Rape and Neonaticide
Published by Lisa Kansas June 9th, 2008 in Culture, Rape, ViolenceWell, there are two nouns you don’t often see together. At least I haven’t much.
Our recent mild infestation of MRAs inspired the twinned thought above–it does seem odd at first, because other than the fact that they are both violent crimes committed by one person against another, they don’t appear to have much else in common. And truly, even the one thing they do have in common is an opposed commonality.
Nearly all rapes are committed by men.
Nearly all neonaticides are committed by women.
Both crimes are amazingly single-gendered in terms of their perpetrators; without knowing anything at all about the circumstances surrounding any particular example of one or the other, even without any information about the victim, knowing only the name of the crime, you can predict the gender of the perp with very close to 100% accuracy. There aren’t a lot of other crimes where you can do that.
(Note, in an attempt to maintain some semblance of scholarly accuracy, though I am pretty damn far from being one in regards to either of these topics: Rape in this post refers to forcible rape only, not statutory rape nor lesser forms of sexual assault. Neonaticide refers to the murder of a child less than 24 hours old.)
What interests me is the reaction of both men in general, and MRAs in particular, when the topic of rape comes up. Men* who don’t self-identify as MRAs do not have markedly different responses during a discussion of rape than men who do self-identify as MRAs in type, only in degree. MRAs will go out of their way to get shriekingly offended at the mere mention of rape; men in general will merely look uncomfortable. Defensive is probably the most neutral way to characterize the entire gamut of reactions displayed by the male when the fact that the overwhelming majority of rapists are men is remarked upon. They appear to be unable to comprehend that they personally are not being accused of rape, based upon that fact that they too share that gender. They become very inclined toward attempting to prove that there hardly is such a thing as rape, since the other self-distancing choice in the situation would be to prove that they weren’t really men and they’re certainly not going to do that. Basically they make discussing the issue with them just not productive, which may be their subconscious goal (in your average man) or conscious goal (in MRAs). This is obviously a problem, given that men commit practically all of the crime and therefore if they, as a gender, flatly refuse to work productively to stop it, it ain’t gonna stop. People uniformly getting the shaft are not the special interest group that has the power to stop the shafting. That has always been true historically, and it’s also pretty obvious from a logical standpoint, isn’t it?
Perhaps what men need to do is look at a situation where women are the gender that commits close to 100% of the crime and see how women en masse tend to respond to discussions of it. This is generally what happens: During a discussion where the topic fits (both rape and neonaticide can seamlessly be introduced during either serious political, philosophical or societal discussion or in related personal anecdotes of serious things), see what the women in the group do when it is mentioned.
Offended? Uncomfortable? Defensive? I’ve never seen any of those reactions. Sadness? Anger? Disgust? Generally very much so, some combination of all three–the ideal response to both crimes. Then bring up the fact that it’s almost exclusively women that practice it. There may be initial surprise, but only if the women in question haven’t ever really thought about it–if there is surprise, it will be rapidly followed by oh yes, you’re probably right, I believe that. You will not see attempts at downplaying the awfulness of neonaticide, as you do with men and rape; you will find that most women will condemn those who commit it out of hand, while some others will begin useful lines of inquiry such as Why are these women doing that? What can we do to help stop it? In fact, most programs out there designed to reduce the incidence of neonaticide are championed by women.
Of course, the analogy isn’t perfect. Rape is far more ubiquitous than neonaticide. If a survey of women was performed, I doubt you’d find any respondents stating that if they thought they could get away with it, they would do it, unlike a similar survey performed upon men, where depending on whether or not the phrase “rape a woman” or “force a woman to have sex against her will” was used, the percentage of men who said they would ranged from 15% to 50% respectively. Rape is a lesser crime–a victim of rape may recover, whereas a victim of neonaticide obviously never will.
Yet the salient points remain.
Just food for thought.
References used for this post:
FBI: Ten year arrest trends by gender, 1997-2006
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: Risk Factors for Neonaticide and Infant Homicide
NY Times: Studies Seek New Understanding [of rape]
*Men in this post refers to men in general, not every man on the entire planet without exception. I am not specifically referring to you, your boyfriend, your husband, your male feminist best friend or any random guy you once overheard at a bar. Men who self-identify as feminists, for one, do not display the typical responses to Many Things that the majority of men, who do not self-identify as feminists, do, and for another, there are Always Exceptions, Yes.
One other difference between the two crimes is that there are cultures in which neonaticide is (though hardly as ubiquitous as rape is) not shockingly rare, but ours is not one of them. So neonaticides can be - and usually are - viewed as isolated incidents when they occur in our culture, and That Horrible Thing They Do Over There when talking about cultures where it’s more common (as in female infanticides in China). Perhaps women speak of neonaticide in a more defensive way where it is a known fact of their world rather than a shocking intrusion that sometimes turns up on the nightly news. I don’t know.
