How to understand Hamas’s alleged sexual attacks on October 7.
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As Israeli officials piece together the attacks of October 7, evidence is mounting that Hamas committed crimes of sexual violence against the people it attacked in Israel — both women and men, both dead and alive.
UN testimony delivered earlier this month implicates Hamas and other militants in potential sexual crimes during the rampage in Israel, including shooting at the genitals of the victims, inserting foreign objects into sexual organs, as well as, potentially, rape and other forms of sexual violence. But as the testimonies shared before the UN indicate, investigations into what happened on that day are ongoing and will be complicated by the fact that many of the victims and witnesses are dead.
Sexual violence is horrific in any context, and is always connected to power and domination. But it takes on a different dimension when it is utilized as a tool of war — as it has been for centuries. And even though it is an unfortunately common feature of broader conflict, it’s often misunderstood and is difficult to prosecute — as all war crimes are — making justice for victims a complicated prospect at best.
In the case of the October 7 attacks, high-profile figures, like Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton, who has also firmly backed Israel’s war in Gaza, have called for more attention to be drawn to the allegations. There has been a fraught discourse over claims the allegations were insufficiently covered and ignored by the United Nations, followed by scrutiny of the motivations of those who are highlighting it and how this all plays into the world’s understanding of October 7 and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza. It’s worth pointing out: Sexual violence in conflict is often under-covered relative to the gravity of the harms inflicted.
The United Nations and Israel are now seriously pursuing these allegations. The UN secretary-general on conflict-related sexual violence has requested access to information to investigate the assaults, and a UN Commission of Inquiry collecting evidence of war crimes — including sexual violence — committed by all sides in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories since October 7 was established in the days following the attacks.
Testimony and evidence available so far indicates that some horrific forms of sexual violence did occur on October 7. (Hamas, for its part, has denied that its fighters would engage in that specific kind of brutality.) But it’s not yet clear how widespread that sexual violence was, and it may be unclear for many months to come, in part because Israel has been somewhat circumspect in releasing information, given the sensitive nature of the alleged crimes.
What is known is that violent conflict almost always includes sexual violence — in fact, as one expert Vox spoke to said, it is actually an inherent, if under-examined, aspect of conflict.
What we know about sexual violence on October 7
Israeli authorities have collected testimony from witnesses and first responders, as well as footage gathered from militants as they attacked towns and villages, as part of the Israeli government’s investigation into the sexual crimes that Hamas and other militants allegedly perpetrated. Evidence is still emerging and may be difficult to ascertain in full — gathering that evidence becomes forensically challenging as dead bodies decompose. And it may take time for survivors — including, potentially, hostages — to be able to recount their experiences and share them with the authorities, since sexual trauma often carries with it shame, doubt, and confusion.
Conflict-related sexual violence encompasses a broad and evolving set of crimes that don’t necessarily involve rape; sexually invasive searches, groping, stripping and public shaming, and damaging or maiming sexual organs are all forms of sexual violence, as is coercion into sexual acts to secure favorable treatment, shelter, food, or security in conflict or in captivity.
Following the October 7 attack in Israel, witnesses have presented testimony about nails and other objects being placed in the sexual organs of at least one victim, as well as evidence that militants shot at the sexual organs of victims. Israeli police have also collected witness testimony that indicates militants violently raped some of the victims, CNN reported earlier this month. However, the police do not have first-hand testimony from survivors, because it’s not clear there are any left. (Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after meeting with released hostages, has said that Hamas and militants in Gaza are sexually assaulting female hostages.)
The investigation thus far has released limited information, with authorities navigating the tension between respecting the privacy of victims and ensuring the world knows about the violence.
“There’s an effort by the [Israeli] government … to not really reveal yet a lot of what happened for various reasons, both to protect the people who were released, and the people who are still captive, and maybe other reasons that we’re not aware,” Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Vox. “So there’s a lot of fog around all of it.”
Putting the sexual violence of October 7 in context
Though sexual violence in conflict is not new, sexual violence at this scale in this particular conflict, at least by Palestinian actors, is, Zonszein said. (There is documented evidence of rape and sexual assault by Israeli troops against Palestinians during the Nakba, though since then, many scholars argue that sexual violence by Israel Defense Forces against Palestinians is rare during conflict. However, state-sponsored sexual violence against Palestinians does occur in other contexts, like in Israeli prisons and by Israeli settlers in the territories. As with all sexual violence, it’s difficult to evaluate how widespread these phenomena are due to limits in self-reporting.)
