Talking about rape

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SOCIAL reasoning embodies expla-
nations for why events happen —
where issues such as what hap-
pened, who is responsible and who is
innocent or guilty are debated. A
common cultural reaction to incidents of
sexual violence is, as the extract on the
right illustrates, that negative and
derogatory judgements are often
directed at the victim in addition to, or
even instead of, the perpetrator of the
incident.
Angus Diggle, a lawyer, had been
found guilty of attempted rape of a col-
league. In journalist Anne Robinson’s
explanation for the incident, it is the per-
petrator who is defined as the innocent
victim of a feckless ‘sexually provoca-
tive’ woman. It is the perpetrator’s
behaviour which is normalised, exoner-
ating him from responsibility for the act,
and the victim who is positioned as
deviant and blameworthy.
Secondary
victimisation
Blaming a victim for being raped1is a
form of ‘secondary victimisation’, where
victims can be made to feel guilt or
shame because they are further
victimised by negative feedback about
their conduct. Secondary victimisation
can have a number of profound conse-
quences.
Davis and Breslau (1994) argue that
victim blaming is related to the onset of
prolonged negative psychological
effects. For example, 57 to 80 per cent
of self-defined victims of rape have
been shown to meet the criteria for life-
time post-traumatic stress disorder,
experiencing symptoms such as depres-
sion and persistent re-visualisation of the
crime.
Secondary victimisation has also been
linked to the under- reporting of rape to
the police, close friends and relatives
(Renner et al., 1988; Koss & Harvey, 1991)
and may seriously limit the perceived
accessibility of institutional support for
rape survivors. For example, Lees (1993,
1997) discusses how rape trials are tanta-
mount to ‘judicial rape’ — ‘a spectacle of
degradation visited upon the victim
rather than the offender’ (1997, p.73).
Rape myths
Feminist standpoint research has been
crucial to the development of the litera-
ture on rape, and has attracted
substantial attention from the discipline
of psychology (Ward, 1995). Feminist
scholars have argued that the tendency
to attribute responsibility to the victims
and exonerate the perpetrators of rape is
underpinned by a number of myths
about rape, namely ‘prejudicial, stereo-
typed or false beliefs about rape, rape
victims and rapists’ (Burt, 1980, p.217).
There are a number of rape myths
which operate within a range of profes-
sional and everyday contexts. We list five
of the most common here:
1. Women precipitate rape by their
behaviour or appearance.
2. Rape is not damaging because, after
all, it is only sex.
3. Real rape victims have signs of injury
to prove it because you can’t be raped
against your will.
4. Women often lie about rape because
they are malicious and deceitful.
5. Real rapists are psychopathic individ-
uals.
Rape myths are embedded within and
reinforce culturally dominant, stereotyp-
ical assumptions about femininity,
masculinity and the nature of normative
heterosexuality (Brownmiller, 1975;
Nicolson, 1994; Ussher, 1997). Russell
(1982) has argued that these myths are
widely and uncritically accepted, creat-
ing a ‘rape-supportive’ culture which is
hostile to women in general and to rape
survivors in particular.
Many rape myths suggest that
women should take responsibility for the
control of male sexual behaviour. They
Talking about rape
The Psychologist December 1998 583
Perpetuating rape-supportive culture
Talking about rape
Kathy Doherty and
Irina Anderson
examine social
reasoning about rape
and some of its
negative
consequences for the
victims.
‘Mr Diggle, given the circumstances,
behaved as you would imagine any
half-drunk, virile man would. If any
damage has been done to the reputa-
tion of the legal profession, it is by
the stupid, unnamed woman who
apparently continues to earn her
living as a lawyer yet clearly pos-
sesses not an ounce of common
sense.’
Anne Robinson, Daily Mirror, 15
February 1995
Kathy Doherty Irina Anderson

also trivialise the severity of a rape expe-
rience through construing it as a
potentially pleasurable sexual act rather
than as an act of violence and oppression.
