Culmination of Law

Culmination of Law

The Social Structure of Rape

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
2 Phd student in Jurisprudence and Criminal Law, Shahid Motahari University, Tehran, Iran
3 PhD student in Criminal Law and Criminology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Rape, as one of the most important examples of violence against women, has many unfortunate consequences for victims in this area. However, the etiological explanation of rape in the form of mainstream criminological theories and the presentation of preventive approaches in the light of these theories indicate the failure of theoretical and practical approaches to the mainstream in the realm of rape. Accordingly, in new approaches using sociological theories, an attempt is made to analyze the phenomenon of rape as a social action in the context of social relations. One of the most important theories in this field that has been neglected in feminist criminology studies so far is the theory of social structure and its role in committing the crime of rape. Social structure as a critical and constructivist theory, with emphasis on cultural and normative models, on the one hand, defines social relations as fundamental patterns of society and, on the other hand, reproduces the expected actions and behaviors in the structure of society. Based on the findings of this study, gender patterns in society and gender relations are derived from social structures in this area. Therefore, gender discrimination in different societies is derived from the power in the social structure, which is institutionalized in the mental stereotypes of individuals and has led to the domination of men over women. In addition, the configuration of the social structure of gender relations with emphasis on characteristics such as patriarchal social hegemony, a gendered view of women, and patriarchal social institutions promotes the crime of rape.
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