On Rape

How I came to read this essay. I am a subscriber to the excellent ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.
Blogger Lisa wrote her as usual compelling review and while reading I made comment as to the subchapter from Steven Pinker's The Angels Nature of Our Nature that covered “Women's Rights and the Decline of Rape and Battering.” We both decided to read each other's suggestion on the interrelated subject.

https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/11/09/on-rape-by-germaine-greer-bookreview/

Pinker discussed the issue from a historical point of view and he came to the conclusion that from the statistics available that rape has declined over the last 30 years. He writes tellingly that the decline has “...gone virtually unremarked” and that”.... anti-rape organisations convey the impression that women are in more danger than ever.......” Pinker praises the Feminist movement for the trend downwards.
With my recent reading of Pinker and the ANZ LitLovers LitBlog's review of Greer I realised that other than my reading of the use of rape in war and a month spent on a rape case jury about 20 years ago this was a subject I had really been shielded from.
This is the first time I recall reading Germaine Greer so I really have no opinion as to her past writings on feminism. On this subject I also don't particularly feel qualified to pass judgement on the essay itself. I tend to write my reviews without looking at other points of view but in this case I have made a rare exception. I have tended to need guidance I suppose. There are many both praising and attacking on Goodreads and the same applies in the world of professional reviews and the blogosphere. I am none the wiser.

With that this essay, as Lisa from ANZ LitLovers LitBlog writes “...has created quite a furore.” And I have to wonder why because in a sense I was offered as reader little in the way of solutions to the subject and more or less commentary as to what constituted Rape through to comment on the various legal issues. The thing that I found of interest was one of her few solutions and that was to actually cut back on the sentencing time for those found guilty. It is interesting that in some jurisdictions rape receives a larger punishment than murder. This was covered by Pinker and I have come to the conclusion that just maybe male lawmakers over the years have been not only influenced by the outcry of the women's movements, rightfully so, but may have been persuaded (subconsciously?) by the fact that historically women were property of men.

In the end though I am glad to have read this essay. It is a subject that I do not feel comfortable with and have to leave the debate to the far more knowledgeable than me. As to this hamfisted attempt at a review of an appalling subject my apologies.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/germaine-greers-on-provocative-victim-shaming-compelling-ambivalent