Constructing Race and Gender in Modern Rape Law: The Abandoned Category of Black Female Victims

Abstract

Despite the successes of the 1960s Anti-Rape Movement, modern state rape statutes continue to prioritize white male perspectives and perceptions of race, ultimately ignoring the intersectional identity of Black women and leaving these victims without legal protection. This Note examines rape law’s history of allocating agency along gendered and racialized lines through statutory construction and other discursive techniques. Such legal constructions both uphold and cultivate the white victim/Black assailant rape dyad primarily by making the Black male the “ultimate” and most feared assailant. Rape law’s adherence to a white baseline sustains stereotypes of Black men as criminals and predators, which ultimately relegates Black women to a category of lesser and undeserving victims. Re-focusing rape reform and feminist movements on Black female experiences, as well as a rhetorical restructuring of rape laws, can improve rape law uniformity and remove white normativity standards. A departure from the current rhetorical and realized white baseline can eliminate rape law’s delineations of femininity that silence women of color.