ABSTRACT
Recent work by feminist legal theorists (for example, MacKinnon 1987, 1989, Crenshaw 1992) has exposed the androcentric nature of legal definitions pertaining to rape and sexual harassment and the way that legal adjudication of male sexual aggression tends to protect the interests of men. 2 MacKinnon (1987: 87), for example, shows the crime of rape to be defined ‘according to what men think violates women’. First, it is defined around penetration: ‘I do think the crime of rape focuses more centrally on what men define as sexuality than on women’s experience of our sexual being, hence its violation’ (1987: 87). 3 Second, crucial elements of rape, including force or coercion on the part of the man and lack of consent on the part of the woman, are defined from a male perspective (1989: 173):
Rape cases finding insufficient evidence of force reveal that acceptable sex, in the legal perspective, can entail a lot of force. This is both a result of the way specific facts are perceived and interpreted within the legal system and the way the injury is defined by law. The level of acceptable force is adjudicated starting just above the level set by what is seen as normal male sexual behavior, including the normal level of force, rather than at the victim’s, or women’s point of violation.
