Property Rites

Synopsis: Partly based on a true event, the death in 1817 of a Birmingham woman, Mary Ashford, and the consequent trial of a local man, Abraham Thornton, for her rape and murder. Concerned with the response of her contemporaries to her behaviour on the night before she died and by situating this with the fictional circumstances of a modern woman explores the current attitudes to rape, and the forces and assumptions underlying them.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video; Videocassette. VHS. col. 59 min.
Year of production: 1984
Availability: Hire
Documentation: Recommended reading: ‘Rape or Seduction?' by Anna K Clark, in ‘The Sexual Dynamics of History’ by the London Feminist History Group (Pluto, 1983)
Uses: Introductory courses on historical or social research.*
Subjects: Women’s studies
Keywords: rape