NCJ Number
109678
Journal
University of Miami Law Review Volume: 42 Issue: 1 Dated: (September 1987) Pages: 75-91
Date Published
1987
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This essay focuses on the social construction of power relations in rape trials, concluding that rape law reforms may have improved the treatment of victims in trials and increased the prosecutor's power to charge rapists, but have not challenged the legal language that reinforces existing definitions of rape.
Abstract
Restraints that legal discourse imposes on the interpretation of events are illustrated by the author's observations of a rape trial where three black University of Minnesota basketball players were tried -- and acquitted -for the sexual assault of a young female college student. The paper argues that the victim's inability in this trial to describe her actions in terms of legal discourse results from the failure of the concept of consent to account for acts of sexual domination and submission. It goes on to explain that the law must visualize rape as an act of violence and clarify the relationship between the victim and the State. The paper analyzes the origins of the defense of nonconsent and its application in situations of racial hostility to provide insight into the apparent conflict between antiracist and antisexist interests. It suggests that rape trials may actually reinforce sexist stereotyping by communicating the conscious and unconscious perceptions that solidify the dominant world view. 46 footnotes.