape is viewed from a number of different perspectives and these perspectives are not always complimentary. In this paper, we shall be looking at the feminist and the evolutionary perspectives on why rape occurs in society and the social and cultural differences that affect the amount of rape reported in an attempt to see both the complimentary and the contradictory nature of research from the different perspectives.

The feminist theory of rape

Feminist theories of rape find their basis in the feminist view of society as being inherently patriarchal in nature with men viewing women as secondclass citizens or, at the very least, subordinate to men in society. To feminists, the patriarchal nature of society is perpetuated by each generation of males by the systemic subjugation of women and this can include such actions as rape. Radical feminists believe that the domination of men over women is the worst form of oppression that cuts across the divisions of class, race and culture, however, liberal feminists have the more open-minded view that women are equally to blame for their own oppression due to the way that males and females are socialised within society and the family. The view of the patriarchal nature of society is easily upheld by the fact that when a rape case is heard in court the amount of violence and force used in the attack are factors considered in substantiating the victims assertion that an attack took place and the burden of proof regarding whether consent for intercourse was given rests on the shoulders of the victim and not with the alleged attacker. Women are shown in a subordinate light in society due to fact that they are bound by constrictive laws regarding the burden of proof that have been created and written by men with little or no input by women who are the people most affected by rape. Women are not only not given the opportunity to add their input to laws regarding rape but are also not involved in defining what is considered violence used during an attack which adds evidence to the view that rape laws may be more about protecting the rapist from his responsibility thereby upholding the patriarchal status quo, rather than protecting women from abuse. Brownmiller believes that rape is about power as a means to subjugate women and this is borne out by the fact that the greatest proportion of victims of rape are women but whether this is a conscious effort on the part of the male gender to oppress the female gender is a matter for debate and a point of contention with the evolutionary theorists. Radical feminists believe, like all feminists, that rape is a tool used by men to perpetuate the patriarchal society, however, it is not due to some kind of real or imagined deficiency in the female gender but merely the engine that drives the male-dominated status quo. Catherine MacKinnon (1989), however, believes that women are so used to saying yes to men due to male oppression that rape has become hard to define making it difficult for a woman to know whether she has been raped because she is so used to doing what men want in order to have a quiet life.

 Myles Cook, 2006 It is this idea of women being subordinate to men for a quiet life that has led to the idea that when a woman says no a couple of times, the man may, through previous experience, believe it to be simply the prelude to a begrudging submission to his whim therefore the belief is that a couple of negative responses may no longer be enough to constitute a lack of consent on the part of the woman. The courts operate on the assumption that women should have fought off their attacker to their dying breath if the sexual act was against their will, which is a ridiculous notion as victims of rape should not feel they have to put their life at risk to fight off an attack when staying alive should be of paramount importance, however, due to our patriarchal society, levels of violence are considered when assessing whether rape has occurred giving the impression that rape has to be life-threatening thereby perpetuating the subjugation of women and the continuation of the patriarchy.

The evolutionary theory of rape

The view that rape is an instrument used to maintain the male domination of the female members of society may have supporting evidence in the fact that the burden of proof in obtaining a conviction in a rape trial is with the victim, however, evolutionary theorists believe that rape is about sex above all other concerns and that rape is the last resort of a male of the species used in order to pass on his genes when he is unable to attract a mate in any other way. Thornhill and Palmer proposed the Mate Deprivation Hypothesis which states that the majority of rape victims are females within their childbearing years and that the victims who suffer the most psychological distress following an attack are married women and women still within their childbearing years. These facts support the belief that rape is just about sex and the passing on of male genes for it would be illogical to rape a female who is unable to bear children from an evolutionary perspective and the heightened amount of psychological distress shown by married women is an indicator that they feel they may lose their chosen husband, the person they chose for their superior genes, due to the attack whereas single women of child-bearing age will feel that they have lost their ability to choose their ideal partner, someone who shows that they have superior genes, should they become pregnant added to the fear that they may be unable to conceive a child later on with their chosen partner due to being attacked. If rape was just an exclusively human act the evolutionary theorists would have a difficult time convincing others that they are correct in their assertions, however, Thornhill and Palmer discovered that rape also occurs within a number of animal species adding weight to their belief that rape is merely the instinct to reproduce and is therefore a naturally occurring biological act that may not be a good thing but something that is bound to happen under certain circumstances. In the opinion of Thornhill and Palmer, within human society rape is a crime simply because society views rape as abhorrent and inherently wrong instead of viewing it in the context of the rapists' instinct to pass on his genetic inheritance to the next generation of the species which, while not excusing his crime, could explain his actions. It could be argued that the instinct to reproduce is merely the engine that drives a species evolution by ensuring that males and females of the species seek out the best genetic stock with which to procreate to produce the best offspring to ensure the continuation of the species and making all

