ABSTRACT
Whether in the form of testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, or contributory injustice, epistemic injustice is characterised as an injustice rather than simply an epistemic harm because it is often motivated by an identity prejudice and exacerbates existing social disadvantages and inequalities. I argue that epistemic injustice can also be utilised against some members of privileged social identity groups in order to preserve the dominant status of the group as a whole. As a case study, I analyse how the harm to male victims of sexual violence is aggravated by the failure of the law to recognise the rape of men as a crime and the failure of other people to recognise the testimony of male rape victims as credible. Analysing shifts in the legal concept of rape and examples from Project Unbreakable, I uncover how these failures of recognition undermine the victims’ status as legal, moral, and epistemic subjects and inflict epistemic injustice against them.
