Using Martha Burt’s definition, rape myths are “prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists” (1980: 217). In this blog post, I respond to one of these “sites,” where we encounter the unsettling relationship between certain postfeminist advertising images, rape myths, and rape culture. Edwards argues that such studies of biblical themes in advertising can offer “surprising sites” for the exposure and critique of dominant ideations of sexuality and gender that are given voice both in contemporary culture and in the biblical text itself (viii). In particular, she focuses on the ways that the character of Eve is portrayed, both in the narrative of Genesis 2–3 and in contemporary postfeminist advertising, as a dangerously alluring seductress-a femme fatale-whose sexuality is a source of both her power and her danger. In her book, Admen and Eve: The Bible in Contemporary Advertising, Katie Edwards explores the biblical tradition of Genesis 2–3, a text she suggests is “arguably the most influential cultural document for gender relations in Western society” (2012: 9). I also discuss how these same myths and misperceptions may be given implicit voice within the narrative of Genesis 2–3-the creation and “fall” of Adam and Eve. I chose to focus on Edwards’s engagement with postfeminism, considering the ways that popular postfeminist discourses evoked in contemporary advertising reinforce and sustain myths and misperceptions about sexual violence which lie at the heart of rape cultures.
Edwards’s 2012 book, Admen and Eve: The Bible in Contemporary Advertising, reflecting on a particular theme or issue raised in the book. The issue invited six biblical scholars to write a response to Katie B. A slightly longer version of this post originally appeared as an article in a special issue of the Bible and Critical Theory journal (2014).
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