PRESS: Who Lost The War?
Powers, Thomas
SOME THOUGHTS ON RAPE ARLENE SWIDLER A crime in which social stigma is projected onto the innocent Several years back a writer in the New York Times reported that the women's movement had found...
...By now it must be clear to almost everyone that the most profound insights into moral questions will be provided by the women and men who live with the problems—people from all states and classes of life, in all kinds of social situations...
...Precisely who is morally responsible for the maintenance of physical safety for all members of society...
...What constitutes a reasonable request...
...Hence rape of a virgin is graver than seduction," he notes...
...Add to this the fact that the subordination of woman was sometimes considered to necessitate her taking the succumbent position—later known as the "missionary position"—in intercourse, and one begins to see how rape can seem comparatively natural...
...When Agatha was put in the "public stew," we are told, she suffered assaults and stratagems against her virtue but by prayer she "was an overmatch for all their hellish attempts the whole month she was there...
...Amir's research showed, for example, that 43 percent of the female victims in his study were the victims of either pair or gang rapes...
...Catholic reaction to this analysis was mixed...
...Contrary to common feminist assumptions, however, the criterion is not simply respect for the semen with the miniature humans, or homunculi, that were thought to float about in it...
...A third, rather delicate, question is the possibility of rape even within marriage...
...The first two major focuses of the movement, according to the Times analysis, had been the Equal Rights Amendment and the struggle for a liberalized abortion law...
...Try Judges 19 if you have a strong stomach...
...The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" had nothing to say on rape, nor did the Kosnick Committee's Human Sexuality...
...But our saints survived intact...
...The new interest in battered wives, who are far more common than had been suspected, is adding impetus to the feminist movement for legal redefinition...
...In the Penitentials I've been able to go through there is far less concern with rape than with homosexual acts, but in those cases where both are treated, rape is obviously considered less serious...
...Such attitudes certainly appear to be typical of Catholic pastoral thought...
...Yet we Catholics have discouraged women from serious theologizing...
...Now, with a focus on the crime of rape, the Church-feminist tensions might abate, for who, after all, could be in favor of rape...
...tomorrow if may spell the end of girls' summer camps...
...Traditionally rape has been the more palatable of the two...
...Brownmiller's book makes a good deal of the unhealthy example of St...
...No sensible person, he says, will be scandalized if a woman does not destroy herself to prevent someone else's sin...
...Retended to comil and examples 'erhaps the real ape issue is, as radical feminists assert, divisive, destructive of community...
...The first is the extent to which Christianity has contributed to the attitude which glosses over the trauma and ugliness of rape...
...the woman, he said, was prepared "to surrender her life into the hands of God rather than sully her soul with immorality...
...Today some colleges, including a goodly number of Catholic women's colleges, still prefer to hire male rather than female theologians...
...Now, since submitting willingly to a rapist is putting oneself deliberately into a proximate occasion of sin, we must make our judgment on that...
...So the basic ethical questions still remain to be confronted by the church's conscience...
...the second seems to assume that not to die during a rape is to be party to the sin...
...One of the reasons that male homosexuality has been far more upsetting than lesbianism, according to D. S. Bailey, is that it has been thought of as forcing one of the partners to "play the woman," degrading the whole male sex...
...But these celibate gentlemen come close to denying that a woman can be really raped and live...
...Even more difficult is the case where a couple has mutually, even though perhaps with some reluctance, agreed to practice rhythm and then at some moment in the middle of the night finds itself in disagreement...
...Have we even begun to help girls grow into assertive self-directive adults...
...Is is possible to default on a rhythm-contract as well as a marriage-contract...
...Yet even these Catholics hedged a bit: "No criticism is implied of community attitudes, since the honor paid to female chastity is a sign of social cohesion, of strong values and of familial stability...
...The case of the organized massive rape campaign in Bangladesh in 1971, in which 25,000 women were made pregnant, horrified Americans, although the situation was by no means unique...
...On the other hand, St...
...SOME THOUGHTS ON RAPE ARLENE SWIDLER A crime in which social stigma is projected onto the innocent Several years back a writer in the New York Times reported that the women's movement had found a new focus: the rape problem...
...As she was led to the public brothel, "Many young profligates ran thither, full of wicked designs, but they were seized with such awe at the sight of the saint, that they durst not approach her...
...Most edifying of all was Agnes...
...Nowhere is there any compassion for a raped woman as a physically injured and psychologically scarred person...
...s of conquered there were po;ained, historians was mixed...
...mass of feminists on one side and the mass of the Catholic, hierarchy on the other...
...Sometimes the talk is of the violence and public humiliation to which she was subjected, but at other times the argument is the huge injustice of bearing a child which she never wanted, which she sincerely tried to avoid conceiving, and which was forced upon her against her will...
...Lucy we read that after the judge ordered her to a brothel-house "God rendered her immovable...
...These insights have for the most part been lost in current Catholic thought...
...A question to the Philadelphia Catholic Standard and Times in 1975—during International Women's Year, ironically—illustrates some of the unreflective thinking on the subject in ecclesiastical circles...
...In the mind stirred up by fear, paranoia has good soil for its twisting roots...
