Rape is a gendered crime

Sexual violence is a very common crime in our communities.

In most cases it is women and children who experience sexual violence and men who perpetrate it.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 99% of sexual offences are committed by men, and 79% of adults who are subjected to sexual violence are women.

One in three women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. The incidence of sexual violence against women with disabilities is at least 4 to 10 times higher than that occuring within the nondisabled population.

Since perpetrators of sexual violence are overwhelmingly men and victims are mainly women, questions can be raised about gender:

• Why are the majority of rape victims/survivors women and children?
• Why are 99% of rapists male?

Individualistic explanations, which focus on rape as a rare and isolated act perpetrated by a "sick" individual are inadequate in answering why rape occurs.

Rapists are usually someone that the survivor knows - ordinary "well adjusted" members of society - fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, carers, lawyers, business men, teachers, musicians, public servants, labourers, politicians, church members, et cetera.

Rape can be better explained when the individual act is placed in a broader social and political context which allows us to explain why sexual violence is overwhelmingly a gendered crime.

The politics of rape