“A shot reputation:” rape in colonial Australia and why it matters today

Abstract

emotion that is a learned response and its effect on society. The roots of the framing of rape and sexual assault as we see it today in Australia go back to colonial times and the narratives of sexual crime executed in racy language that were freely circulated in Australian colonial press. The reports of Mount Rennie rape case by the frequency and “cross-cultural references invoked in discussing the crime achieved a singular level of cultural production which has far wider references than legal history” (Peers 1998). They gave birth to the debate of the “real rape” vs. “simple rape” as defined by Susan Estrich (1987) and marked Australian public discourse and public attitude toward rape until the present day. Thus, in November 2015 Michaelia Cash, Minister for Employment and Minister for Women claimed “We have a national crisis when it comes to violence against women in Australia” to which testify reports of the Australian Bureau of Statistics on women’s safety, National Student Safety report, all the way to Brittany Higgins’ story and the way it was dealt with in the media and within the legal system. As long as “One in seven young Australians say rape is justified if women change their mind” according to National Community Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women Survey (NCAS) there is still a lot to be done to change the cultural narrative of “real rape” so that rape does not go underreported and unpunished as women fear shot reputation.