There could be many reasons for this; one is simply the unprecedented scale of Hamas’s attack, as well as the nature of it. Rather than the suicide bombings or rocket attacks Hamas has intermittently used against Israel over the last decade, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters who breached the Gaza border fence to attack Israeli towns and villages were face-to-face with their victims in ways Palestinian militants hadn’t been in previous conflicts — creating the opportunity to commit sexual violence.
Another possibility, if indeed the attacks were premeditated as Israeli officials have insisted, is that Hamas may have intentionally used the tactic as part of the group’s broader plan to provoke a massive reaction from Israel. If so, Jennie Burnet, director of the Institute for Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Georgia Southern University, said it’s worth asking if they picked up the tactic of using sexual violence from other extremist groups they are in contact with, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which routinely uses sexual violence as a terror tactic against Iranians.
“It’s really important that it be investigated what precisely happened,” Burnet said. “Whether it was Hamas soldiers or militants taking their own initiatives, or whether it was planned and systematic, I think that is an important thing to uncover.”
Sexual violence is intrinsic to war throughout history
Sexual violence is extremely common throughout the history of conflict and conquest, though our understanding of what constitutes sexual violence within conflict is evolving. For example, the idea of enslaved people or concubines who were always at a ruler’s disposal for sex would have been thought of as slavery or membership in a royal court rather than as conflict-related sexual violence centuries ago. The taking of “brides” or sex slaves, as ISIS did to Yazidi women in Iraq as it captured land to build its caliphate, is now considered a clear-cut case of sexual violence.
UN peacekeepers in Haiti, insurgent groups like the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, state actors like Japan’s use of Korean “comfort women,” and Russian forces raping Ukrainians are among the wide variety of perpetrators. Academic literature, especially that which centers on avenues for justice, often focuses on cases of systemic sexual violence — most often in the Rwandan genocide and in the Bosnian war, as the violence was so widespread, systemic, and ethnically motivated. These conflicts also led to the first international tribunals to include prosecutions for conflict-related sexual violence, and the documentation, study, and prosecution of these cases greatly advanced the study of conflict-related sexual violence.
“The prosecution of sexual violence by the [International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia] transformed scholarly studies of gender and war, as well as international human rights law,” Burnet said. Other instances, like the abuse of Korean women by Japanese soldiers and longstanding patterns of sexual violence by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remain under-studied.
But no matter who is perpetrating this violence or where it’s happening, it’s part of conflict because it serves a purpose — really, three purposes. First, experts say, it telegraphs to a community under siege that nowhere and no one is safe; second, it destabilizes the targeted society by fraying community and familial bonds, often by targeting women who often maintain those bonds; and third, it breaks the “gender contract” of a society, shattering the illusion that a society’s men can “protect” its women from violence.
“Sexual violence is very, very effective in destroying the women and girls of a particular community, but also the repercussions are massive, in terms of [disrupting] entire communities, entire families, entire communities, and entire nations,” said Joanna Bourke, a historian who has written extensively about sexual violence, war, and conflict.
This violence has devastating repercussions for women in terms of unintended pregnancies, disease, and injury to their sexual organs, Bourke said, but it also can create a cycle of harm, particularly for any children born from the sexual violence of the invading or adversarial forces. Significant evidence “shows that these children are highly abused, they have a real marginal existence within their communities, and have a disruptive presence within their communities, because they are constant reminders of the war, and what went wrong,” she told Vox.
This is not to say that men are never the victims of conflict-related sexual violence; they are, and likely far more often than is reported. There are more extreme examples, but one of the most jarring was the series of photos of detained Iraqi men coming from Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. American soldiers participated in and took photos of the men naked and piled on top of each other, and forced them to perform sexual acts, in a horrific pattern of sexual humiliation and abuse.
“Sexual violence [against] men in military conflicts has been kind of ignored, mainly because it doesn’t or doesn’t always … involve rape,” Bourke said. “But it does involve sexual humiliation, it does involve the crushing of testicles, it does involve all those sorts of things,” which researchers had previously classified as torture. “It turns out to be extremely high levels of sexual abuse against men in modern conflicts, but it simply was being categorized differently, because they were men and not women.”
