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Essay / The Body - 1848
The social and cultural conditions in which we live today continue to perpetuate and maintain the rape culture that permeates our lives, particularly those of women. As a feminist thinker, Ann Cahill is working to change this situation by challenging current definitions of rape as assault and addressing the questions of why rape exists in the first place and how we can begin the process of prevention . In her book "Rethinking Rape," Cahill addresses the subject of rape by analyzing the work of contemporary feminist theorists like Judith Butler, who view the female body as a potential site of resistance against gender-based oppression and as a "system wider scope of sexual violence. domination” (Cahill 32). Although each addresses very different issues in feminist theory, Cahill draws on some of Butler's ideas about imitation and gender performance in Butler's essay "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Cahill does this in order to further articulate her critique of “the body” and the role it plays in the phenomenon of rape “as an embodied experience of women” at the level of the individual (Cahill 109). There are certain concepts besides gender performance that both authors address, including “the body,” heterosexual norms as inhibitions to achieving liberation, the relationship between sexuality and gender, and the problematic nature of social constructs. By comparing and contrasting the works of Cahill and Butler, this article will explore the importance and complexity of the "body", the central role it plays in Cahill's critique of the rape phenomenon, and how Butler's critique of “coming out of the closet”” values the notion of gender “performativity” more than the notion of “body” itself. Before...... middle of paper ...... female bodies, we therefore internalize this ideal and subject ourselves to "intrusive, expensive, high-maintenance practices in order to be made beautiful" (Cahill 155). There are a number of factors that play into the perpetuation of rape culture, gender hierarchy, and gender performativity. The one thing they all have in common is essential to understanding how men have been able to oppress us for so long and continue to oppress us. “The body” is the only thing that can maintain our inferiority and powerlessness, but it can also be the only thing that can free us from the same system of oppression. Works Cited Butler, Judith. “Gender imitation and insubordination.” The second wave: a reader of feminist theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, 1997. 300-15. Print.Cahill, Ann J. Rethinking Rape. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001. Print.