That’s an interesting point–how the crime is actually regarded within the culture, rather than simply whether or not it is against the law.
Female genital mutilation is an interesting comparison here. You basically have three situations with FGM from a cultural standpoint.
1. Accepted and approved part of the culture
2. Nominally considered a crime and legislated against, but still fairly commonly occurring and defended by many
3. Unacceptable in the culture
In some African countries, the status of FGM is “1″ and in others it is “2;” in the United States it is “3.” Interestingly enough, in “1″ and “2″ it is often women who perform the procedure; in “3″ I couldn’t say, but when I’ve read news reports on the rare occurrences of it, it seems often enough to be a man as a woman. In the case of “3,” it really seems to be whoever the interested parties (parents usually) can find to perform the procedure at all, which may be why the gender of the person actually performing the procedure appears inconsistent. I would in this case consider the child’s parents the primary perpetrators though, since the procedure would never occur without their pushing it; no performer of FGM in those countries ever does it without the parents’ request and permission.
I have read interviews with parents of both genders on the topic of FGM in countries where it is considered a “1″ and where it is considered a “2.” I would have to say that the responses by the perpetrators in “2″ is one of or a mix of smug self-righteousness, angry defensiveness and unhappy doubt.
It does seem similar to the reaction of men in the US in general…leading me to think that in the US, rape is considered a “2.” Neonaticide here is of course considered a “3.”
So how do we shift perceptions on rape from a “2″ to a “3″?
I doubt rape will ever garner the horrified reactions of newborn-murder. One reason is that it’s a lot easier to convince yourself that a rape victim had some say in the matter, that there was some way she could fight back, but there’s obviously no way a baby can defend itself.
I think the biggest problem with the analogy is that the gender-of-the-perpetrator is of much less prominence in people’s minds than the (perceived) ability/agency/powerlessness of the victim. I think if you restricted the comparison to child-murder (predominantly female-perpetrated) vs. child-rape (I assume this is still predominantly male-perpetrated), that defensiveness would disappear; as far as I can tell, men generally DON’T get “offended, uncomfortable, or defensive” when the rape victim is a child.
Bringing a child into the discussion short-circuits consideration of the perp’s gender, so it’s not fair to attribute the discrepancy of reactions to these particular gendered crimes on the audience’s gender.
I guess what I am saying is that the reason infant-murder is inexcusable while rape is excused, has less to do with the gender-predictability of the criminal, and more to do with the perception of how much the victim could have done about it. So to move rape to a #3 level of acceptability, convince people of the victim’s powerlessness to stop it.
That’s actually shocking to me, because rape strikes me, viscerally, as so much worse. It’s a crime against someone who clearly has a formed sense of personality, agency, and autonomy. The rapist violates those aspects of another person. Rape is always abominable; a rapist is always performing an unforgivable act.
Neonaticide is horrible, but we can imagine situations where it doesn’t seem that the perpetrator has another viable choice—if either you can eat, or the baby can eat, what do you do? It’s a shite situation, absolutely, but because it’s a shite situation, it seems very difficult to say, “you absolutely cannot choose yourself in that situation, ever,” especially as choosing to feed the infant is poetic, but futile. In contemporary western cases, perpetrators of neonaticide often have severe mental illnesses, and / or are acting out of the same survival urge that has made it an accepted practice at various points. There’s a reason why foundling wheels—still used in Italy!—are actually effective at reducing neonaticide.
I don’t think “we should really infantilize women, particularly rape survivors, because people are protective of kids, so if they think of women as children, it’ll totally stop rape!” is a great take-home message.
For one thing, children are frequently sexually assaulted. Known, convicted perpetrators receive some degree of stigmatization, but they are just as often protected by patriarchal institutions.
I think the reason rape is common in our culture is that men are taught to identify with rapists and to not identify with women. That’s it—simple, vicious, and self-perpetuating. This is why so many men react defensively; that’s why patriarchal organizations minimize rape; that’s why it is still represented as a lesser crime, just the sort of thing that boys will do, y’know, as they learn the ropes. Wink. Nudge.
“I don’t think “we should really infantilize women, particularly rape survivors, because people are protective of kids, so if they think of women as children, it’ll totally stop rape!” is a great take-home message.”
Well, you’re right. But so are they - you need to convince people of the power disparity between attacker and victim. I don’t think that going back to protecting women and chivalry and all that will work, but I think there may be something to be said for a psychological look into a hypothetical victim’s head DURING the act itself. Fear can be quite paralyzing, and helplessness isn’t the only thing that can make a person powerless in a given situation.