For many people, rape myths provide
a ‘commonsense’ resource for making
sense of rape incidents. However, there
now exists a volume of research which
suggests that these beliefs are essentially
mythical. For example, Bonney (1985)
indicates that 44 per cent of rape victims
present no signs of physical injury what-
soever, because in many cases sexual
coercion is achieved through verbal or
psychological means.
There is also little evidence to support
the view that women commonly lie
about rape. Studies have estimated that
false reports of rape account for between
only 1 and 4 per cent of alleged rapes —
not significantly different from other vio-
lent crimes against the person such as
robbery (Ward, 1995).
Contrary to the view that rapists are
necessarily psychopathic strangers, there
is some evidence to suggest that rapists
are likely to be ‘regular men’. For
example, the majority of victims are at
least acquainted with the offender and
some will know him very well (Parrott,
1985; London Rape Crisis Centre, 1982).
Also, Tieger (1981) found that 36 per cent
of male undergraduates agreed that they
would rape a woman if they ’could be
certain they would not be caught’.
Social definition
Although rape in theory is generally
regarded as a legally and morally unjus-
tifiable act, from the moment that a rape
survivor makes a public declaration that
she was raped, her claim will be scruti-
nised and debated.
The social environments in which
rape victims are the focus of attention are
characterised by a competition for the
appropriate meaning of the encounter
and disputes about the legitimacy of the
claim to rape victimhood. Aclaim of rape
may be challenged by arguing that the
event should be understood as consen-
sual sex rather than rape or, if it is
accepted that forced intercourse did
occur, through suggesting that the victim
is still responsible because she acted stu-
pidly or recklessly (Burt & Estep, 1981).
To illustrate, Caroline Carey claimed
to be the survivor of a brutal rape in
which her assailant, a former friend,
‘raped me, beat me and then threatened
to kill me’ (The Times, 13 April 1997).
Dublin’s Central Criminal Court sup-
ported her definition of the event as rape
and her assailant, Liam Sheehy, was con-
victed and is now serving a seven-year
sentence. However, members of their
local community continued to defend
Sheehy by arguing that the event should
be understood as consensual sex.
Villagers speculated that she probably
consented to (or even initiated) sex, but
‘got more than she bargained for’ when
things ‘got a bit rough’. By offering this
version of events, Carey is positioned as
blameworthy, and the legitimacy of her
victimhood is undermined.
As we have argued, such examples of
secondary victimisation can have enor-
mously damaging consequences. It is
therefore imperative that psychologists
contribute to the minimisation of post-
rape trauma by understanding the social
processes which perpetuate our rape-
supportive culture.
Social psychology
investigates
There are now two extensive literatures
within social psychology which focus on
reasoning about rape, both of which
can be located squarely within the
perceptual–cognitive paradigm.
Firstly, rape perception research
attempts to understand the process of
rape victim blaming within an attribu-
tion theory framework, by examining
individual interpretations of the causes
of rape incidents (Pollard, 1992; Krahé,
1991). Secondly, research grounded in
attitude theory tries to describe and mea-
sure attitudes towards rape and rape
victims, often in relation to a variety of
demographic or psychological variables
(Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994).
Although positivist research within
this tradition has been successful in
adding rhetorical weight to the concept
of ‘rape-supportive culture’ (Ward,
1995), we would like to argue that it
cannot provide an understanding of the
complex social processes which perpetu-
ate rape-supportive culture in everyday
talk. Social cognition research is limited
in this respect because it offers an eco-
logically invalid, oversimplistic view of
the way that blame and accountability
are managed in conversation (Edwards
& Potter, 1992; Beattie & Doherty, 1995;
Anderson & Doherty, 1997).
This oversimplification arises firstly
because such research conceptualises
explanation as individual and private,
ignoring joint sense-making practices in
public conversations (Antaki, 1994).
