Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller Read Free Book Online Page B

"indiscriminately raping women of all ranks."
    When a victorious army rapes, the sheer intoxication of the triumph is· only part of the act. After the fact, the rape may be

    · viewed as part of a recognizable pattern of national terror and subjugation. I say "after the fact" because the original impulse to rape does not need a sophisticated political motivation beyond a general disregard for the bodily integrity of women. But rape in warfare has a military effect as well as an impulse. And the effect is indubitably one of intimidation and demoralization for the victims' side.
    An aggressor nation rarely admits to rape.* Documentation of rape in warfare is something the other side totals up, analyzes and

    * An exception to this rule has been the United States. Individual cases of rape by American soldiers have received considerable attention in this country. Sometimes a case comes to light because of a strong court-martial defense of mistaken identity. There were some highly publicized U.S. courts-martial for rape involving a defense of mistaken identity in Japan and Okinawa during World War II and also during the Korean War. The defendants were black. A similar case and defense, involving two American Cl's stationed with the a1my of occupation in Germany, surfaced in 1971. As a sign of the changing times, cases of rape by American soldiers in Vietnam have come to light as part of the many journalistic exposes documenting the horrors of the South east Asian war.
    propagandizes when the smoke has cleared af ter defeat. Men of a conquered nation traditionally view the rape of "their women" as the ultimate humiliation, a sexual coup de grace. Rape is con sidered by the people of a defeated nation to be part of the enemy's conscious effort to destroy them. In fact, by tradition, men appro priate the rape of "their women" as part of their own male anguish of defeat. This egocentric view does have a partial validity. Apart from a genuine, human concern for wives and daughters near and dear to them, rape by a conqueror is compelling evidence of the conquered's status of masculine impotence. Defense of women has long been a hallmark of masculine pride, as possession of women has been a hallmark of masculine success. Rape by a conquering soldier destroys all remaining. illusions of power and property for men of the defeated side. The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor's trooping of the colors. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men-vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other.
    n April, 1746, King George's army led by the Duke of Cum berland put down an insurrection in the Scottish Highlands. The Highland clans that rallied to the banner of Bonnie Prince Charlie were thoroughly decimated in the Battle of Culloden. That battle, and the brutal pacification program that followed, marked the end of organized clan life in Scotland. The modern British historian John Prebble collected the story of Culloden and its af termath from records kept by the proud old clans. In the clansmen's view, rape of their women was a deliberate act of tyranny by the English invader, and Prebble wrote the story as he found it.
    Sexual mutilation of women on Culloden Moor during the battle proper was only the beginning. Lord George Sackville led a command of infantrymen to Moidart, where Clan Macdonald rebels "showed no enthusiasm for surrendering." A few screaming clansmen raided the rear of his column and captured some horses and provisions. Sackville "allowed his men to take revenge at the next hamlet, where the women were first raped and then held to watch the shooting and bayonetting of their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons."
    Major Lockhart's platoons pushed through the glen at In· verwick:
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    Where the River Doe meets the Moriston in a black waterfall, Isobel Macdonald was raped by five soldiers, and her