 Myles Cook, 2006 representatives of that species nothing but biological servants of evolution allowing species to change to adapt to their changing environment. This idea is supported by the fact that sex is different for males and females with males programmed to be emotionally detached enough to concentrate on the act of procreation with multiple partners whereas females are programmed to need the nurturing environment of a stable relationship in which to raise an offspring due to the investment of time they have in their offspring during their gestational period. Males expend a lot of time and effort in procuring the best female with which to mate so that his offspring will be the best possible specimen of its species in order for his genetic inheritance to continue. Zahavi proposed the handicap model which states that the bigger the handicap a male has to live with, the better the quality of his genes as shown, for example, by peacocks with large tails, for the larger the tail the greater handicap, however, it shows that the male has a good immune system to fend off the large amount of tick bites, that its foraging skills are good and that it has abundant resources available to it in order to maintain its tail. Peahens will choose a peacock with a large tail over one with a smaller tail due to the fact that the genes of the peacock with the largest tail will be the best to overcome its handicap and, in an experiment involving barn swallows, this was proven to be true when female barn swallows become attracted to males with short tails when they had feathers added to make their tails longer. Males who are unable to attract a mate in any other way, however, will rape in order to pass on their genes and this is in evidence within a number of species including insects, birds, fish and primates. Male scorpianflies, for example, have a specialised organ known as the notal organ which appears to have no other function other than facilitating the rape of females by clamping around the female to prevent her moving during a rape if she refuses his gift of a ball of hardened saliva made to woo her. In humans, males show their genetic superiority by displaying their abundance of resources such as cash and material possessions or by their higher social status or their attractiveness, however, if a male is unable to display these attributes he may resort to rape.

Feminist and evolutionary theories in practice

Liberal feminists believe that, as a society, males and females are socialised into stereotypical gender roles which maintains a patriarchal type of society, however, they do not believe that women themselves are entirely blameless for this state of affairs but rather accept that women tend to treat boys and girls differently. A prime example of this cultural socialisation can be seen in Zimbabwe where there is pressure on children to conform to very stereotypical gender roles with an apparent emphasis on the creation of a vulnerable female underclass which maintains an institutionalised patriarchal society by keeping women in a state of passivity with low self-esteem and the view that women are always the ones at fault. Boys in Zimbabwe are socialised into viewing girls as inferior by seeing male teachers and older men outside of the school environment propositioning young girls into sexual relationships with inducements of gifts and, more importantly in this culture, money which is a crucial requirement for the purchase of school books, the payment of school fees and for personal money. Popularity is gained by

