Toni Morrison (1971)

1. Toni Morrison (1971) • “It is with some trepidation that anyone should undertake to generalize about still another group. Yet something on that order is legitimate, not only because unity among minorities is a political necessity, but because, at some point, one wants to get on with the differences.” • “What do black women feel about Women’s Lib? Distrust. It is white, therefore suspect.” • “They look at white women and see them as the enemy—for they know that racism is not confined to white men, and that there are more white women than men in this country, and that 53 percent of the population sustained an eloquent silence during times of greatest stress.” (454) • Early Women’s Lib focused on rate of women in professions, getting women into the workforce, not getting better jobs, adult education, or how to be head of household (455)

2. “Black women are different from white women because of how they view themselves differently, are viewed differently, and lead a different kind of life.” (455) • Black women have not had the experience of being sheltered and domineered housewives, and have on the whole had to work and often raise families by themselves • “In a way black women have known something of the freedom white women are now beginning to crave. But oddly, freedom is only sweet when it is won. When it is forced, it is called responsibility.” (457)

3. “Black women have found it impossible to respect white women. I mean they never had what black men have had for white men—a feeling of awe at their accomplishments. • Whether vying with them for the few professional slots available to women in general, or in moving their dirt from one place to another, they regarded them as willful children, pretty children, mean children, ugly children, but never as real adults capable of handling the real problems of the world. • White women were ignorant of the facts of life—perhaps by choice, perhaps with the assistance of men, but ignorant anyway. They were totally dependent on marriage or male support (emotionally or economically). They confronted their sexuality with furtiveness, complete abandon or repression. Those who could afford it, gave over the management of the house and the rearing of children to others.” • Black women believed that black men chose white women because white women would be subservient (458)

4. “If Women’s Lib is about breaking the habit of genuflection, if it is about controlling one’s own destiny, is about female independence in economic, personal and political ways, if it is indeed about working hard to become a person, knowing that one has to work hard at becoming anything, Man or Woman—and if it succeeds, then we may have a nation of white Geraldines and white Sapphires, and what on earth is Kingfish gonna do then?” (259)

5. Starling, Jervis, Peterson, & MillarRape Culture & Sexual Assault “So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?”

6. Return to the Panopticon • “Architectures” of power • The space in which people live & interact • Power more present in these architectures than in individuals • While individuals may occupy particular nodes within these networks of power, the power resides in the architecture Networks • What are the beliefs and behaviors encouraged by a particular structure?

9. The Disciplined Society • Disciplines as “infra-law” (222) • System of omnipresent but uncertain surveillance • “systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical” • Example: female sexual morality, health, violence, surveillance • Treated as very foundation of society, without which it will collapse • “a series of mechanisms for unbalancing power relations definitively and everywhere; hence the persistence in regarding them as the humble, but concrete form of every morality, whereas they are a set of physico-political techniques.” (223) • “The formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process” (224) • Names and power

10. Terms and Ideas • Rape culture • A structure of cultural ideas and relationships that perpetuates and enables sexual assault • Women’s bodies as public property • Sex as commodity • Virginity and “damaged goods” • Women as gatekeepers to sex • Earning sex • Deserving sex • Sex as violence • Masculinity and dominance • Enthusiastic consent • Yes or the absence of no?

11. Millar, “Meet the Predators” • If a survey asks men, for example, if they ever “had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances,” some of them will say yes, as long as the questions don’t use the “R” word.

12. Lesak & Miller (2002) • Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists • (1) Have you ever been in a situation where you tried, but for various reasons did not succeed, in having sexual intercourse with an adult by using or threatening to use physical force (twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.) if they did not cooperate? • (2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing their clothes)? • (3) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate? • (4) Have you ever had oral sex with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?

13. Lesak & Miller (2002) • 1882 college students, ages 18 to 71 • median age of 26.5 • 120 men (6%) admitted to raping to attempting to rape • Of these 120 admitted rapists, only about 30% reported using force or threats, while the remainder raped intoxicated victims. • Approximately same rate between the 44 rapists who reported one assault and the 76 who reported multiple assaults.

14. Lesak & Miller (2002) • The surveys covered other violent acts • Including slapping or choking an intimate partner, physically or sexually abusing a child, and sexual assaults other than attempted or completed rapes. • The 76 repeat rapists (4% of the sample of 1882), were responsible for 28% of the reported violence. • All 1882 men reported just under 4000 violent acts, but this 4% of recidivist rapists results in over 1000 of those violent acts.

15. McWhorter (2002) • Male Navy recruits • 1146 participants, 144 (13%) admitted an attempted or completed rape • 71% of the men who admitted an attempted or completed rape admitted more than one • Lisak & Miller: 63% • 96 men who admitted multiple attempted of completed rapes averaged 6.36 assaults each. • Lisak & Miller: average of 5.8 assaults per recidivist. • Of the 865 total attempted or completed rapes these men admitted to, 95% were committed by 96 men, or just 8.4% of the sample.

16. McWhorter (2002) • 61% of the reported attacks intoxication-based • 23% were overt force alone • 16% were both • Rapists who admitted ever assaulting strangers less than a quarter of the rapist population • More than 90% targeted acquaintances some of the time • About 75% said they only targeted acquaintances. • 7% of all the self-reported rapists reported targeting only strangers • No overlap between the men who said they targeted strangers, and those who used only force.

17. McWhorter (2002) • “Of the men who used only force against their victims, none reported raping a stranger; all the men knew their victims… [T]he stereotypical rape incident characterized by a man violently attacking a stranger was not reported by any of the respondents. Instead, respondents who used only force against their victims reported raping only women they knew. men who targeted strangers exclusively reported they used substances only in the rape incident. • These findings may help explain why most self-reported [attempted or completed rape] incidents go undetected.”

18. “The vast majority of the offenses are being committed by a relatively small group of men, somewhere between 4% and 8% of the population, who do it again … and again … and again”