By Kylie Moon and Sarah Stephen
Earlier this century, rape was something nobody talked about. If your husband forced himself upon you, it was your duty as a wife to comply. If you were raped by someone you didn't know, you were likely to be labelled a whore. Things have changed since then — but how much?
A recent experiment with first-year psychology students at the University of Tasmania looked at four different hypothetical rape scenarios — a woman in a tracksuit and a woman in a cocktail dress, in the first scenario raped by a friend, and in the second by a stranger.
Students were asked whether the circumstances of each rape meant that the woman was in any way to blame.
Fifteen per cent of males thought the victim was in some way to blame when dressed in a tracksuit, and raped by a friend. This increased to 30% when the woman was wearing a cocktail dress and raped by a stranger. Seventeen per cent of women thought that the woman wearing a cocktail dress may have been in some way to blame, and 10% for the woman in the tracksuit.
The survey reflects the pervasive role of socially imposed sexist attitudes. If you're really looking for someone to blame, try the media. Take the example of Lynette Higgins, a young woman in Western Australia, who committed suicide after being pack raped.
As far as the WA media are concerned, this is the perfect example of a woman who "asked for it". She met a bikie gang at a pub, got drunk and got a lift with one of them to go to a party. Instead they took her back to their club and — according to her suicide note — held her captive for 16 hours and took turns raping her.
She saw her doctor the next day, but mentioned nothing about the rape. She told only her sister. A week later she was found dead.
The media's role is clearer than ever in this particular case — moulding people's attitudes through carefully filtering the information, and feeding sexist assumptions and stereotypes.
The media questioned whether the rape really occurred, because the only evidence was a suicide note and the word of her sister. An article in the Australian on October 15 carried the headline, "Bikie case: She never said rape". Why didn't the woman mention the rape to her doctor? Why did she get drunk? Why did she get a lift with the men?
Once people start accepting the argument that women should take some responsibility as victims of rape, it undermines any notion that women have the right to say "no" — no matter how they behave or dress.
Rape also won't be solved by women avoiding situations in which rape might happen. Eighty per cent of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim.
An individual woman's behaviour doesn't cause rape. It's the broader ideological acceptance of women as sex objects which is created and sustained by the mass media and advertising industry.
The incidence of rape and other forms of sexual violence mirrors an increase in economic insecurity and resulting social tension. Men turn on women to act out their frustration in violent ways.
While this sort of social inequality continues, women will continue to be raped. Until sexist ideology in the media, in the family and in every area of women's lives is challenged head on by a full-scale education campaign run by a strong women's movement and funded by the government, there will be no justice for women such as Lynette Higgins.