Book Reviews : DIANA SCULLY, Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. London: Harper Collins, 1990, £22 hardback, £8.95 paperback

DOI10.1177/096466399300200207
AuthorDidi Herman
Date01 June 1993
Published date01 June 1993
Subject MatterArticles
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239
abstract notions of rights are likely to be of little help to women and many well be
counterproductive. Less rarefied than ’rights talk’ would be a new discourse based on
women’s ’capabilities, capacities and competences’. Although perhaps lacking the
rhetorical appeal of rights, the ’capabilities, capacities and competences’ formulation is
one which is more likely to be able to accommodate women’s subjective experiences.
Kingdom’s book compels us to think about the creation of a new dialogue between
women
and law.
MARGARET THORNTON
La Trobe University
,
Australia
DIANA SCULLY, Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists
.
London:
Harper Collins, 1990, £22 hardback, £8.95 paperback.
Why do men rape women? This is the question Diana Scully sets out to explore under the
title Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. To arrive at this
understanding, Scully conducted prison interviews with American men convicted of
sexual offences against women, and drew upon extensive research in the sociology and
psychology of ’deviancy’.
Scully presents her research within a feminist analysis of male sexual violence. Her
objective: to situate the crime of ’rape’ within a social context where women are devalued,
objectified and degraded. Rape, she argues, is not the isolated act of the ’abnormal man’
but, rather, ’socially learned behaviour’ in a ’patriarchal’ society which subordinates
women
(pp. 35, 59, 162-7). While there is little new to feminists in Scully’s analysis, and
the usefulness of the book is marred by her uncritical faith in feminist empiricism and her
implicit acceptance of a (totalizing) theory of ’patriarchy’, the comments of the men she
(and her associate Joseph Marolla) have interviewed provide important insights for those
interested in constructions of masculinity and the relationship between ideology and
practice.
Scully begins by setting out the contours of her research project and methodology. One
hundred and eighty-nine imprisoned men were interviewed for the study; 114 were
convicted of sexual offences against women, and a group of 75 other prisoners were used
as a ’control’. Interviewees, located at a range of different institutions, were voluntary
respondents to the researchers’ request for assistance. All were...

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