Proving Rape: Were the Legal Reforms Successful in Uprooting the Rape Myths?
Orna Alyagon Darr, Proving Rape: Were the Reforms Successful in Uprooting the Rape Myths?, 50 MISHPATIM (HU Law Review, 2020).
57 Pages Posted: 18 Feb 2021
Date Written: December 31, 2020
Abstract
The feminist revolution inspired comprehensive legal reforms, including new evidentiary arrangements whose goal was to demythicize the proof of rape. This article inquires to what extent the reformed evidentiary arrangements were successful in moving away from rape myths. Central examples include the notion of “the pathological woman,” according to which an unstable mind or an immodest temperament drive women to make false complaints, and the myth of “real rape,” which rejects the possibility or rape unless the case fits the pattern of a violent stranger who attacks a naïve and sexually inexperienced woman. These stereotypes shaped the legal proof of rape in Israeli courts and made it difficult to believe the complainant.
The article examines the evidentiary reforms and finds that they did not manage to completely uproot the rape myths but were not a complete failure either. Recent court decisions explicitly express an understanding that proof of rape was previously influenced by these myths. Thus, judges make explicit attempts to refute these myths, and are now more inclined to find complainants credible. Nevertheless, the old myths still linger. Women who claim they have been raped are still sometimes labeled as pathological. However, now this image supports their credibility, being perceived as a result of the sexual assault. The article also reports the growing recognition of date rape cases, and an increase in the view of rape within the family as ubiquitous and common. Nonetheless, the new focus on rape within the family still follows the pattern of a pathological perpetrator who attacks an innocent and sexually inexperienced victim.
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