Feminist Redefinition of Rape and Sexual Assault Historical Foundations and Change
A Feminist Redefinition of Rape and Sexual Assault: Historical Foundations and Change The concept of rape and its consequences has changed dramatically over the years and also through each person’s viewpoint. ... Sexual intercourse before marriage was a huge moral no-no and it was offensive mostly to ones family and ones community. The community, church, and courts bonded together to keep sexual contact before marriage under control. ... Women bore a heavy burden because society thought it was the woman’s responsibility to keep pre marital sexual contact under control and virtually non existent. ... "(184) In the colonial era the rape of a virgin was not considered a crime against the virgin but rather a crime against her father. ... Most of the rape cases in this period that went to court were the ones in which the offender was from a lower social class than the victim or if the victim was a married woman who said "no" or put up a fight. To prove rape in this period the woman must tell her family and neighbors immediately. If a woman could not prove rape she could be punished for the sexual assault. ... The sexual assault itself was usually blamed on the victim and in turn she was stigmatized for the rest of her life. In the 20th century psychologists and sexologists began to look at sexual assault and sexual behavior and started by putting these deviant behaviors into different categories. They wanted to find out what causes the sexual behavior in the form of aggression. Most of their conclusions said that "rape was a perversion and that rapist were mentally ill"(186).