Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:21:37.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“It Can Happen to You”: Rape Prevention in the Age of Risk Management

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

This essay provides a critical analysis of rape prevention since the 1980s. I argue that we must challenge rape prevention's habitual reinforcement of the notion that fear is a woman's best line of defense. I suggest changes that must be made in the anti-rape movement if we are to move past fear. Ultimately, I raise the question of what, if not vague threats and scare tactics, constitutes prevention.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies. Trans. Lavers, Annette. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Beneke, Timothy. 1982. Men on rape. New York: St. Martín's Press.Google Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 1997. The queen of America goes to Washington city: Essays on sex and citizenship. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohmer, Carol, and Parrot, Andrea. 1993. Sexual assault on campus: The problem and the solution. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Brison, Susan. 2002. Aftermath: Violence and the remaking of a self. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Buchwald, Emilie, Fletcher, Pamela, and Roth, Martha, eds. 1993. Transforming a rape culture. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.Google Scholar
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs ed. 1989. Man cannot speak for her. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Carby, Hazel. 1985. On the threshold. Critical Inquiry 12 (1): 262–77.Google Scholar
Castel, Robert. 1991. From dangerousness to risk. In The Foucault effect: Studies in govemmentality, ed. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Daniel. 1997. Sexual Assault Prevention Workshop. Durham, N.C.: Durham Technical Community College.Google Scholar
Feldman, Hannah. 1993. More than confessional: Testimonial and the subject of rape. In The subject of rape. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1978. History of sexuality, Volume 1: An introduction. Trans. Hurley, Robert. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality, ed. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Friedlin, Jennifer. 2002. Surge in NYC rape reports may point to real change. Women's Enews. http://www.feminist.com/news/newsl7.html (accessed April 10, 2003).Google Scholar
Gibson‐Graham, J. K. 1996. The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin. 1991. Introduction. In The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality, ed. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Jacqueline Dowd. 1983. The mind that burns each body. In Powers of desire, ed. Snitow, Ann, Stansell, Christine, and Thompson, Sharon.Google Scholar
Haag, Pamela. 1996. Putting your body on the line: The question of violence, victims, and the legacies of second‐wave feminism. differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 8 (2): 2367.Google Scholar
Heberle, Renee. 1996. Deconstructive strategies and the movement against sexual violence. Hypatia 11 (4): 6376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimmel, Michael ed. 1987. Changing men: New directions in research on men and masculinity. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage.Google Scholar
Michael, Kimmel, and Messner, Michael. 1989. Men's lives. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Kimmel, Michael, and Mosmiller, Thomas, eds. 1992. Against the tide: Pro‐feminist men in the United States, 1776–1990. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Madriz, Esther. 1997. Nothing bad happens to good girls. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Malamuth, Neil. 1989. Predictors of naturalistic sexual aggression. In Violence in dating relationships: Emerging social issues, ed. Pirog‐Good, Maureen and Stets, Jane. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Marcus, Sharon. 1992. Fighting bodies, fighting words: A theory and politics of rape prevention. In Feminists theorize the political, ed. Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
May, Larry, Strikwesden, Rob, and Hopkins, Patrick. 1996. Rethinking masculinity: philosophical explorations in light of feminism. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
McCaughey, Martha. 1997. Real knockouts: The physical feminism of women's self‐defense. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Patton, Cindy. 1996. Fatal advice: How safe‐sex education went wrong. Durham N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pirog‐Good, Maureen, and Stets, Jan, eds. 1989. Violence in dating relationships: Emerging social issues. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Porter, David ed. 1992. Between men and feminism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schacht, Steven, and Ewing, Doris, eds. 1998. Feminism and men: Reconstructing gender relations. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Staples, Brent. 1994. Parallel time: Growing up in black and white. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Westlund, Andrea. 1999. Pre‐modern and modern power: Foucault and the case of domestic violence. Signs: Journal of women in culture and society. 24 (4): 1045–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Patricia. 1995. The rooster's egg: On the persistence of prejudice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar