52 Discourse and Rape
understanding secondary victimization in a rape trial, adopt Gricean
principles, speech act theory, and Hymes’ theory of context as key
concepts of pragmatics to rape discourse, and attempt to locate power
and gender relations in socially-situated courtroom interactions. The
first section tackles rape myths as forms of secondary victimization
of women rape complainants in the courtroom while the second
section includes foreign studies that deal with issues of reproducing
and representing rape through language use. In the last section, an
analysis of extracts of courtroom interaction serves as an illustration
to the viability of analyzing discourse in understanding secondary
victimization of women rape complainants. These extracts come
from one of the seventy-four (74) transcripts of the seven (7) rape
cases used as data source of an on-going research.
Rape Myths: Forms of Secondary Victimization of Rape
Victims
Myths are certain ideas and notions that get passed on as
truths and become embedded in tradition and customs (WLB Inc.
2005b, 27). They develop into doctrines that govern, rule, and
establish social roles and practices. According to Ward (1995, 98),
Brownmiller (1975) is one of the first to identify male myths of rape
which distort and govern female sexuality. Brownmiller works with
survivors of rape and surveys the representation of sexual violence in
historical writings, popular press, and in legal circles. She identifies
four fundamental misconceptions: a) all women want to be raped; b)
no woman can be raped against her will; c) she was asking for it; and
d) if you are going to be raped you might as well enjoy it. Similar
myths are also identified by other scholars in their own research.
Aside from those mentioned by Brownmiller (1975), Schwendinger
(1974 in Ward 1995, 24) identify other myths such as a) rape is
impossible; b) men rape because of uncontrollable passions; c) an
imbalance in the sex ratio causes rape; and d) legalizing prostitution
will reduce rape. Burt and Estep (1977 in Ward 1995, 25) also
identifies other myths such as a) victims are lying; b) victims are
malicious; c) sex was consensual; and, d) rape is not damaging.
Hilberman (1977 in Ward 1995, 25) also identifies the same set of