Rape Myths, Law, and Feminist Research: ‘Myths About Myths’?

Joanne Conaghan & Yvette Russell

Introduction

Over the last 30 years, public and policy concern about rape myths has grown exponentially as evidence has amassed about their existence, operation, and pernicious effects. From the earliest studies carried out in the 1970s (Burt 1980; Feild 1978) to contemporary, more methodologically refined analyses (Bohner et al 2009; Gerger et al 2007), researchers have repeatedly shown a significant correlation between the valorization of particular attitudes and beliefs – characterized in the literature as ‘rape myths’ - and a tendency ‘to deny, downplay or justify sexual violence carried out by men against women’ (Gerger et al 2007). As it becomes increasingly apparent that the global transformation in rape law regimes has failed to hold in check the widening ‘justice gap’ - understood in terms of a discrepancy between the rapidly rising number of recorded rapes as against a relatively static number of convictions[1] – attention has shifted away from the formal legal framework towards the interrelation of legal operations and cultural norms, to what Temkin and Krahé identify as a concern with ‘questions of attitudes’ (2008).

In one sense this is simply proper recognition of the limits of law as a tool of social engineering. However, the turn to attitudes also acknowledges the particular grip which social and cultural norms about sexual behaviour exercise in the disposition of rape cases. According to Temkin and Krahé, ‘no other criminal offence… is as intimately related to broader social attitudes and evaluations of the victim’s conduct as sexual assault’ (2008, 33). A mountain of evidence drawn predominantly from social psychology indicates that rape myths are widely held and ‘propagated by the media …affecting the offending behaviour of perpetrators, the reporting behaviour of victims, the decision-making behaviour of investigators and prosecutors and the assessment of guilt or innocence by jurors…’ (Bohner et al 2009, 18). Such is the level of consensus about the deleterious effects of rape myths on criminal justice that the policy literature is saturated with exhortations to disregard them.[2]

Against this apparently harmonious backdrop, Helen Reece introduces a sceptical note (2013a). What if, she argues, rape myths are not so widely held or plainly implicated in the so-called justice gap as is commonly thought? What if the prevalence and effects of rape myths have been overstated and the designation of certain beliefs and attitudes as myths simply wrong? What if, she postulates, feminist researchers, far from throwing valuable light on criminal justice operations and thereby enhancing and informing public debate, are leading us all astray by engaging ‘in a process of creating myths about myths or “myth myths”’ (ibid. 446)?

Reece’s article is timely and provocative. It raises important questions about the perils and pitfalls of feminist strategic engagement with law, compels us to reassess the theoretical frames we deploy and the assumptions that underpin them, and precludes any cosy or familiar occupation of feminist discursive space. It is right that we apply our analyses cautiously, provisionally, and always open to revision. If feminist rape researchers were ever in danger of forgetting that important precept, Reece’s article serves as a salutary reminder. However, here we reach the limits of our agreement with Reece for it is our contention that her analysis is deeply problematic. Granted her intentions appear to be good. Reece's stated concern is to trouble the way in which certain aspects of rape discourse, focusing on the existence and operation of rape myths, function to close down rather than open up public discussion. What is unstated, but, we would argue, implicit, is a resolve to free rape discourse from the tentacles of a perceived political correctness, to dislodge it from the hegemonic grip of a regime of permissible and impermissible views prescribed and patrolled by feminist researchers and policy-makers.

Of course, few feminists would deny that the sphere of public discussion is always politically and culturally imbued in ways which limit and constrict the discursive possibilities. It is also the case that academic insights, generated under conditions of scholarly integrity, can fare unpredictably in the cut and thrust of practical politics. Feminist research on rape is as likely to be hijacked by broader political agendas – law enforcement or social order, for example, – as any academic engagement with public policy. These are the costs and risks that accompany efforts to harness law to progressive social and political aims, and an extensive body of academic literature critically exploring strategic legal engagement, particularly in a feminist context, testifies to the difficulties to which such efforts give rise (Bottomley & Conaghan 1993; Connolly & Cavanagh 2007; Graycar & Morgan 2005; Hunter 2008; Jhappan 2002; McGlynn & Munro 2010). Reece though exhibits no awareness of this scholarship and her analytical framework is at best only thinly attuned to the nuances and complexities of translating academic research into concrete political goals and strategies within the wider context of plural, often competing, political stakes. As a consequence, her analysis, far from advancing her expressed objective of opening up possibilities for a productive public conversation around ‘these important and at times vexed questions’ (Reece 2013a, 473), leaves little room for honest, constructive exchange. Specifically, her deployment of a range of rhetorical tactics to discredit rape researchers and those who rely on their work, alongside the adoption of a discursive frame which is crudely reductionist and rhetorically unyielding, make it difficult to conduct an open, collaborative, and straightforward debate about the important issues she raises.

Our analysis proceeds as follows. We begin by exploring the structure of Reece’s argument, probing its underpinnings to demonstrate how Reece moulds and contains the discursive terrain to institute the outcomes she promotes. We then locate Reece’s analysis within the wider theoretical field in order to show how her failure to engage with feminist literature on rape other than in the narrowest, most exclusionary terms, yields an approach which impedes rather than advances public understanding and panders to a kind of simplistic thinking which cannot begin to grapple with the complexity of the phenomenon that is rape. Highlighting the various ways in which feminist scholarship can shed light on this complexity, we conclude by emphasizing the continuing commitment of feminist researchers carefully to theorizing and (re)mapping the fraught field of progressive legal strategizing in order to identify and counter the kinds of risks and shortcomings of political activismwith which Reece is rightly concerned. By way of preliminaries however, let’s take a closer look at the details of Reece’s analysis.

Conaghan, Joanne and Yvette Russell ‘Rape Myths, Law, and Feminist Research: “Myths About Myths”?’ (2014) 22(1) Feminist Legal Studies DOI: 10.1007/s10691-014-9259-z

[1] See generally Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ‘Narrowing the Justice Gap’ (http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/justicegap.html).

[2] See eg: CPS guidance on rape and sexual offences (http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/societal_myths/); Metropolitan Police Sapphire Unit guidance (http://content.met.police.uk/Article/Myths-about-rape/1400006934074/1400006934074).