Can victims of sexual violence in war find justice?
The Geneva Conventions, the post-World War II international agreements that form the basis for international humanitarian law (IHL), “require the parties to an armed conflict to protect women against rape, and to protect women and children from indecent assault,” Adil Haque, a professor at Rutgers Law School who specializes in the law of armed conflict, told Vox.
Though it is unlawful under the Geneva Conventions, sexual violence in conflict is difficult to prosecute in ordinary civilian courts, especially in places where gender inequality is pronounced and societal understanding of sex crimes is limited, as it was in Rwanda following the genocide of the Tutsi people by the Hutu militias. “In Rwanda before the genocide, there [was no] precise word for rape or sexual violence in the local language, Kinyarwanda, and most Rwandan traditions are around dealing with sexual impropriety,” Burnet said. “They didn’t address rape, they addressed inappropriate sexual relationships between men and women.” And although rape was against the law at the time of the genocide, “at the time rape was not clearly defined.”
However, in both Rwanda and Bosnia, “women survivors of sexual violence in the conflict ... wanted legal recourse, and they wanted their perpetrators held to account before courts whenever possible,” Burnet told Vox. “And there’s documented cases in both countries of women going to great lengths and breaking lots of social taboos by giving testimony before courts about how they were violated, as part of that effort,” as well as, in Rwanda, demanding that the post-conflict national law categorize sexual violence among the most severe crimes of genocide.
Both Rwanda and Bosnia used their national courts to try (largely lower-level) perpetrators of conflict-related sexual violence. Under IHL, national courts are the right venue to try war crimes committed by regular troops, as long as they have the appropriate laws to prosecute conflict-related sexual violence. However, even with the right laws on the books, that doesn’t mean survivors get the justice they deserve; as of 2017, less than 1 percent of the estimated 20,000 Bosnians who suffered conflict-related sexual violence had their cases tried, according to Amnesty International.
Bosnia and Rwanda also set up special tribunals in cooperation with the United Nations, which were intended to go after those in power who directed or facilitated sexual violence in those conflicts, as well as other war crimes and crimes against humanity. Though the international tribunal courts arguably did not go far enough in providing reparations and support for victims of sexual violence, they were the first international criminal tribunals to bring charges pertaining to conflict-related sexual violence.
But many people who have suffered the life-long consequences of conflict-related sexual violence never find a measure of justice, whether that’s in court or a formal apology. Over the decades, disagreements over how to recognize, characterize, and provide reparations for “comfort women,” the Korean women and children who were used as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during that country’s occupation of the Korean Peninsula, have greatly contributed to the strained relations between the two countries. Despite a 2015 agreement and apology from Japan, it remains contentious; over the past decade, the issue has been litigated in South Korean courts, with Japan denying that the victims were forcibly taken from their homes and objecting to the use of “sexual slavery” to describe the events.
In the context of October 7, Israel has already indicated that it is taking claims of sexual violence seriously, as has the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Importantly, rape is a war crime under the ICC Statute ... as well as a crime against humanity if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population,” Haque said. “The ICC prosecutor, from his very first public statements about the conflict, alluded to clear evidence of sexual violence, and has repeatedly identified rape as one of the war crimes that his office is investigating.”
Though the ICC and Israeli police are investigating the reports of sexual violence during Hamas’s attack, Israel is not cooperating with the UN Commission of Inquiry due to perceived anti-Israel bias, which could greatly impede the investigation into war crimes that the commission is mandated to perform. Israel has invited the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, on an official visit to the country, but Israel hasn’t invited the UN agencies with a mandate to investigate the allegations to do so yet. Israel’s investigation into the reports of sexual violence indicates a willingness to try the perpetrators in court, and the ICC could potentially have jurisdiction over some crimes that occurred on October 7, even though Israel is not party to the ICC.
Regardless of how these investigations play out, justice for victims of conflict-related sexual violence is not guaranteed, despite forward steps in its study, understanding, and prosecution.
A world in which women move freely without fear of men: An anthropological perspective on rape
Introduction
In western scholarly debate, there is nearly universal acceptance of rape as a male trait typical of all time periods and cultures. This view is essentially anchored in assumptions that male dominance is universal. Thornhill and Palmer (2000, p. 83) go so far to attribute a positive evolutionary value to male dominance and violence as factors that contribute to reproductive success: “If females' resistance results in their mating with males adept at overcoming it, the sons of rapists will be similarly adept, having inherited the genes of their fathers.” Therefore, the authors argue, “It is conceivable that in the past women who filtered potential rapists by resisting them bore sons who turned out to be adept at raping and thus may have had more grandchildren than passive females.”
