Abstract
In June 2000, Andrea Dworkin, an American feminist activist and author, published
an account of being raped in a Paris hotel room a year earlier. The story
was met with widespread disbelief, including from feminist readers. This article
explores the reasons for this disbelief, asking how and why narratives of rape are
granted – or denied – truth status by their readers. The article argues for understanding
the conferral of belief as a narrative transaction involving the actions of
both narrator and reader. It posits that Dworkin was widely seen as an unreliable
narrator but argues that for ideologically charged narratives such as rape
narratives judgements of reliability and belief inevitably draw upon the normative
standpoint of the reader. I suggest that there are opposing criteria for establishing
the truth of rape narratives; a ‘factual’ or legal model, which sees rape
narratives as requiring scrutiny, and an ‘experiential’ model, located within certain
strands of feminist politics, which emphasises the ethical importance of believing
women’s narratives. The article finishes with a consideration of the place
of belief within an ethics of reading and reception of rape narratives.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 68-87 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Diegesis |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 1 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- narrative
- sexual violence
- Andrea Dworkin
- belief
- truth claims
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities
- General Social Sciences