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Position:Home>Philosophy> What is Michel Foucault's View of Rape or Violence Toward Women?


Question:Can you explain his "take" on this subject?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Can you explain his "take" on this subject?

Let Ann Cahill explain it. "In 1977, Michel Foucault suggested that legal approaches to rape define it as merely an act of violence, not of sexuality, and therefore not distinct from other types of assaults. I argue that rape can not be considered merely an act of violence because it is instrumental in the construction of the distinctly feminine body. Insofar as the threat of rape is ineluctably, although not determinately, associated with the development of feminine bodily comportment, rape itself holds a host of bodily and sexually specific meanings."

So far, men have defined the discourse and subsequent legal definitions of rape. That cannot be allowed to remain. Women have to have equal voice before rape and violence towards women can really be defined and embedded in laws. As for me, I think rape and violence towards women, or anyone, is a sexual as well as a crime of power over. I think there is profound and twisted sexual gratification for those who rape and violate women.

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