Rape and Resistance

by Linda Martin Alcoff

Sexual violence has become a topic of intense media scrutiny, thanks to the bravery of survivors coming forward to tell their stories. But, unfortunately, mainstream public spheres too often echo reports in a way that inhibits proper understanding of its causes, placing too much emphasis on individual responsibility or blaming minority cultures.  

In this powerful and original book, Linda Martín Alcoff aims to correct the misleading language of public debate about rape and sexual violence by showing how complex our experiences of sexual violation can be. Although it is survivors who have galvanized movements like #MeToo, when their words enter the public arena they can be manipulated or interpreted in a way that damages their effectiveness. Rather than assuming that all experiences of sexual violence are universal, we need to be more sensitive to the local and personal contexts – who is speaking and in what circumstances – that affect how activists’ and survivors’ protests will be received and understood.

Alcoff has written a book that will revolutionize the way we think about rape, finally putting the survivor center stage.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Gender

275 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 6, 2018

Reviews

[Quin Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a timely, urgently needed, comprehensive, intersectional, thoroughly researched, compellingly argued, nuanced, and sensitive philosophical account of many of the major theoretical issues related to sexual violence and resistance to it. Alcoff must be commended for her unparalleled contribution to feminist scholarship. (Her current activist praxis is another story; see below).


Alcoff centrally engages with issues of how to define sexual violation, the importance of believing survivors, the indispensability of intersectionality, how survivor narratives and anti-rape activism is taken up by non-feminist forces in a larger public sphere, the value of sexual norms for ethics and politics, and many other important topics. I found her analyses to be politically astute, compelling, and actually constructive; she clears so much garbage out of the way and gets to the heart of the matter, and she genuinely moves the conversation forward in interesting ways on multiple fronts.

She also extensively and carefully engages with the work of Michel Foucault in a way that takes his conceptual arguments seriously while consistently turning them to the needs of survivors and anti-rape activists. This is in stark contrast to how his work is usually taken up and how he himself talked about sexual violence. This proves what I always suspected, which is that Foucault need not be taken as an unquestionable scholarly authority whose work invalidates feminist activism, but can be understood as offering a helpful set of tools for better thinking through feminist concerns without abandoning any of our commitments.

This is a must read for feminist scholars of sexual/gender violence. It may be of interest to activists as well, but activists may find that it more provides confirmation/affirmation for what they are already doing rather than offering brand new insights for those on the ground.


ALL OF THIS SAID: Alcoff, despite writing this excellent and careful analysis, has recently committed herself to an unfounded and anti-survivor campaign to protect accused abuser Junot Diaz. Needless to say, it is frustrating and disheartening to learn that a scholar of sexual violence who is herself a survivor can be so wrongheaded in her political activism. For a great analysis of this turn of events, see this article: https://socialistworker.org/2018/06/1...

[Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew, finally finished this after starting it for the first time four years ago. This is a great book—perhaps the best one I’ve read—for understanding rape discursively, both in terms of how subjectivity and self-narration are impacted after rape and also how rape discourse circulates in the media, especially on TV and after #MeToo. Alcoff is a consummate Foucauldian, basing much of her thinking on his works while remaining aware of their shortcomings. (Though I think we need to take him to task for his chronic indifference towards women.) As is usual for this kind of poststructuralist feminist theorizing, the body sort of disappears for long stretches of the discussion. My sense is that this work will form a sort of end cap to this flavor of feminist inquiries into rape—we’re seeing a return to the body already. A few gripes: I was astonished that Alcoff’s meditations on “victim” discourse didn’t refer to Carine Mardorossian’s work whatsoever. Perhaps this is due to the fact that most of Alcoff’s book had been published as chapters and articles before—the material would have benefitted from being updated. Overall, many of Alcoff’s references do indeed appear rather dated (lots of stuff from the 90s and early 2000s), while she doesn’t talk about the effects of social media and internet discourse—especially with regards to youth culture—on rape awareness whatsoever. Even her chapter on an emerging global anti-rape consciousness seems stuffy and limited to just a few non-representative examples. Also, the out-of-the-blue lauding of Junot Díaz in the conclusion feels really cringe now. Overall, I appreciated this very readable overview, but I doubt that this is the direction younger scholars will take.

[Dominique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between 3 and 4 stars. Very clear, very poignant, but missing... something? Not hard hitting enough? Not profound enough? All of the above? Mostly ok.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is outstanding...its framing takes up the question of how the speech of survivors can be facilitated as a driver of political change regarding sexual violence. She uses an incredibly nuanced engagement with Foucault to go way beyond the idea that the mere voices of survivors are enough, articulating how we (as activists) can work to enable those voices to land in such a way that actually challenges the status quo. Along the way she develops a persuasive notion of sexual violation (rather than "violence") as doing harm to sexual subjectivity, she devastatingly critiques the libertarian uses of Foucault (which often today go under the guise of queer theory, unfortunately), and she gives a wide ranging account of how the effects of concepts used in this debate are felt differently across different contexts, including transnationally and across intersecting dimensions of oppression. There's also some solid epistemology (in the José Medina/Miranda Fricker mold) regarding the status of testimony, including a persuasive argument using Sue Campbell's relational construction of memory against Judith Butler's skeptical position about "giving an account of oneself." (The one quibble I have in the whole book is with her critique of consent, which I think addresses a bit of a straw man by collapsing consent into contract...but this argument I will flesh out elsewhere.)

Read this as a statement and model showing the philosophical tools that contemporary feminist philosophy brings to the table. (Also read this, especially the intro and first couple chapters, if you want to contextualize Alcoff's position on Junot Díaz that has drawn her a lot of criticism over the past few months.) This is a feminism not about catchphrases or media images, but about the conditions of possibility for real change that resists cooptation.

[Rosie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked some parts of this book, such as the conceptual work around the politics of speaking about sexual violence, and the discussion of intersectional understanding and approaches. However, I found this book quite repetitive in parts, and I really took issue with the retrograde framing of sex work and clear failure to engage with the writing of sex workers and sex worker organisations who (overwhelmingly) take a different view than that expressed in the text. I was enjoying the book until it became clear that this would be a recurrent issue, which was really disappointing to say the least.

[pritish das · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible, incredible book. Necessary feminist reading but also is a massive contribution to foucauldian works. Really connects “discourse” to essentially contemporary problematics in genuinely thought provoking ways. I do wish the text touched in a little bit more about “Justice” and its relationship to speech, with the complexities of political speech. Nonetheless truly amazing work.

[Phoebe Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

good book that fleshes out the intricacies of sexual violence