I have been thinking about Catherine MacKinnon’s “Rape: On Coercion and Consent” and the ways in which power can be constructed. In particular, I have been thinking about Michel Foucault’s panoptical structure of power and its relationship with sex and consent. Foucault’s panoptical structure of power posits power on a horizontal field where everyone, to some degree, has power over everyone else. Power dynamics may shift between individuals over time, but generally speaking each individual controlled by and has control over someone else. If this theory of power holds true, it concerns me that consenting relationships may not exist (not that MacKinnon’s theory of sexual assault contradicts this).
When MacKinnnon discusses sexual assault she does so under the presmise that men are perpetrators and women are victims, operating under the assumption that all men have power and are dominant and that all women are lacking power. This of course, denies consent. What if power relationships function like a panopticon? If two persons were seeking to consent, could they since they both hold some magnitude of power over the other? I would argue with MacKinnon to say that any form of power creates the potential for sexual violence, so consent could never be provided.
I am thinking of the construction of gender and if by identifying as a “woman” is somehow consenting to the violent landscapes that are placed on that body through state sanctions and laws. Perhaps part of the panoptical structure of power is indeed, that all men have the ability to consume, while all women have the ability to watch and monitor the consumption of men? I think MacKinnon’s establishment of male power can be seen at the roots of hegemonic masculinity, in that hegemony requires masculine men to consume (women, food, space, time, resources, etc). This might suggest that in order to change the power relationship between men and women, a critical look and undoing of hegemonic masculinity is in order. If hegemonic masculinity is undone, perhaps the attitudes regarding sexual assault might change. I am also curious if this might change the way this panoptical structure of power operates.
Oh Foucault, always so confusing!
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines of what you are discussing, I am considering the possibility for thinking about power in Foucauldian terms to emphasize the reality of rape to the court/public. As you describe, Foucault thinks of modern power as everywhere and nowhere; everyone holds power although not to the same degree. Situations in which one person has no potential to resist are, according to Foucault, situations of dominance, not power relations. If rape is considered not a power relation, because of the inability for women to resist as resistance might very well end in their economic, social, or literal death, perhaps it will be easier for others to believe rape accusations without the need to prove consent was not given. It is assumed for all assaults but sexual assault that consent was not given because, according to the logic of our legal system, no one would consent to assault but they might have consented to their rape. I believe that thinking about power in Foucauldian terms has the potential to change this dominant thinking. If we think of rape as a situation of domination, consent would not be contested because, as it is already believed for other assault cases, no one consents to their own total domination. Thinking about rape as a situation in which the victim has no power, rather than a scenario where the victim might have given signs of consent, may have the potential to convince juries, judges, and the public of the reality of rape.