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Roads, Misogyny, and the Rape Culture in Joyce Carol Oates’ Rape: A Love Story and Cara Hoffman’s So Much Pretty

2023; Routledge; Volume: 34; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10436928.2023.2239697

1545-5866

Srirupa Chatterjee, Swathi Krishna,

Cinema and Media Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Though “home” is traditionally viewed as a place of affability, safety, and repose for women, the alarming instances of abuse and sexual violence within it prove that the domestic space, all too often, becomes “a central place of terror and danger” (Price 40). Further, even when women’s fear of crime “is associated with concern about being outside the home, probably in an urban area, alone and potentially vulnerable to personal harm … women overwhelmingly confront danger at home or in familiar locations” (Stanko 48, 54). In American fiction, works such as Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), Proulx’s The Shipping News (1993), Oates’ First Love: A Gothic Tale (1996), and Freaky Green Eyes (2003) have featured gendered violence within homes. That said, in this essay, we specifically address the issue of assault and violence outside homes and on the road, which poses an increased threat of sexual violence on lone women who are in an unguarded territory.2. Ganser claims that “women are confronted as soon as they step out into the street in that their bodies are scrutinized, disciplined and punished” (157). And hence, in women’s road stories, the American highway doesn’t always signify freedom. However, while Ganser discusses the fear of rape as one of the obstacles generated by the gendered construction of the patriarchal road, she does not specifically investigate narratives of sexual violence.3. Studying how the issue of sexual violence mediates women’s experiences of travel, Roberson claims that patriarchal social orders have historically relegated women to sessility in order to keep them from transgressing geo-spatial boundaries. Drawing upon the history of women’s journeys, Roberson notes, “[i]n addition to other risks and dangers of the road, women [are] subject to sexual risk, to themselves being the territory that is explored and conquered by others” (223).4. An NPR survey conducted between January 26 and April 9, 2017 reveals that nearly four in ten women (37%) in America “report that they or a female family member have been sexually harassed” (“Discrimination in America” 35). The survey charts women’s diverse experiences of gendered violence, especially in public spaces.5. On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger (a twenty-three-year-old of British Chinese descent) massacred six people and injured many others near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara before killing himself. Hours before the killings, Rodger uploaded a YouTube video titled “Retribution” and circulated an online manifesto titled “My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger” in which he declared that “he was going to prove himself the ultimate ‘alpha male’ and take revenge on all the ‘sluts’ who had sexually rejected him” (Penny). The incident sparked social media outrage and Twitter hashtag wars titled #NotAllMen to assert that not all men are misogynists along with a counterattack called #YesAllWomen to express women’s everyday experience of sexism and misogyny. The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism marked the Isla Vista killings as an act of misogynist terrorism.6. Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space (1991) and Edward W. Soja in Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (1989) have scrutinized how spaces, both public and private, are impacted by hegemonic cultural values.7. Manne here reacts to Trump’s misogyny toward women such as Rosie O’Donnell, Carly Fiorina, and Megyn Kelly.8. Vigilantism has traditionally come into play to restore order within communities when a larger governmental and legal system fails, such as in the case of Teena and Wendy. Dromoor and Alice, then, befit an “American sentiment” where “vigilante justice … has never been completely exorcised from … culture” (Zimring 62, 90), and about which Franklin E. Zimring tells us that “[t]he vigilante is by definition suspicious of his government, and that is one reason why vigilantes are willing to arrogate the power to punish crime to community groups” (111).