Analysis Of The Unnatural Lottery By Claudia Card

Within The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck, Claudia Card makes a rather bold assertion that rape can be categorized as a terrorist institution. From this approach, Card notes that an institution is an organization “defined by rules” which essentially “establish[es] roles and positions…and [can] create or withdraw power” from said roles and positions (100). Based off of this definition, it is logical to link rape to this meaning, seeing as how the primary intention of rape is to create the “subordination and subservience of women to men” (101). With this in mind, Card then connects the institution of rape to terrorism through implementing the idea that terrorist acts “manipulate target populations into compliance” with conditions

To many individuals, sexual predators are stereotyped as “weirdos lurking in the bushes” or as stalkers of “women who walk alone” (106). From a critic’s perspective, it seems as if Card has overemphasized her allegation that rape is an institution. Here, Card is making the aggregate of rape cases into something that it is not. According to Card’s definition of an institution, there are “rules that establish roles and positions” as well as the “distribut[ion] of responsibilities and opportunities” (100). However, rapists and sexual predators do not have a set rulebook that they follow, nor do the rapists have a duty to carry out. A second argument regarding Card’s assertion that rape is a terrorist institution takes into consideration that no one is benefiting from this “institution,” if it is to be deemed as one. Another portion of Card’s definition of what constitutes as an institution is that the society surrounding it is “supporting and benefiting from such institutions” (101). However, if this explanation is true, then it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to decipher what segment of society can be said to benefit from rape. When viewed from a third party perspective, it appears that no one is profiting from this act. In addition, surely men do not want to be

According to Card, a continued explanation of what makes an institution so, is that it “offers incentives sufficient to motivate individuals” (101). Aside from the rapists’ personal motives for committing the crime, there are also a few notable societal advantages. Because certain behaviors are “guided and evaluated by its norms,” it should be taken into consideration how rapists are sympathized with for having psychological issues that are not actually there. From this, one can only deduce that throughout all of this, the patriarchal nature of society is disallowing women to have any sort of significant power within the community. Within her writing, Card brings up the concept of “sexual politics,” which can be defined as “social norms” that “create and define” the dispersal of power “between members of the sexes” (100). In a patriarchal society, this power is not distributed equally among the sexes; the control is primarily given to the male. Rape plays a large role within the patriarchal society because it helps maintain the distribution of power in favor of the male. Essentially, the paramount task of rape is the “subordination and subservience of women to men” (107). The objective of rape has remained constant throughout history and has allowed the