When the victim becomes the offender? - A discourse analysis of victim blaming regarding rape

Abstract: In 2014, a man was accused of raping a woman but was acquitted despite the fact that the woman said “no” and “stop”. He claimed to have thought that it was part of dominant sex games and by that, assumed she liked it. That the man was acquitted, even though the court ruling concluded that the woman had been forced to sexual intercourse, can be a result of a process of victim blaming; a process where the victim’s behavior, prior to the rape become a factor of significance. In this thesis I have conducted a discourse analysis of this specific case, where I have looked for patterns of victim blaming and analyzed the findings from a post-structural feminist perspective as well as Foucault’s ideas of power. To understand the process, concepts and theories of the patriarchy, rape myths and the idea of the woman and the man, are presented. I find that patterns of victim blaming can be identified in case nr: B5865-13 and that the process of victim blaming should be understood with the historic discourse of the woman and the man in mind, as this has created ideal gendered behavior. Furthermore, I find that the victim blaming process makes for unequal power relations between women and men, and by extension enables men’s sexual violence against women today.