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An Immodest Proposal: Foucault, Hysterization, and the “Second Rape”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Laura Hengehold
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Abstract

This article places Foucault's 1977 suggestions regarding the reform of French rape law in the context of ongoing feminist debates as to whether rape should be considered a sex crime or a species of assault. When viewed as a disciplinary matrix with both physical and discursive effects, rape and the rape trial clearly contribute to the “hysterization” of women by cultivating complainants' confessions in order to demonstrate their supposed lack of self-knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Summer 1994 , pp. 88 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by Hypatia, Inc.

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