Rape: Sex Violence History

Rape: Sex Violence History by Joanna Bourke
2009
Weight: 1.6 pounds
Method of Disposal: Re-selling—I make less than a living wage. I can’t give them all away!

This book is 441 pages documenting the history of sexual violence + 124 pages of notes. That is some heavy reading. It is much heavier than 1.6 lbs. The author, Joanna Bourke, attempts to put the focus on the rapist, rather than the victim. This is not often done in other writings on the subject. She argues against the idea that a rapist is born defective, stating that they become rapists as they go through their lives. This takes the pressure off victims and puts it on perpetrators, again something that we do not see often in the US and UK. These are the two regions Bourke focuses on. This book is packed with information, and I am glad I read it. I do not, however, feel that Bourke spends enough time discussing the feminist framework she uses to analyze the mass amount of data she collected. You can become bogged down in it all.
Rape takes place in a continuum of violence. If I take a second to think about the women I surround myself with I can come up with quite a few of them that have been raped/ sexually assaulted and every single one of them has experienced sexual harassment—and often. It becomes such a part of your life that sometimes it becomes difficult to classify as heinous or inappropriate. It is just the norm, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Unfortunately, it becomes the norm for the oppressors too. So much so that they cannot recognize that they are part of the oppressing class and/or that they have ever supported a rape culture.
This book alone will not give you a clear understanding of what exactly it means to live in a rape culture, but it will expose the bricks that make the structure. It can be very painful to read and to examine, but it needs to be done. I am re-selling this book online and hoping it goes to someone who will read every word of it, not just skim it.