 Myles Cook, 2006 having money and boys have more opportunities for earning money than girls in Zimbabwe making inducements of money and gifts for sexual relationships hard to resist and further socialising them into submissive and maledependant roles while males are pressurised into having girlfriends as a measure of status and society almost encourages violence towards girls for non-compliance to sexual demands. Rape is a fact of life for girls in Zimbabwe and it is due to this inherent view of girls as entirely dependent on males for support that they accept this sexual aggression passively. From an evolutionary perspective, however, it could be viewed that girls enter into sexual relationships with older men because their abundance of possessions show that they have the best genes to pass on compared to younger men so they are in fact picking their partners while the men could be viewed as offering inducements to those girls they feel are the best partners with which to procreate. Rape only seems to occur when the girls do not comply with the wishes of the boy who wishes to have a sexual relationship with her which seems to add validity to Thornhill and Palmers Mate Deprivation Hypothesis in that the boys who display sexual aggression may have no other choice because they are unable to attract a partner due to a lack of possessions. Despite the differences in the perspectives, however, the evolutionary drive to reproduce does, in fact, seem to serve the function of upholding the patriarchal nature of society in Zimbabwe. A different example of rape can be seen in the case of a 17-year-old retarded girl who was gang-raped by a group of high school athletes in New Jersey, USA and, although over 40 people heard about the attack, no one reported it. This would appear to be at odds with the fact that the US is an individualist culture in which individuals are out to get what they can for themselves without any regard for the local community and in which more rapes are reported, however, the town of Glen Ridge in which the attack took place could be considered a collectivistic sub-culture within the broader individualistic culture as small town communities tend to have a more tightlyknit structure than a country as a whole. The fact that the rape was not reported shows a degree of patriarchal influence as the perpetrators were seemingly being protected for their part in the attack than the victim was from being abused. The group of athletes could be viewed as being victims of socialisation as they had been led to believe that being athletes made them of a higher status than other men and therefore entitled to treat women in a domineering way, however, they, from a feminist point of view, were demonstrating their power over women in no uncertain terms. Looking at this example from an evolutionary perspective however we see that although the rapists choice of victim was in one way an ideal one, the victim being of childbearing age, she was of bad genetic stock in evolutionary terms due to being retarded which would be a trait one might view as unwanted in later generations. Gender inequality is also a factor considered when studying rape as shown by a comparison study conducted in the US between the fifty states in which Alaska was shown to have one of the highest rates of rape due to the fewer number of women who lived there meaning that some men would be deprived of their ability to pass on their genes, evolutionarily speaking, leading to the higher incidence of rape. In the same study, Maine and South Dakota was shown to have a low rate of rape and this is considered to be because

 Myles Cook, 2006 these states are more affluent and better educated with more women holding positions of power than elsewhere leading to a higher opinion of women causing socialisation of children to be more positive and empowering women rather than objectifying them. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves-Sanday (1989) found that rape-free societies are those in which women are viewed with respect and as equals with men and rape is viewed with abhorrence. In the collectivistic culture of West Sumatra, a rapist will be viewed as having demeaned himself and his friends and family and will have his masculinity ridiculed before being assaulted and banished from his village or even killed for his crime. Rates of rape also tend to be higher in socially disorganised areas in which a lack of community spirit is due to the greater movement of people in and out of an area within a short space of time allowing for a rapist to have more of a chance of escaping recognition and capture. Socially disorganised areas tend to be run down and closer to the behavioural sink making them less desirable areas in which to live which increases the geographic mobility of the area in question. These areas tend to be less affluent meaning that men will have fewer possessions and money with which to attract a partner and lone parents will have lower incomes forcing them to live in this kind of area and their children will have less interaction between the sexes which may also influence them in a negative way.

Conclusion
Looking at the evidence, it is easy to see that both the feminists and the evolutionists have valid theories on why men rape and that however at odds they seem to be at times it is possible that they are actually two sides of the same coin with the evolutionary view in some cases providing evidence supporting the socialisation aspects of the feminist view as in the Zimbabwe example. Are the two perspectives really that different or could it be that there is an evolutionary reason for the patriarchal nature of society which is no longer required but persists due to our stubbornness to change our methods of socialisation? Only time will tell References
Howitt, D (2006) Introduction to Forensic and Criminal Psychology 2nd Edition, Pearson, Harlow Vetten, L (1997) Roots of a Rape Crisis, Crime and Conflict, No. 8, pp. 9-12, Summer 1997 Class handouts