Mackinnon & the Media Platforms of Structural Inequality

I want to make note that the last part of this was inspired by what was discussed in class, and I realize now that this will run along the same "Reasonable Rapist" tangent that Natasha just wrote/spoke about in class! That being said, I hope this won't undermine your post in any way. 

Going through the reading by Mackinnon this week, it was a little difficult for me to form my own opinion on what she was arguing. Yes, it got incredibly problematic and a little oversimplified at times. Yes, it made generalizations about experiences that can differ from circumstance to circumstance. No, not all rape is heterosexual domination and not all heterosexual intercourse is rape. We made these gaps quite clear in the class discussion, and throughout those 50 minutes I couldn’t stop thinking about the real world situations to which ~some~ of her points applied. I surprised myself with how many instances of sexual violence I could remember seeing and hearing about in the media and the news in which some of Mackinnon’s theories about the structures of inequality fit. One of those being the 19 Kid’s and Counting molestation case involving one of the oldest brothers, the perpetrator, and his victimization of a few of the younger sisters. 

It felt like a blow to the stomach when I first heard about this. I was devastated for the victims and especially how at first, their stories were not focused on. While there was thankfully no victim blaming tossed into the situation, there was a complete lack of focus on the victims at all. Their voices were ignored (again, at first) and rather, there was a massive spotlight on the son and his pain, his troubles, his rehabilitation, his non-legal consequences that were harboured in a religious atmosphere and not the law. 

Mackinnon keys a phrase that was also highlighted in class, being the “reasonable rapist”. Who is the reasonable rapist? I think they are the unlikely ones, the ones we are told won’t harm us, unlike the strangers lurking out on the streets. They are the friendly high school football players, radio talk show hosts, maybe the coworker, maybe the friend, maybe the fellow university student. I think “reasonable rapist” and I’m reminded of a handful of front-page circumstances where the story gets shifted from the survivor’s to the perpetrator’s, making it more about lost potential than the countless losses of the one who experienced it. This is an upsetting reality that may contribute to some individuals deciding to keep their horrific experiences out of the courtroom. How are we supposed to have faith in any kind of system that could essentially care more about the side of the rapist’s story that the victim’s? I guess we don’t, and I find myself becoming more and more angry as I become more aware of this as class goes on. Though it’s a little difficult to swallow some of Mackinnon’s points, there is no doubt that some hit hard in the reality of structural inequality.