Here is an excellent article that dispels the many, many common myths that people hold concerning rape. The article addresses how jurors, prosecutors, police, the surrounding community, and even family members and friends have in a distorted view of the horrific crime of rape; the article gives the 17 myths that surround rape; also, the article addresses the lack of understanding given towards victims of rape and how they have to cope with this devastating crime which can not only physically harm a woman or girl; it can also psychologically harm women and girls who are raped, harm that can last a lifetime.
**************************************************************************
Barriers to Credibility:
Understanding and Countering Rape Myths
by Lynn Hecht Schafran
*
Introduction
Human beings understand the world in terms of stories. Good prosecutors develop a theme and story for each case to make their view of the events charged accessible and credible to the jury. But what happens when the jury comes with its own story of what events would constitute a particular crime, and the prosecutor’s case does not match the story line? Nowhere is this a greater problem than in rape cases. Here a narrative about what constitutes “real rape” is so deeply embedded in society’s consciousness, and so at odds with the reality of the vast majority of these cases, that the prosecutor must struggle not just to tell a credible story, but to tell it in a way that overcomes jurors’ expectations. As Professor Morrison Torrey writes in her summary of the research on juror decision-making in rape cases:
Jurors will even distort and twist evidence until it becomes consistent with their attitudes. These fundamental premises that jurors bring with them to the courtroom are what psychologists call “cognitive structures.” While cognitive structures allow individuals to learn new information, they tend to perpetuate themselves by screening out information that is inconsistent with what is already believed. Cognitive inflexibility is what prosecutors face in trying to convict rapists when jurors have cognitive structures based on rape myths. Jurors will strive to reach a verdict in a rape case that will not conflict strongly with the rape myth cognitions they hold at the beginning of the trial.1
Over the last two decades, research about rape and attitudes toward rape has revealed a chasm between the stereotype and reality. In the stereotyped narrative about “real rape” that has infiltrated the public mind, rape is an infrequent crime in which a degenerate, sex-starved, knifewielding stranger jumps from the bushes to attack a blameless, nubile young woman. After the rape, the woman reports immediately to the police and is then admitted to the hospital for treatment of her savage physical injuries, sustained while resisting to the utmost. But in reality, the vast majority of rapes are nothing like the stereotype. The overwhelming statistical profile of rape documents a commonplace crime committed by a man with an active consensual sex life on a woman he knows, often in her own home. He uses no weapon, but she offers little, if any, physical resistance because she is terrified into passivity, fears serious physical injury or death, or was taken totally by surprise because she did not fear a “friend.” The woman never reports the rape to the police. She sustains no physical injury other than the rape itself, but her psychological injuries are profound.
Effective victim advocacy requires grounding in the empirical data that debunks these myths.”
The two biggest myths of rape are the following:
Myth 12: Rape is a crime committed by black men on white women.
Fact: Rapists come from all backgrounds and the vast majority of rapes are intraracial.
One of the most enduring myths about rape is that it is commonly committed by black men on white women. Department of Justice data from the National Crime Survey demonstrate the falsity of this myth. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 1973-1987, 83% of the raps committed on white women by nonstrangers were committed by white men, and 91% of the rapes committed on black women by nonstrangers were committed by black men.92
In the stranger rape category, 14% of stranger rapes involving black women were committed by white men; 30% of stranger rapes involving white women were committed by black men. Thus, in stranger as well as nonstranger rape, the large majority of cases involve victims and rapists of the same race.
Fact: Police, prosecutors, judges and jurors often trivialize violence against women of color.
The origins of racist myths about black women’s promiscuity date back to slavery. Black women and men, because they came from Africa, were thought by whites to be closer to “the animal” and therefore more highly sexed than whites. During slavery, black women were subject to repeated rape by slave owners and overseers. White society, to cover these crimes, generated a myth about black women as highly sexed. As prominent historian Gerda Lerner has written:
By assuming a different level of sexuality for all blacks than that of whites and mythifying their greater sexual potency, the black woman could be made to personify sexual freedom and abandon. A myth was created that all black women were eager for sexual exploits, voluntarily “loose” in their morals and, therefore, deserved none of the consideration and respect granted to white women. Every black woman was, by definition, a slut according to this racist mythology; therefore, to assault her and exploit her sexually was not reprehensible and carried with it none of the normal communal sanctions against such behavior.108
Read the rest of the article here:
Ann
