Keeping the "lady" in line: A media study of the date rape drug discourse

The use of ‘date rape’ drugs to facilitate rape has emerged as a contemporary social problem within the past ten years. This phenomenon has provided the media with a new slant for discussing sexual assault against women. Using a feminist social constructionist framework, this research examines how the Canadian print media construct the issue of drug-facilitated sexual assault and how this construction contributes to the social control of women’s activities within the public sphere. This thesis argues that the print media’s discussion of the date rape drug appropriates the discussion of sexual violence against women by placing a mo nolithic focus on the drugs used rather than on the violence experienced. The quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that women are held accountable for their victimization and that men’s violence is not problematized. The discourse exerts social control through prevention narratives, creating parameters of acceptable behaviour against which all victims are judged.