Word: raping
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...thinks that early woman struck "the risky bargain" of accepting domination by a single male to prevent wholesale rape, thus leading to a rudimentary mate-protectorate and then to patriarchy. Women became property, acquired either through raiding other tribes or purchasing a daughter from a father in one's own tribe. Rape entered the law as a property crime. Brownmiller insists that to this day the law treats rape primarily as a violation of male rights of possession. Today rape is aggression against the female's "owner" as well as a reminder of male dominance...
...piling up historical and anthropological data, Brownmiller paints a convincing and awesome portrait of men's cruelty to women. The ancient Babylonians and Hebrews routinely executed married rape victims along with those who attacked them. The Hebrews also stoned to death any virgin raped within the city walls-on grounds that sound suspiciously modern: if the virgin had not wanted the sex, she would have screamed and been rescued in time. An Assyrian whose virgin daughter was raped was entitled to gain justice by raping the attacker's wife. The chivalry of medieval knights included the notion that...
...Brownmiller argues, women are usually the biggest losers-the targets of savage rape, mutilation and torture, or simply part of the natural rewards enjoyed by invaders. She also sees rape as a conscious military tactic to break the will of a civilian population (e.g., the actions of the German army in Belgium and France at the start of World War I). Gang rape appears throughout history as a recurring punishment. The Mundurucu Indians of Brazil prescribed gang rape for any woman who spied on the sacred musical instruments used by men. Missourians gang-raped Mormon women in driving the sect...
Among some American bike and youth gangs today, gang rape is standard punishment for infractions by females...
...rape of males in prison is also used by Brownmiller to help advance her thesis: rape is primarily an act of power, not of sex. Most penal experts agree that rape is part of the system of establishing the power structure in many jails; a prisoner will either rape or be raped. Sodomy is so important to prison society, Brownmiller says, that even if prisoners were allowed sex with visiting wives or girl friends, homosexual rape would continue...