Accounting for rape

"Accounting for Rape presents an original perspective on the subject of rape and sexual violence. The authors scrutinise existing social psychological experimental research on rape, in particular rape-perception research, which, they argue, fails to analyse the subtlety and political significance of rape-supportive reasoning and the forms that it takes, thus also underestimating the extent of rape-supportive reasoning. The authors provide a critical interrogation of dominant theories and methodologies, and thought-provoking analyses of conversational data, exploring everyday accounting practices in relation to reports of both female and male rape. They synthesize discursive psychology and a feminist standpoint to explore precisely how rape and rape victimhood are defined in ways that reflect the social, political and cultural conditions of society." "The book will be of great interest to those studying social and clinical psychology, cultural studies, sociology, women's studies and communication studies."--Jacket.