example, that our Freudian psychology professor believed
along with Freud that “the effect of penis-envy has a share. . .
in the physical vanity of women, since they are bound to value
their charms more highly as a late compensation for their original sexual inferiority. ”1 In each field of study, such convictions were central, underlying, crucial. And yet we did not know that they meant us. This was true everywhere where
women were being educated.
As a result, women of my age left colleges and universities
completely ignorant of what one might call “real life. ” We did
not know that we would meet everywhere a systematic de-
spisal of our intelligence, creativity, and strength. We did not
know our herstory as a gender class. We did not know that we
were a gender class, inferior by law and custom to men who
were defined, by themselves and all the organs of their culture,
as supreme. We did not know that we had been trained all our
lives to be victims—inferior, submissive, passive objects who
could lay no claim to a discrete individual identity. We did not
know that because we were women our labor would be exploited wherever we worked—in jobs, in political movements
—by men for their own self-aggrandizement. We did not
know that all our hard work in whatever jobs or political
movements would never advance our responsibilities or our
rewards. We did not know that we were there, wherever, to
cook, to do menial labor, to be fucked.
I tell you this now because this is what I remembered
when I knew I would come here to speak tonight. I imagine
that in some ways it is different for you. There is an astounding feminist literature to educate you even if your professors will not. There are feminist philosophers, poets, comedians,
herstorians, and politicians who are creating feminist culture.
There is your own feminist consciousness, which you must
nurture, expand, and deepen at every opportunity.
As of now, however, there is no women’s study program
here. The development of such a program is essential to you as
women. Systematic and rigorous study of woman’s place in
this culture will make it possible for you to understand the
world as it acts on and affects you. Without that study, you
will leave here as I left Bennington— ignorant of what it
means to be a woman in a patriarchal society— that is, in a
society where women are systematically defined as inferior,
where women are systematically despised.
I am here tonight to try to tell you as much as I can about
what you are up against as women in your efforts to live decent, worthwhile, and productive human lives. And that is why I chose tonight to speak about rape which is, though no
contemporary Amerikan male writer will tell you so, the dirtiest four-letter word in the English language. Once you understand what rape is, you will understand the forces that systematically oppress you as women. Once you understand what rape is, you will be able to begin the work of changing the
values and institutions of this patriarchal society so that you
will not be oppressed anymore. Once you understand what
rape is, you will be able to resist all attempts to mystify and
mislead you into believing that the crimes committed against
you as women are trivial, comic, irrelevant. Once you understand what rape is, you will find the resources to take your lives as women seriously and to organize as women against the
persons and institutions which demean and violate you.
The word rape comes from the Latin word rapere, which
means “to steal, seize, or carry away. ”
The first definition of rape in The Random House Dictionary is still “the act of seizing and carrying off by force. ”
The second definition, with which you are probably familiar,
defines rape as “the act of physically forcing a woman to
have sexual intercourse. ”
For the moment, I will refer exclusively to the first definition of rape, that is, “the act of seizing and carrying off by force. ”
Rape precedes marriage, engagement, betrothal, and courtship as sanctioned social behavior. In the bad old days, when a man wanted a woman he simply took her—that is, he abducted and fucked her. The abduction, which was always for sexual purposes, was the rape. If the raped woman pleased the
rapist, he kept her. If not, he discarded her.
Women, in those bad old days, were chattel. That is,
women were property, owned objects, to be bought, sold,
used, and stolen—that is, raped. A woman belonged first to
her father who was her patriarch, her master, her lord. The
very derivation of the word patriarchy is instructive. Pater
means owner, possessor, or master. The basic social unit of
patriarchy is the family. The word family comes from the
Oscan famel, which means servant, slave, or possession. Paterfamilias means owner of slaves. The rapist who abducted a woman took the place of her father as her owner, possessor, or
master.
The Old Testament is eloquent and precise in delineating
the right of a man to rape. Here, for instance, is Old Testament law on the rape of enemy women. Deuteronomy, Chapter 21, verses 10 to 15—
When you go to war against your enemies and Yahweh your God
delivers them into your power and you take prisoners, if you see
a beautiful woman among the prisoners and find her desirable,
you may make her your wife and bring her to your home. She
is to shave her head and cut her nails and take off her prisoner’s
garb; she is to stay inside your house and must mourn her father
and mother for a full month. Then you may go to her and be a
husband to her, and she shall be your wife. Should she cease to
please you, you will let her go where she wishes, not selling her
for money; you are not to make any profit out of her, since you
have had the use of her. 2
A discarded woman, of course, was a pariah or a whore.
Rape, then, is the first model for marriage. Marriage laws
sanctified rape by reiterating the right of the rapist to ownership of the raped. Marriage laws protected the property rights of the first rapist by designating a second rapist as an adulterer,
that is, a thief. Marriage laws also protected the father’s
ownership of the daughter. Marriage laws guaranteed the father’s right to sell a daughter into marriage, to sell her to another man. Any early strictures against rape were strictures
against robbery— against the theft of property. It is in this
context, and in this context only, that we can understand rape
as a capital crime. This is the Old Testament text on the theft
of women as a capital offense. Deuteronomy 22: 22 to 23: 1—