Feminist scholarship has challenged the idea of rape as a natural given. Susan Brownmiller opened the door with her groundbreaking work Against Our Will (1975). Unlike Thornhill and Palmer, Brownmiller does not see rape as an act of nature and an evolutionary triumph but as an act of power and domination, a concept that has been further developed in later feminist debates. MacKinnon (1987, p. 87), for example, focuses on rape as a construct defined by men and the consequences this has for dealing with rape: “The rape law,” Mackinnon (1989, p. 182) argues from a legal perspective, “affirmatively rewards men with acquittals for not comprehending women's point of view on sexual encounters”. Scully's (1990) study of sexual violence views rape as learned behavior within a patriarchal culture. According to her findings rapists as compared to other felons are more likely to believe in a double standard regarding gender roles and they identify more strongly with the traditional male role. In her study of the anti-rape movement, Bevacqua (2000) addresses one of the cornerstones of feminist research, the connection between theory and practice. “For three decades,” Bevacqua (2000, p. 199) observes, “the movement has been calling into question the sexual entitlement of American men.” She believes that advances have been made when she concludes, “At its core, the anti-rape movement is a threat to the male right of sexual dominance.”
As the record indicates, both feminist and misogynist scholars talk about what will be referred to here as “rape culture” though they clearly understand its causes and impact very differently. As used in the following discussion, “rape culture”, a term coined by Hall and Flannery (1984, p. 404), refers to a system that produces assailants who “may believe that normal sexual relationships involve male dominance and female resistance. Rape may be a way of proving one's manhood, an important concern for adolescent males.” In rape cultures, dominance and control over women become aspects of achieving and experiencing masculinity, and rape, while not condoned, becomes part of the culture at large. But while the concept of rape culture postulates that rape is the result of social forces it does not clarify if these forces operate universally. This is a point where feminist debate needs to go further and employ a cross-cultural approach.
Helliwell (2000, p. 797), an anthropologist from Australia, who says she admits having shared the view of rape as a universal began to question this hypothesis when she became confronted with the issue in a community in Borneo “in which rape does not occur.” Her observation, however, is not an isolated incident. The hypothesis of rape as an inevitable factor in human culture, indeed, vanishes in the view of cross-cultural evidence, which shows that there are cultures in which rape is unknown or occurs so rarely that a different gender profile emerges as compared to our own. This means that we have to ask new questions. Thus, rather than, as Palmer (1989, p. 12) suggests, to place “emphasis on identifying the ways in which certain cultures are inefficient in discouraging males from raping,” we need to ask, “Why do men not rape?” The question is not directed at the individual level but at cultures in general, that is, how do “rape cultures” differ from non- (or low-) rape cultures?
Sanday began this discussion in 1981. Using the Human Relations Area Files as her database, she concluded that “rape-free” societies do exist. In this category, she included cultures with extremely low incidents of rape. According to Sanday (1981, p. 18), two major factors are responsible for the absence or low incident of rape: First, “rape-free” societies are characterized by sexual equality and the notion that the sexes are complementary.” Second, “the key to understanding the relative absence of rape…is the importance… attached to the contribution women make to social continuity.”
Sanday has been criticized for her interpretation of some of the data (see esp. Palmer, 1989). Indeed, the issue of data interpretation is riddled with many difficulties especially in this area of research. Above all, we face the problem of definition and the availability of statistical evidence. However, these peculiarities of the data situation affect all scholars dealing with rape.
In this paper, I will approach the issue of rape by focusing on matrilineal societies.1
I choose matriliny as a category for three reasons. First, we have evidence from many such cultures that allow us to define them as “rape-free” following Sanday's definition.2
Secondly, they prominently acknowledge women's contributions to social continuity and thus reflect Sanday's second category. And, thirdly, they fit Sanday's first category of sexual complementarity. The database is constituted from matrilineal societies for which information on rape is available and includes North and South America, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. This paper addresses only rape of women by men and defines rape as an act reflecting male dominance and entitlement associated with sexual violence against women. Rape becomes a specific expression of gender dynamics in a given society. Since different cultures create different gender dynamics we can expect to find wide variation with regard to definition and perception of rape and different approaches dealing with it. A discussion of these issues must, however, also include the possibility of rape not existing at all.