I’m kind of surprised at your surprise. I thought it went without saying that because of learned sexism, men don’t see women’s personality, agency, and autonomy, and thus it is easier for them to feel sympathy for a baby than a rape victim.
I take some disagreement with you on how much of that is learned from culture, but it is as you say: men identify more with the rapist than the victim. I don’t think it’s JUST a matter of identification, though.
I don’t think it is either, but that’s not really what I said. It’s a message I see allllll the time, in every admonishment not to victim-blame. “Women can’t stop rapists by wearing different clothes/not wearing makeup,” and other things along those lines are what I’m talking about. Those messages all have the take-home: the rape victim was not in control of whether she is raped. The control of the crime lies entirely with the rapist.
As I see it, almost all of society’s acceptance of rape is built on the “maybe she was asking for it” assumption. If you take that away, the entire web of justifications and excuses comes apart.
I may have a followup but I need to get to the gym before it closes!
As I see it, almost all of society’s acceptance of rape is built on the “maybe she was asking for it” assumption.
I think that’s getting at the heart of it. It’s not that society “accepts” rape, but they’re confused about what it is. With neonaticide, there is never any doubt after the fact whether a crime has occurred. If every rapist were a knife-wielding psychopath prowling the streets for victims they had never met, then rape would have the same low acceptability as neonaticide. But as we all are aware, there’s many more garden varieties, often trying to disguise themselves as something else.
More education can only help, especially to high school and college age boys. (I think The Biting Beaver’s rapist checklist should be required reading material in every high school health class. I don’t agree with all of it, but I like the point it’s making, and I think it’s a great starting point for discussion.) If everybody in society starts to “knows the rules” about which behaviors are acceptable, or even just became just a teensy bit more aware about the issues at play, then maybe the actual perpetrators of social rape might start being blamed a little bit more (rather than the victims, I mean). I now count my blessings that I went to high school at a time when “sex education” was something other than encouraging abstinence. The classes often seemed silly and lame to us at the time, but in retrospect I bet it did some real good to at least a few of us.
These two comments gave me food for thought:
““I don’t think “we should really infantilize women, particularly rape survivors, because people are protective of kids, so if they think of women as children, it’ll totally stop rape!” is a great take-home message.”
Well, you’re right. But so are they - you need to convince people of the power disparity between attacker and victim.”
and
“As I see it, almost all of society’s acceptance of rape is built on the “maybe she was asking for it” assumption.
I think that’s getting at the heart of it. It’s not that society “accepts” rape, but they’re confused about what it is. With neonaticide, there is never any doubt after the fact whether a crime has occurred. If every rapist were a knife-wielding psychopath prowling the streets for victims they had never met, then rape would have the same low acceptability as neonaticide. But as we all are aware, there’s many more garden varieties, often trying to disguise themselves as something else.”
For the first comment, I disagree with the need to convince people of the power disparity between attacker and victim. I think that’s absolutely the wrong way to go. That is the route towards putting the onus on stopping the crime on the victim–we don’t take that approach with mugging, for instance, at all.
For the second comment, I believe that you just described the “2″ status of rape. It isn’t really a crime, not culturally. The kind of “rape” you say that people accept as a crime is actually “battery” that just happens to have sex thrown in, and people do accept that threatening someone else with a knife is a crime, both de jure and de facto.
We really appear to be stuck in the “2″ status of rape.
Also, to those who spoke of the lack of male empathy with a rape victim, I agree. Men have a vested interest and cognitive complex that strongly discourages them from empathizing specifically with a rape victim.
I don’t believe there’s anything women as a group can do to change that last. I believe that’s something that more men than not have to make both an internal and a cultural commitment to change about themselves.
Somebody give me the warm fuzzies that that’s ever going to happen?
You’re absolutely right, actually, that is a “2″. I just didn’t see it, probably because I often have trouble counting past “1″.
As for the warm fuzzies about men changing… well, um… I’d say we might actually have a chance if it weren’t for the impending economic catastrophes. Maybe after the human race recovers (IF we do), those of us still standing will have the chance to build a new society which worships the number “3″.
Where on earth are you getting that claim? Murderers who are related to child victims are divided almost evenly between genders. Men greatly predominate among strangers who murder children. Ergo, the murder of children is predominantly male perpetrated, even when taking neonaticide into account.
Whats the difference between a load of bowling balls, and a load of dead babies? You cannot unload the bowling balls with pitchforks!
What is more repulsive to sane people? Rape, or unloading dead babies with a pitchfork? The actual aspect of murdering unborn babies, in reality is worse than unloading babies with a pitchfork.
But, I committed the mortal sin of reminding the politically correct murderers, of their so obvious crimes.
I love it when trolls talk like Lewis Carroll characters. There’s something resembling logic there, and yet… and yet…