...Rape is natural, of course, a sin of lust "aggravated by the use of violence...
...The question has ramifications in the area of abortion...
...Does it assume a lengthy dispassionate discussion, or does a brief midnight statement suffice...
...The plight of women in other religions and cultures is usually no better...
...To what extent the entire male sex can be blamed for the situation—and this is the question posed by the term "political"—is more problematic...
...A sociologist reviewing that book in America comments on the Goretti canonization that "Its unintended effect was to rebuke the thousands of women who suffered rape at the hands of invading armies in World War II, but opted to live...
...Augustine, writing not long after the persecutions of Agatha, Lucy and Agnes, is remarkable for the sanity of his observations...
...Rather impractical models, these...
...This development probably was received with a sigh of relief by some Catholic feminists...
...The latter argument especially might be quite applicable to a married woman...
...Two years later, several important theological questions remain unanswered...
...Four international Catholic organizations, including Caritas Internationalis, submitted a statement to the Secretary General of the United Nations the following February expressing concern over the great suffering of the women who, after rape, could not be taken back by their husbands and families because of local custom...
...The current re-analysis of rape from a feminist perspective is to a large extent based on Patterns in Forcible Rape, a 1971 book by Menahem Amir, an Israeli criminologist working at the University of Pennsylvania who studied Philadelphia police files of 1958-1960...
...Ethel Marbach concluded a basically negative, though not unfair, review by saying, "It makes one think twice before inviting the milkman in for a cup of coffee...
...signed) J. W., Philadelphia...
...The Old Testament treatment of rape in narrative and in law can only be called appalling...
...Current feminist analysis, however, as well as history, shows that rape is the only crime in which the opprobrium is more on the victim than the criminal...
...And we should avoid sin even more strenuously than we do death...
...Reviewers of Susan Brownmiller's book tended to complain of the overabundance of detail and examples rather than to object to its thesis...
...Although he clearly thought of rape as a matter of lust rather than violence, Augustine shows amazing sensitivity in saying that if the chaste woman experiences carnal pleasure against her will this merely adds to her sense of humiliation...
...It is also true that the great number of rapes today, and the fear which circumscribes women's actions and ambitions, have been largely ignored by males or trivialized by them...
...One way of attempting a comparison is to take a look at the old Penitentials, the lists of sins and appropriate penances put together as manuals for confessors beginning in sixth-century Ireland and Wales...
...at least the popular literature—that which is available to young people planning to marry—does not face up to the pain and tension when the couple cannot agree...
...Thomas Aquinas took up the question in the thirteenth century...
...In the ninth-century "Roman" Penitential of Halitgar, which attempted to correlate the Penitentials then extant, sodomy earned seven or ten years of penance, depending on whether the sinner was cleric or lay, bestiality brought three or seven years, and the violation of a virgin or widow brought three years...
...So Catholic women are quite understandably not specializing in bio-medical ethics in the numbers we need...
...She is simply a piece of damaged property...
...This kind of cruelty has persisted...
...victim after victim has testified how the police were either unsympathetic or morbidly curious, inquiring into details which were none of their concern...
...But today when a woman considers herself an equal in marriage with equal rights to self-determination, the old questions demand more nuanced answers...
...There are dozens of questions like these mentioned here in the areas of bio-medical ethics and sexuality which must be raised in the Catholic Church, helping us to clarify our thinking and improve our pastoral care...
...that he lumped "adultery, seduction and rape" together shows the level of his sensitivity...
...Rape, tow often seen as though sometimes , Throughout hisfear of the social to limit the physnent of the popuomen from night public transportaof girls' summer x can be blamed tion posed by the Current feminist shows that rape mum is more on ay in some states e introduced into iminal records of ned...
...Although Amir himself is criticized by later writers for his insensitivity to women, it was his work which first strongly indicated that rape was not, as had been previously thought, a crime of lust, but a crime of violence...
...and because the victim is only alleged rapist— itand unwillingly, ictim rather than is fairly accurate, d and staffed alr of rapes today, len's actions and r males or trivialtestified how the norbidly curious, of their concern...
...Perhaps the real problem in many minds is that the rape issue is, as 3 February 1978: 76 ater writers for his work which first as had been precrime of violence...
...that 43 percent ere the victims of at the facts from : of the offenders sstigation into the the crime of rape ice and that most nclusion was conlike Susan Brownconclusions...
...In twelfth-century Iceland nine or ten years was prescribed for homosexuality and bestiality, and six to nine years for violation of a woman...
...The feminist contention that it is the victim rather than the alleged rapist who is on trial thus is fairly accurate...
...sin is...
...Maria Goretti...
...These Penitentials are not consistent with one another, though some of the same items appear in a number of the lists —my favorite is 40 days penance for failing to protect Commonweal: 77 the host properly, "so that a mouse eats it...
...When this limited mobility results in fewer employment opportunities and hence in economic disabilities for women, do all those who benefit share in the guilt...
...The arguments, though sometimes overstated, have a degree of validity...
...The excitement over the publication of the rape books has died away in the press, though reports of cases and growing female anger have not...