In the following, I list evidence from rape-free or low-rape cultures for which further extensive ethnographic data exist which allow us to situate this information in a wider context.
For the Iroquois, several sources make the claim that rape is unknown Canfield, 1902, Seaver, 1932, Stone, 1838. Especially telling is a letter from 1779 written by General Clinton to his lieutenant in which he holds up the Iroquois warrior as a role model: “Bad as the savages are, they never violate the chastity of women, their prisoners. Although I have very little apprehension that any of the soldiers will so far forget their character as to attempt such a crime on the Indian women who may fall into their hands, yet it will be well to take measures to prevent such a stain upon our army ” (Stone, 1838, I, p. 404; see also Hewitt, 1932, p. 483). That general Clinton had, indeed, reason to be worried is apparent from the following remark by General Patton almost 200 years later (Patton, 1947, p. 23) with regard to western soldiers during the Second World War WW II: “I then told him that, in spite of my most diligent efforts, there would unquestioningly be some raping, and that I should like to have the details as early as possible so that the offenders could be properly hanged.” The general obviously does not condone rape and promises “proper” punishment. But it gives the reader of Patton's autobiography pause that a man as powerful as he cannot—“in spite of his most diligent efforts”—prevent rape. Both, generals Clinton and Patton see western men, at least during war times as potential rapists.
Iroquois and Western cultures, obviously, hold different views of masculinity as is evident from various statements doubting Iroquois men's masculinity and heroism in battle (cf. Randle, 1950, Stone, 1841), a view that also surfaces in remarks about rape as in the following which suggests the absence of rape due to a low sex drive:
I may here observe, that I don't remember to have heard an instance of these savages offering to violate the chastity of any of the fair sex who have fallen into their hands; this is principally owing to a natural inappetancy in their constitution (Anonymous, 1977 [1780], p. 5).
All of these observations and comments do not explain the rape-free character of Iroquois society but reflect the acceptance of rape as a given in the West.
Among the Ashanti in West Africa rape is seen as incongruous. Rattray (1927, p. 211) mentions only one case. The perpetrator was condemned to death.
For Oceania, various rape-free societies are reported. Nash, for example, working on Bougainville, found that her informants had problems even understanding the concept of rape: “Rape is practically non-existent,” writes Nash (1987, p. 164), the people “could not quite imagine how it would work (the woman would cry out [and people would help her]).” Lepowsky (1993, p. 292) documented the same for Vanatinai. She emphasizes the complementary roles of the sexes rather than the matrilineal structure: “Both women and men are brought up to have assertive personalities. But physical violence against women—and men—is abhorred and occurs only rarely. I have never heard of a case of rape. One of the last battles on the island took place as retaliation for a man's attack on his wife.”
Among the Mosuo of Southwest China rape is completely unknown (Knoedel, 1997, p. 344). Crime and murder are extremely rare. Furthermore, the Mosuo have astonished the West as well as their Chinese Han neighbors by rejecting marriage. While these data only state the absence of rape without giving an explanation, the next examples discuss motives for rejecting rape as unacceptable behavior.
For several societies, it is reported that rape is not only rare but also seen as a shameful act which puts a man's virility and his very humanity in question.
Among the Apache (Farrer, 1999), “Until very recent times, no proper male person would rape a female person (local or enemy), because the rapist lost face not being ‘man enough’ to get a woman on his own.” “An Apache man suffers enormous status loss by forcing himself sexually on anyone: ‘He does not even deserve to be called a man, a human being’” (Farrer, 1997, p. 242).
Sanday (1986, p. 84) reports for the Minangkabau that a rapist's “masculinity is ridiculed and he faces assault, perhaps death, or he might be driven from his village never to return.”
