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Item Exploratory research into the self-blaming response by rape victims and the feminist explanation of this response : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in psychology, Massey University(Massey University, 1990) Maginness, AliFollowing sexual assault, many women express some guilt or responsibility for their rape. This has been described as self blaming by various researchers. Two types of self blaming have been identified - behavioural and characterological. Functional theories describe behavioural self blaming as having a positive adaptive role for the victim, while feminist theorists describe self blaming as a product of women's socialisation. They maintain that self blaming is not functional, but that it serves to maintain and perpetuate a rape culture. The objective of this study was firstly to explore the self blaming response through a victim analogue study, and secondly, to examine the relationship between self blaming and the feminist explanation of self blaming. The results from the victim analogue part of the study indicate that self blaming is not purely a response to the trauma of rape. The two types of self blaming were not readily identifiable but appeared to merge into one combined grouping. A conceptual explanation for this lack of differentiation suggests that the two types of self blaming may not be mutually exclusive to each other as previously described. The second part of the study found relationships existed between rape myth acceptance and rape definition, stereotypical beliefs and sexual vulnerability. Self blaming was also significantly related to rape myth acceptance, and this was viewed as further support for the feminist theory.Item 'She asked for it' : a textual analysis of the re-negotiation of the meaning of rape in the 1970s-1980s : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University(Massey University, 2006) O'Neill, JacquelineThe discursive construction of 'rape' has changed in an important way over the past twenty years. The way we consider and respond to rape today as a society, and often as individuals, is very different to the mid-1970s. 1 Amy Chasteen, "Constructing Rape: Feminism, Change, and Women's Everyday Understandings of Sexual Assault", Sociological Spectrum, vol. 21, issue 2, April, 2001, EBSCOHOST, p. 1. From this period, feminists played a considerable role in the re-negotiation of the meaning of 'rape'. From the narratives of rape victims, feminist discourse produced an alternative meaning. Feminist knowledge and action helped shape legal reform and brought radical changes to the treatment of rape 'victims'. 2 Some people prefer the word 'survivor' to victim as 'victim' carries with it notions of powerlessness and vulnerability. But to speak of a person as a survivor who has only recently experienced such an event seems permature. I use the team 'victim' in this thesis. The focus of this thesis is the shift in the meaning of rape from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and in particular, the role feminists played in it. Meaning is produced in discourse. At any one time particular discourses will be dominant in constructing what is understood to be the 'real' meaning of 'rape'. While the experience of rape is 'real' enough for its victims, how rape is constructed has important implications for the identities and experiences of both rape victims and rapists, and more generally, the experience of all women. Its meaning is, however, always unstable. The discourses that converge to produce dominant meanings are not wholly consistent and at certain times contesting discourses arise. In the 1970s, the meaning of 'rape' became hotly contested. Newer ways of talking and acting, in particular feminist discourse, widened the discursive space for making sense of rape, challenged the constructions which produced the older meaning, and effected a shift in that meaning.Item Sexual pleasures and dangers : a history of sexual cultures in Wellington, 1900-1920 : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by thesis only in History at Massey University(Massey University, 1998) Gillingham, MaryThis thesis examines sexual cultures between 1900 and 1920. It is based on court records of trials for 'sex crime' in the Wellington Supreme Court district, which covered the lower north island. Although sex crimes were an extreme manifestation of sexual practice, and court records represent only partial and constructed accounts of it, the sources can provide insight into attitudes toward sexuality in the past. In this thesis, a crime is posited as an 'extraordinary moment', capable of illuminating a variety of cultural beliefs about sexuality. Victims, their families, the accused men, criminal justice authorities and many others expressed views about codes of sexual behaviour in response to sex crimes. Combined, they form a multi-layered and, at times, contested grid of understandings about sexual mores. This thesis is focused on the reconstruction of these codes of sexual behaviour. To do this, a case study method has been employed which traces the construction of sexuality by individuals and within the courts. The possibilities of sexual pleasure and sexual danger - autonomy and victimisation - framed the meaning attached to sexual encounters by the parties involved, and by others. Such understandings were predominantly shaped by the variables of age and gender. Very young children lacked sufficient sexual knowledge to identify a sexual encounter as either sexually pleasurable or dangerous; they labelled it a physical attack. By adolescence, girls and boys were increasingly sexually aware. For them, and for adults, sexual experiences were characterised by the possibility for sexual pleasure or danger, or a mix of the two. This potential for sexuality to be experienced as pleasure shaped observers' understandings of codes of sexual behaviour. Observers often conflated sexual maturity with consent: childhood was predominantly constructed as a time of sexual innocence and adulthood as times of sexual activity and agency. But codes of sexual behaviour were also mediated by gender. Gendered constructions of character shaped self-representations and observers' understandings of sexual mores. While the double standard of sexual morality set the backdrop for the understanding of sexual mores in the wider Wellington area during the early twentieth century, there were considerable variations in levels of acceptance of it. This thesis examines constructions of sexuality in relation to children, adolescents, and adults of both sexes.