...Though just about everyone condemns the rapist as well as the murderer or the robber, rape is unique in being a crime where curious attention is turned primarily on the victim and the social stigma is projected onto the innocent rather than the guilty...
...The final question is the most important of all...
...This legal system of course is codified and staffed almost exclusively by males...
...Moralists, as well as allotters of public moneys, have shown sympathy with the raped woman who wants an abortion, but the* precise reason for this sympathy is not clear...
...The Catholic organizations urged concrete programs of fund-raising, retraining of the young women for jobs, and help for the illegitimate babies, and concluded, "When these girls and women realize that compassionate, non-judgmental assistance is available, many more of them who are hiding in shame will emerge and present themselves for support and assistance...
...According to Butler's Lives, each was condemned to be a public prostitute...
...The word "chastity" here is both theologically inaccurate and unjust, and the inclusion of the word "female" affirms the current moral double standard...
...From such studies feminist writers like Susan Brownmiller proceeded to more ideological conclusions...
...Commonweal: 75 ,„,, Is immorally permissible to advise a woman to submit willingly to a rapist rather than to risk her Jifc in resistance...
...Catholic feminists, no matter what their individual positions on either of these questions, had inevitably found it uncomfortable to find the arlene swidler, author of Woman in a Man's Church (Paulist Press), is education editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies...
...Replying to the objection that rape and the other two acts are more contrary to love of neighbor than "unnatural sin," he states that the "unnatural sins are most grave...
...The first fears that a woman suffering rape passively would end up enjoying the procedure...
...To what extent do we Christians still share in proclaiming the image of woman as passive, as governed bv her sexual role, as selfless masochistic victim, which has encouraged the rape mentality...
...3 Fehrr.nrv i()7$: 78...
...In the past we kept them out of seminaries and graduate theological schools...
...Through the centuries large-scale rapes of conquered lands have been the rule but, unless there were political or propaganda advances to be gained, historians have overlooked them...
...It is worth noticing that the Catholic Periodical Index lists not a single entry under Rape for the past ten years, except for a book review and the inevitable article on abortion...
...Death is not the greatest evil in this world...
...The standard position has been that a married person must accede to a "reasonable" sexual request or demand...
...This conclusion was confirmed by later experts...
...Rape, like lynching a few decades ago, is now often seen as a political weapon...
...There has been a fairly general assumption in the past that husband and wife will agree on whether to practice rhythm...
...Today fear of rape deters women from night work, night classes, and the use of public transportation...
...the concern centers on what to do with a raped woman rather than what can be done for her...
...A second big question is the relationship between the Catholic position on homosexual acts and its attitude toward rape...
...The woman must decide whether or not she is strong enough to resist the sin, while submitting...
...The question, unfortunately, is not that simple...
...Women, especally married women, are likely to be kept off any committees and out of any offices that have anything to do with marriage and sexuality...
...In the case of St...
...and because the prosecutor is legally the state, and the victim is only a witness, the victim—though not the alleged rapist— may be forced to take the witness stand unwillingly...
...Many cases of the use of resistance women and, more especially, Jewish women for Nazi army brothels are well documented...
...Then last year a Reuters release quoted a homilist in Brisbane, Australia, speaking at the funeral of a 19year-old woman who was raped and battered to death...
...Is it morally permissible to demand limited mobility of women in return for a degree of safety...
...Catholicism, or even Christianity in general, is not alone in trying to ignore the problem...
...or, looking at the facts from the other point of view, 71 percent of the offenders were involved in multiple rapes...
...The seriousness of the sin lay, apparently, in what was considered its deviation from the normal and natural use of sex, rather than in the injustice perpetrated on the innocent...
...Investigation into the past of these offenders revealed that the crime of rape is part of a general pattern of violence and that most of these rapes were planned...
...Legally, in this country, a husband cannot rape his wife, though it is quite clear that this does happen not infrequently under the influence of anger or alcohol...
...Under these circumstances is it possible that a husband might rape his wife...
...Even today in some states the sexual history of the victim may be introduced into the court proceedings but the past criminal records of the man on trial may not be mentioned...
...Agnes, Agatha and Lucy, virgin martyrs...
...They represent the kind of unconsidered thinking that is inevitable when the experiences of those who have suffered from the crime—or even from the narrowness of life which the fear of such crime imposes on them—are excluded from the theologizing, and when the insights of psychology, sociology and criminology have not been brought to bear upon the problem...
...Throughout history fear of rape and, less rationally, fear of the social consequences of rape have been used to limit the physical mobility of the whole female segment of the population...
...Among Catholics a good proportion of the wives who are either coerced or pressured into sexual intercourse by their husbands would be women who do not wish to conceive and to whom no method of contraception other than rhythm is available or acceptable...
...Until church institutions provide scholarships for women—as we subsidize priests who study—and professional appointments and consultative positions befitting women's qualifications, we can expect more embarrassing and downright damaging distortions in Catholic sexual attitudes...
...A glance at the usual library card catalogue will reveal that the rapes of Africa, Poland, the lock, the mind and the taxpayer are more intriguing to writers than the garden variety...
...The early church provides us with the glorious stories of Ss...
Vol. 105 • February 1978 • No. 3