The Trobrianders present still another example that a man using force will face ridicule and shame. While Sanday lists the Trobrianders under her “rape-free” category, Palmer (1989, p. 10), quoting Malinowski (1929, p. 489f), states that rape exists and reports that the Trobrianders have a special word for rapist “tokolos” [sic]. But Palmer does not read Malinowski very carefully nor does he cite him correctly. Reading Malinowski's original text suggests a different picture: Explaining that the Trobrianders “attach shame to erotic unsuccess”, Malinowski (1929, p. 489f) writes that “Censure of lechery in a man has the same foundation. Tokokolosi (sic) is the word used to denote a man who pursues women and inflicts his attentions on them.” The example following (pp. 490–491) raises questions if this is, indeed, a rape situation. In a general comment on Trobriand sexual attitudes Malinowski (1929, p. 491) (emphasis added) makes it even clearer that to the Trobriands rape represents conduct not compatible with successful masculinity: “The whole attitude of the Trobrianders towards sexual excess displays an appreciation of restraint and dignity, and an admiration for success; not only for what it gives to a man, but because it means that he is above any need for active aggression. The moral command not to violate, solicit, or touch is founded on a strong conviction that it is shameful; and shameful because real worth lies in being coveted, in conquering by charm, by beauty and by magic.”
Among the Guajiro of South America, rape is considered a heinous crime. It took years before some of my informants admitted to me that rape occurred. Discussion about violence against and abuse of women indicated that our definitions—theirs and mine—differed. One woman told me that she had been raped during her puberty ritual while being inside the seclusion hut. It is, however, unthinkable by Guajiro standards that a rape could occur under such circumstances. As I kept asking her to explain this to me the woman described how a young man had been looking at her through the walls of her hut. Clearly, this was a grave breach of privacy. But it would not be called rape in many places. In another case, a young woman received the visit of a man who hoped to marry her. The mother, who was interested in this match, had left the daughter at home with a younger child of the family knowing full well (according to the daughter) that the suitor would visit her. He tried to talk her into having sex with him, but she refused. He did not rape her and he left the rancho late at night. The woman, telling me this many years later, blamed her mother for having left her alone that night and thus facilitating the encounter (Watson-Franke, 1983). But, she also blamed the nuns in the mission school she had attended for not having prepared her properly for adult life. She claimed that women who do not engage in sex had no business educating young females. Guajiros in general, though women more strongly, will always insist that sex has to be dealt with in a responsible manner and that women must be treated with utmost respect. Therefore, if the unspeakable occurs, the victim must undergo a ritual so she can reenter community and life as it was before the crime (Watson-Franke, 1982).
Guajiro women of the desert, however, do not live under the cloud of rape, they are not afraid. A personal experience will illustrate that. I remember walking with my guide in the desert late in the evening. It was already after 11:00 PM and we still had some way to go. I felt uncomfortable but said nothing not to upset her. The next day, however, I brought up the issue to avoid such nightly walks in the future. She replied, yes, she had been scared, too. This, of course, confirmed my conviction that the desert was as unsafe for a woman traveling at night as the big cities. When I then mentioned that a man in Europe had attacked me, she looked surprised and replied: “You were afraid of people? Oh no, there is no reason for that. I was thinking of the snakes.” How different our fears had been.
I will now turn to one of the factors identified as eliminating or reducing rape and rape-proneness, that is women's contributions to social continuity.
Section snippets
Women's conributions to social continuity
At the core of this issue lies the maternal role of women.3 Traditional western scholarship frequently reduced matrilineal motherhood to
Men's contributions to social continuity
Since women situate the next generation socially, historically, economically, and politically, matriliny greatly diminishes the need for the certainty and authority of paternity. This position is contrary to the western view that social continuity and thus stability are to be anchored in a strong male authoritarian sex-based presence. Matrilineal and western cultures clearly hold different views of the impact and meaning of fatherhood. Rattray, for example, noting an absence of patria potestas
The importance of male heterosexual authority in western cultures
Male heterosexual authority is a patriarchal phenomenon. Therefore, and, for comparative reasons, we will briefly consider some aspects of rape and rape-proneness in western patriarchal cultures where the presence of a strong controlling paternal authority is seen as the basis for the development of mature masculinity. Paternal absence, on the other hand, is believed to produce rape-proneness. As Thornhill and Palmer (2000, p. 77), for example, have stated: “It appears that cues during boys
Concluding remarks
Matrilineal systems display features that much of western discourse has traditionally associated with rape and rape-proneness. But this whole scenario, as we have seen from some research, is not all that clear cut. The paper addresses two of these features: First, fathers in matrilineal systems are marginal in the family structure and do not represent male authority. This allegedly leads to rape-proneness. Second, men acknowledge the autonomy and authority of women and do not and should not
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