NCJ Number
178601
Editor(s)
Mary E. Odem,
Jody Clay-Warner
Date Published
1998
Length
311 pages
Annotation
Contributors from a wide range of fields, including sociology, psychology, criminology, law, anthropology, public health, and women's studies, present the leading classic and recent scholarship on sexual violence.
Abstract
Four chapters in the first section give voice to women's own experiences with sexual assault. They address women's fear of rape, society's response to the victim, the struggles of a rape survivor, and the impact of the victim's race on a victim's recovery and reaction to the assault. Four chapters in the second section challenge conventional definitions of rape and urge the re-examination of the definitions of rape in the context of social science research. Issues that impact conventional definitions of rape are rape in the context of a dating relationship, wife rape, and sexual assaults of men. Four chapters consider why rape occurs, (with attention to the socio-cultural context of rape), how convicted rapists describe the rewards of rape, rape myths that encourage rape, and the combination of cultural and individual psychological factors that produce the predisposition to rape. Four chapters address the institutional and cultural context of rape. Topics addressed are fraternities and rape on campus; mass media, sexual violence, and male viewers; rape, racism, and the law; and gender, ethnicity, and sexual assault. Four chapters on strategies for change discuss the effects of resistance strategies on rape, a case study of a rape crisis center, rape law, and broad cultural and structural changes needed to deal with the problem of rape in American society. 88 suggested readings and chapter notes