Secondly, the methodologies used serve
to separate explanation from its usual
venue of spontaneous argument and
conversation. For example, the non-
negotiable, straightforward attitude
statements on questionnaires requiring a
measurable, constrained response (e.g.
level of agreement) bear little resem-
blance to the flexible, active and subtle
way in which evaluative claims are made
in the dynamics of ordinary discourse
(Potter & Wetherell, 1988; Wetherell &
Potter, 1988, 1992).
Discursive
approach
We would like to argue that a discursive
psychological approach (DP) (Potter &
Wetherell, 1987; Edwards & Potter, 1992;
Edwards, 1997; Potter, 1996) to the analy-
sis of talk may provide a fruitful
alternative framework. Within this per-
spective, analysis is guided by
theoretical concerns which emphasise
the constructive and active nature of
talk. For example, one of the most impor-
tant characteristics of any stretch of talk
is its ‘could have been otherwise’ quality
(Edwards, 1997).
Descriptions of events have consider-
able actual and potential variability. So
claims about ‘what happened’ contain a
silent endorsement of particular
concepts at the expense of alternatives
(Billig, 1987). In this sense, talk does
not simply reflect the world, it consti-
tutes it.
DP argues that this flexibility of
description should be crucially under-
stood as meshed with, and oriented to,
the accomplishment of social activities
such as evaluation, explanation and
persuasion.2As the Caroline Carey
example illustrates, competing versions
of reality make possible a range of
inferences about the legitimacy of
victimhood.
Furthermore, DP draws our attention
to the subtle way in which issues of
blame and accountability are managed
in conversation. Edwards and Potter
(1992) argue that potentially contentious
blamings are produced indirectly, in
a way that effectively denies any
undesirable motivation on the speaker’s
part. This is done by presenting versions
that are apparently neutral and factual —
merely ‘commonsense’ descriptions of
the world ‘as it is’.
In the following analysis of fragments
from three conversations concerning a
hypothetical rape incident, we hope to
illustrate the way in which rape myths
that distribute blame towards the victim
are embedded implicitly in a joint
version of the rape event. These conver-
sations were generated by giving men
and women, in pairs, a rape description
that we view as a provisional version of
reality which the participants argue
with.
Although there is an acceptance in
these discussions that the victim was
raped, we hope to go some way towards
unpacking the way in which blame is
still allocated to the victim in a manner
that seems ‘reasonable’ and convincing.
In this way, we hope to gain an
insight into the subtle ways in which
rape-supportive culture is perpetuated
in talk.
Talking about rape
584 December 1998 The Psychologist

Conversations
Conversation 1 (C1)
Vernon(1): well yeah so here we’re saying
that she should have probably been aware
of this and not [been so foolish] as to take
a short cut but even so
Sally(2): maybe … she … yeah it does
seem that way doesn’t it, they should
be able to I think
Vernon(3): yeah but even so … people should
be able to to walk about in freedom but
Sally(4): but the trouble is you can’t
nowadays can you … I mean it’s too
dangerous
Vernon(5): well…
Sally(6): I mean people are forever telling
you on television you know whatever
you don’t
Vernon(7): yeah I think people are becoming
more and more aware of it
Conversation 2 (C2)
John(1): you would have thought she would
have been aware of the danger wouldn’t
you
Debbie(2): yeah it does seem like … you
know it was a silly thing to do really
John(3): yeah it does seem a bit strange I
mean … I agree with you … I mean but
yeah like I said
Debbie(4): but you can’t can you that’s
the trouble … people should be able
to walk about without being attacked
but given that it’s a violent … it’s a
violent society that we live in … er …
people have to be aware of the dan-
gers I mean it’s no good just walking
about with her head in the clouds is it
Conversation 3 (C3)
Alison(1): yeah but I dunno it reflects that
women always have to be careful I mean I
know blokes get beaten up and stuff but
you know you can still walk home and
stuff like that
Frank(2): oh well yeah I know it’s not fair
but it’s life innit
Alison(3): hmmm … I mean so that implies
that this poor woman has to spend her
whole life looking over her shoulder and
[inaudible]
Frank(4): [no not at all] but if you walk
back take the lit way where it’s like
well lit up instead of taking this huge
short cut across the badly lit field or
whatever
Discourse
analysed
What follows is by no means a complete
analysis of the texts presented.
