- Title
- Does the construction of ‘rapeable’ bodies constitute an instance of hermeneutical injustice?
- Creator
- Weiffenbach, Michaela
- ThesisAdvisor
- Okeja, Uchenna B, 1983-
- Subject
- Zuma, Jacob -- Trials, litigation, etc.
- Subject
- Rape -- Philosophy
- Subject
- Women's rights -- Africa
- Subject
- Women, Black -- Social conditions -- Africa
- Subject
- Masculinity -- Africa
- Subject
- Men, Black -- Africa -- Psychology
- Subject
- Justice (Philosophy)
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145708
- Identifier
- vital:38460
- Description
- This thesis argues that within the conventional imagination of the West, identity functions in a way that particular forms of embodiment are characterised by the experience of endured sexual vulnerability, which I argue is best understood as the construction of ‘rapeable’ bodies (Cahill 2001, 120). By this, I mean that the threat of rape is contingent upon the social and political construction of one’s identity as vulnerable. In virtue of this particular way of constructing the embodiment of certain subjectivities, there is an instance of hermeneutical injustice conferred (Fricker 2007, 114). I inquire into the function and meaning of stereotypic generalisations, prejudice and rape myths embedded within the dominant framework of the West and show how language and representation constructs these identities as ‘rapeable’. Furthermore, I consider how collective hermeneutical discourses construct Blackness, specifically Black masculinities and the construction of the ‘un-rapeable’ Black femxle body. To see how these ideas are congruous the prominent example that occurred in South Africa in 2005, namely, the Jacob Zuma rape trial comes to mind. One relevant feature of the case is that it shows how identities of race are constructed in the aftermath of apartheid and points to a Western collective imagination resistant to change. In addition, it demonstrates the triad of interrelatedness holding between the self-world-other, a relationship constituted mutually by the self and the socially constructed interpretations of identity and embodiment (du Toit 2009, 58). Lastly, the construction of ‘rapeable’ bodies is an example of how discursive narratives construct particular identities as vulnerable through rendering particular embodied subjects as sexually irrelevant and hermeneutically obscured.
- Format
- 81 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Weiffenbach, Michaela
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Collections
RU Department of Philosophy
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | WEIFFENBACH-MA-TR20-170.pdf | 570 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |