Australia, the Feminist Nation? Discourses of Gender, ‘Culture’ and Nation in the ‘K Brothers’ Gang Rapes

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Grewal, Kiran. 2012. Australia, the Feminist Nation? Discourses of Gender, ‘Culture’ and Nation in the ‘K Brothers’ Gang Rapes. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 33(5), pp. 509-528. ISSN 0725-6868 [Article]

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2012.701608

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This paper examines the discourses of gender and nation that circulated in relation to a series of highly mediatised Australian gang rapes. The rapes, which took place in the suburbs of Sydney in the early 2000s, were widely reported as involving ‘young Muslim men’ raping ‘Australian girls’. These rapes and the legal trials that followed created two dominant responses. First, there was a generalised debate about the need for greater protection of women's rights within the Australian legal system. Second, there was an intense questioning of the merits of multiculturalism. Bizarrely the two issues frequently became intertwined within popular discourses, with the language of ‘women's rights' pitted against the rhetoric of ‘cultural tolerance’. Focusing on the final set of rapes (and trials) involving the ‘K Brothers’, this paper explores the reasons for this intertwining.

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Article

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https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2012.701608