Nevertheless, we hope to provide a
flavour of the way in which victim blam-
ing is indirectly accomplished and to
highlight some of the features which
make it seem reasonable and difficult to
undermine.
We are not suggesting that rape-
supportive culture is perpetuated by a
few ‘bad’ or prejudiced individuals. Our
focus is on the effects and consequences
of discursive resources and practices
which are culturally available and insti-
tutionally sanctioned.
In each of the conversations, the
speakers jointly develop a version of the
circumstances of the rape based on a
construction of what the world is like
‘nowadays’ (C1(4)). The definition which
is offered characterises society as a ‘dan-
gerous’ and ‘violent’ place where people
run the risk of being ‘attacked’ (C1(4);
C2(4)). It is also suggested that this char-
acterisation is increasingly taking hold
(C1(7)) through continual reinforcement
by ‘people … on television’ (C1(6)).
Feminist scholars have argued, how-
ever, that the specific nature and
consequences of perceived threats in the
public sphere are different for men and
women. Griffin (1971) suggests that the
‘unnamed fear’ which relentlessly fig-
ures as a ‘daily part of every woman’s
consciousness’ (p.27) is specifically the
fear of sexual violence. The fear of rape
exerts a powerful means of social control
over all women, often leading to the
adoption of behaviours such as not
going out alone (Riger & Gordon, 1979).
The participants in conversation 3
allude to this explicitly. They acknowl-
edge that although ‘blokes get beaten up
and stuff’ this is not the constant concern
that rape is for women, who ‘always
have to be careful’. The risk of violence
does not necessarily restrict men’s
behaviour in a general way; ‘you can still
walk home and stuff...’ (C3(1)).
The dangers to women are located by
speakers to be in predictable places such
as clearly demarcated, dark, unpopu-
lated ‘short cuts’ (C1(1); C3(4)). The
image of the ‘classic stranger rape’ is
reproduced in C3(4). Here the source of
fear — the rapist — lies in wait in the
shadows waiting to pounce on potential
victims, presumably in this case from
behind a large tree or hedge in ‘the field’.
The function of this is to suggest that
‘safe’ routes do exist and that they are
easily identifiable. This implication is
supported through the construction of
an unproblematic ‘lit way where it’s …
well lit up’ in extreme contrast to the
construal of the short cut as ‘huge ...
across the badly lit field’.
In these texts, we therefore see the
implicit reproduction of two common
rape myths. Firstly, that women are most
at risk from rape perpetrated by psycho-
pathic rapists who lurk in dark,
unpopulated public places. Secondly,
that rape is easily avoidable — women
will be safe if only they avoid ‘danger-
ous’ places.
It is against this backdrop of a partic-
ular construction of the circumstances of
the rape that the victim’s identity and
character are established. The victim is
variably categorised as ‘foolish’ (C1(1)),
‘silly’ (C2(2)) and naive, through the
suggestion that she walks about ‘with
her head in the clouds’ (C2(4)).
An important insight here is that we
select categories in talk to accomplish
social actions (Wowk, 1984; Edwards,
1991). Here, the selection of categories
works to allocate blame towards the
victim and away from the perpetrator.
The key point is that these derogatory
categorisations of the victim only appear
sensible and convincing because of the
implication that she consciously selected
an ‘obviously dangerous’ route home
when ‘safer’ alternatives were easily
available. It is important to note once
again that the victim could have been
categorised in an infinite number of dif-
ferent ways (e.g. perhaps as ‘rational’ for
taking the short cut because it’s quicker
— a common feature in our conversa-
tional data on male rape, not reported
here). This would make very different
implications available regarding her
blameworthiness.
