‘Rape is a man’s issue:’ gender and power in the era of affirmative sexual consent

ABSTRACT

The #MeToo movement has shined light on sexual harassment and assault, creating new avenues for survivors to seek justice, outside of the justice system. People (mostly men) accused of sexual assault or harassment are publicly ‘outed’, and the consequence have been serious for many. #MeToo stresses that ‘rape is a man’s issue’, arguing that men can end rape by educating themselves about gendered power, changing their behaviour, and holding other men accountable. In this contentious context, affirmative consent policies are taking root in US universities. In this paper, we ask, How does gender frame the negotiation of consent? We analyse data from our interview project on sexual consent (N = 45) to explore gendered power dynamics in subjects’ reported negotiations of sexual consent. We find that participants’ understandings of consent reinforced – rather than destabilized – hegemonic systems of power. Even when acting in ways that seemed consistent with feminist conceptualizations of bodily autonomy and affirmative consent, men in this study did so to protect their own interests. Affirmative consent was mediated through gender frames that stressed men’s sexual entitlement. We conclude that sexual assault intervention strategies need to be reworked to address systemic, cultural, and individual-level issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual assault
• Rape
• Masculinities
• Affirmative consent
• Gender frames

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julia Metz

Julia Metz has an MA in Sociology from Northern Illinois University. She is the Coordinator for Violence Response in the Student Health and Wellness Center at Elon University, Burlington, NC, USA. She works to prevent sexual assault on campus and to meet the needs of students who have survived sexual violence.

Kristen Myers

Kristen Myers has a PhD in Sociology from North Carolina State University. She is Professor and Chair of Sociology at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA. Her research focuses on intersectional inequalities and dialectical analyses of ways to interrupt them.

Patricia Wallace

Patricia S. Wallace has a PhD from Kent State University. She is an experimental psychologist specializing in the area of social psychology. Patricia is currently serving roles as a Research Compliance Coordinator and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at Northern Illinois University. Her research encompasses a wide variety of research methodologies ranging from qualitative coding techniques to controlled experimental environments. She has published in the areas of social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience.