Philosophy in the Library: What’s Consent Got to Do with It? With Susan Brison

For our March Philosophy in the Library, Susan Brison asks, What's Consent Got to Do with It?

Why, in spite of half a century of feminist anti-rape activism, is it still so rare for rape to be characterized as a politically important phenomenon constituting a grave group-based injustice? In this talk, I argue that part of the problem is that we still define “rape” as sex, albeit without consent. We need to ask: what are we doing when we see rape as nonconsensual sex? What does this prevent us from seeing—and doing? On my account, the harm of rape—to the victim and to others— is not adequately captured by calling it "sex without consent." If we want, first, to understand how rape harms its direct and its indirect victims and, second, to eradicate rape, or at least change the culture so that rape is less prevalent, the question “Did she consent to his doing this to her on that occasion?” may not be the most important question, or even a very helpful question, to ask, and focusing on it exclusively may be counterproductive. Defining rape as "sex without consent" or "nonconsensual sex" is, I argue, not only politically ineffective as an anti-rape strategy. It also constitutes an epistemic injustice against rape survivors who attempt to bear witness to the politically significant incessant and ubiquitous occurrence of male gender-based violence against women, which is something much larger than any one thing that was done to each of them without their consent. 

Susan J. Brison is Professor of Philosophy and Eunice and Julian Cohen Professor for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, USA). She has been awarded fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and a Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Having survived a near-fatal rape and murder attempt in France in 1990, she has first-hand experience of how traumatic violence shatters a self and of how a self can be rebuilt in connection with others. Through her book, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self, and her scholarly articles and lectures, she has brought greater philosophical attention to the topics of rape, domestic violence, hate speech, and image-based abuse. She has raised public awareness of gender-based violence through international talks, radio and television interviews, and articles in the The New York Times, The Guardian, Time, and other newspapers, magazines, and blogs.