Overall, we see that in offering a ver-
sion of accountability for the rape, the
participants focus on the behaviour and
personal characteristics of the victim and
not the perpetrator. The status of the
rape survivor as a legitimate victim is
undermined by the implication that she
precipitated her attack through her own
stupidity and recklessness. It is implied
that the victim only has herself to blame
because she placed herself in the path of
a rapist and, by her mere presence,
incited his ‘uncontrollable’ sexual urges.
There are several other features of the
content and organisation of the talk
which make the implicit attribution of
responsibility towards the victim seem
convincing. We focus on just one here.
In each of the conversations a particu-
lar kind of content, ‘pragmatic realism’
(Wetherell & Potter, 1988, 1992), is repro-
duced (e.g. C1(4); C2(4)). This
emphasises the constraints which exist in
practice. It functions to position speakers
as sensible because they are ‘realistic’
enough to recognise the constraints ‘out
there’ beyond the control of ordinary
folk which ‘inevitably’ inhibit our free-
dom. Also, by expressing regret about
these constraints, speakers appear rea-
sonable — e.g. ‘I know it’s not fair but
it’s life innit’ (C3(2)). This is a particu-
larly robust piece of rhetoric, as it
operates as a closed argument against
the possibility of social change.
Analysis can lead
to change
We have argued that it is necessary to
understand the social processes that lead
to the secondary victimisation of rape
survivors. This is imperative not only
because of the negative interpersonal
and institutional effects discussed above,
but also because of the material conse-
quences that flow from an emphasis on
Talking about rape
The Psychologist December 1998 585

the victim’s character and behaviour in
explanations for rape.
If victims are the focus of explanation,
then they also become the targets for
intervention. This then results in a preoc-
cupation with regulating the behaviour
of ‘foolish’ or ‘wayward’ women accord-
ing to the dictates of femininity (e.g. stay
at home, be passive, be modest), while
the seriousness of rape as a violent and
oppressive crime is undermined, and
rapists continue to go unpunished. In
1985, 24.4 per cent of the recorded rapes
in the UK resulted in a conviction. By
1994, the conviction rate had fallen to
just 8.4 per cent and many of these con-
victions were overturned on appeal
(Lees, 1996).
We argue that, to gain an insight into
the social mechanisms involved in the
perpetuation of rape-supportive culture,
it is necessary first to appreciate that the
negotiation of blame and responsibility
for rape incidents in open-ended
discourse is accomplished indirectly. We
feel that an ecologically valid approach
to research in this area must therefore
engage in a detailed exploration of the
way in which explanations for rape are
constructed and made to seem reason-
able.
We hope to have provided a flavour
of the type of analysis that such an enter-
prise might produce. We believe that this
work is an important step toward trans-
forming and undermining the damaging
discursive practices that shape the expe-
rience of many women in the aftermath
of rape.
‘What becomes clear is the impor-
tance of other people’s reactions towards
women who have been raped — how
much difference a clear, supportive,
positive response could make to a
woman’s self-image and the way she
views her experience.’ (Lees, 1993, p.25.)
Notes
1In this article, we discuss female rape only. See
Anderson and Doherty (1996a, b) for a discussion of
social reasoning about male rape.
2It might seem that our use of statistics and other
rhetorical devices in this article is inconsistent with
an otherwise postmodern, relativist epistemology.
However, we do so self-consciously to make our
argument convincing, and such reflexive practice is
consistent with a DP framework.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the members of the
Loughborough Discourse & Rhetoric Group, who
provided helpful comments on an earlier version of
this analysis.
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Kathy Doherty is at the Department of
Communication Studies, School of Cultural
Studies, Sheffield Hallam University,
Collegiate Crescent, Sheffield S10 2BP.
E-mail: k.h.doherty@shu.ac.uk.
Irina Anderson is at the Department of
Psychology, University of East London,
Romford Road, London E15 4LZ. E-mail:
i.anderson@uel.ac.uk.
Talking about rape
586 December 1998 The Psychologist