Baron Gender Issues

                Baron gets into the legal aspects of rape and identifies where there are some disparities in the law. Rape is nonconsensual sex. It sounds simple and straight forward but the law makes it more complicated and have been allowing people to get away with rape through these little loop holes. One thing Baron talks about is Performative Consent. I think this is such an important approach in getting justice in rape cases. We must look at rape on the performative model, like Baron says, it is the easiest way to identify consent. This simply means something one says, not something they feel or desire.

                This way of thinking can clear up a lot of discrepancies where violators think that they didn’t mean no, that they really did want to have sex. She says, “For purposes of holding people responsible for knowing whether another consented, it only makes sense to understand consent as something that, like promising, is “done”—something conveyed to another—rather than as desire (or any other mental state) (Baron, 23).” You would think any common sensed person would agree that no means no, yet people are still trying to play that card. If we simply take the verbal or physical cue that the victim is giving into consideration, there should be no toss up about what was really meant. Baron highlights the fact that sexual consent cannot be confused with sexual desire. Often they are conflated leading people to not accept no or not take it seriously.

                This is a good tactic not to get feelings involved in the cases that were not fairly or clearly expressed to each individual. I think the example Baron used about borrowing a car really hit home. If I allow you to borrow my car, even though I am annoyed by it, I still consented to it so therefore you can use my car. If I really did not want you to I would have said no. Similarly, if I was not burdened by you borrowing my car but still said no, my nonchalant attitude about saying no does not give you the right to use the car. This is how rape should be viewed by using the performative model.  

                Baron does a good job of emphasizing the fact that looking at it from this view can eliminate the false accusations of rape. It does this by stopping people from being able to say they did not want to have sex, after it is already done, and being able to then accuse them of rape when they were not informed prior. I think this little tweak in the law can actually impact a lot of cases. This might not be the answer for getting justice in rape cases as a whole, but I think it will definitely be beneficial and help have a clearer scale to work with.