Confronting Rape: The Feminist Anti-Rape Movement and the State

TLDR

The feminist anti‑rape movement evolved from grassroots activism to state‑funded crisis centres, reshaping public attitudes toward sexual assault while increasingly relying on government support despite initial distrust. The study documents two decades of U.S. anti‑rape activism and examines how state involvement reshaped rape‑crisis centres, emphasizing therapeutic services while marginalizing feminist political goals.

Abstract

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.