Contesting Rape

This work documents two decades of anti-rape activism in the USA. From grass-roots efforts to the institutionalization of state-funded rape crisis centres, the movement has changed public thinking about sexual assault significantly. Activists in rape crisis centres across the US created a feminist success story, although not always as they would choose. The text explores how the State has reshaped rape crisis work by supporting the therapeutic aspects of the anti-rape movement's agenda, and pushing feminist rape centres toward conventional frameworks of social service provision, while submerging the feminist political agenda of transforming gender relations and preventing rape. Through a comparative history of six organizations in Los Angeles, Nancy Matthews explores the complexities within a movement that included radicals, moderates, women of colour, lesbians - all working with varying frameworks. Originally critical of the State's handling of rape and distrustful of co-operation, most rape crisis centres eventually came to rely on state funding for organizational survival.