| 英文摘要 |
Why do rape victims keep silent? What would make them go to court to report? Present legal feminist studies have found that rape victims are stuck in the “ideal victim” imagination which makes them be labeled and blamed by themselves, their family members, their friends, and even by the whole society. Past studies have revealed the structural factors making rape victims unable to talk about their experiences. But what does it link to the structure and the beliefs/actions of rape victims? To find this link, this paper analyzes the social process of legal consciousness that is shaped by the victim’s identity and vice versa. Based on the idea of distributed self of identity formation in legal consciousness, we find that the process, that constructs the interpretation of the event and the identity of rape victims, is not still, but keeps changing. With the fluid self, rape victims may be able to transform their agency from silence to more positive and future-forwarding, through narrating their life stories, changing their relationship with the social group, and then getting a sense of belonging. By taking the theoretical trends of emotional turn, this paper explores the way that rape victims may engage in resisting the “ideal victim” stucture, while redefining their agency. It holds that the change of emotional identity of recognition and acceptance by a group is the key to enhancing rape victims’ agency, which may help them not blaming themselves anymore, but constructing a new sense of emotional identity belonging to various, plural, and fluid group. By constructing a new sense of self-admiring, rape victims may continue to practice their agency toward a new direction and at the same time compose their positive life journey. |
