NCJ Number
161176
Journal
Law and Social Inquiry Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Dated: (Fall 1994) Pages: 995- 1022
Date Published
1994
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the testimony of Anita Hill in those hearings focuses on the ways in which representations of sexual assault against women can be seen as not real.
Abstract
The research focused on what counts as evidence, what is accepted as true in court given the evidence admitted in the first place, and how subordinated peoples are often further oppressed in courts because they lack access to the means that allow them to demonstrate in evidence that their experience is fact. The analysis concludes that violence can appear as fact in law mainly through the use of stable and culturally recognizable stories that explain visible marks in the world, whereas violations that cannot be demonstrated to be violence in this sense are difficult to establish as real. However, women's experiences of violence and violation do not always fit the usual evidentiary model. Footnotes (Author abstract modified)