Approaching the history of rape and sexual violence

Notes Towards Research

Bibliographic Data

ID4756589
AuthorsShani D''Cruze, Shani D’cruze (corresponding author), Shani D'Cruze
Year1992
Volume1
Issue3
Pages377-397
Publication date1992-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWomen s History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0961-2025 • E-ISSN: 1747-583X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09612029300200016
OpenAlexW1978045842
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited21

This article seeks an historical interpretation of sexual violence against women and children through a discussion of cultures of masculinity. By means of an interdisciplinary review of the available literature it argues against historical explanations of sexual violence as deviance and supports perspectives which see sexual violence as an integral part of the maintenance of historically located patriarchal power relations. The argument draws upon Jackson's concept of ‘sexual script’ as providing neutralisations of violent male sexuality which mediate between culture, behaviour and consciousness. Legal institutions can be shown to share many such neutralisations either embodied within or through subversions of their own rules and procedures. Primary evidence focuses the discussion on working-class communities in later nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Lancashire, UK. Police and lower court records are employed to illustrate a prevailing culture of masculinity which targets (frequently sexual) violence onto women and children, which, to the extent that it occupies public space in the town, becomes the concern of local policing. Sources also show women using local police and courts to assert their own definitions of injury and employing informal strategies through social support networks to redress their grievances

Criminology · Human sexuality · Masculinity · Political science · Redress · Sexual violence · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law

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