Rape, claims Ann J. Cahill, affects not only those women who are raped, but all women who experience their bodies as rapable and adjust their actions and self-images accordingly. Rethinking Rape counters legal and feminist definitions of rape as mere assault and decisively emphasizes the centrality of the body and sexuality in a crime which plays a crucial role in the continuing oppression of women.
Rethinking Rape applies current feminist theory to an urgent political and ethical issue. Cahill takes an original approach by reading the subject of rape through the work of such recent continental feminist thinkers as Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Rosi Braidotti, and Judith Butler, who understand the body as fluid and indeterminate, a site for the negotiation of power and resistance. Cahill interprets rape as an embodied, sexually marked experience, a violation of feminine bodily integrity, and a pervasive threat to the integrity and identity of a woman's person.
The wrongness of rape, which has always eluded legal interpretation, cannot be defined as theft, battery, or the logical extension of heterosexual sex. It is not limited to a specific event, but encompasses the myriad ways in which rape threatens the prospect of feminine agency. As an explication that fully countenances women's experiences of their own bodies, Rethinking Rape helps point the way toward reparation, resistance, and the evolution of feminine subjectivity.
Rape, claims Ann J. Cahill, affects not only those women who are raped, but all women who experience their bodies as rapable and adjust their actions and self-images accordingly. Rethinking Rape counters legal and feminist definitions of rape as mere assault and decisively emphasizes the centrality of the body and sexuality in a crime which plays a crucial role in the continuing oppression of women.Rethinking Rape applies current feminist theory to an urgent political and ethical issue. Cahill takes an original approach by reading the subject of rape through the work of such recent continental feminist thinkers as Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Rosi Braidotti, and Judith Butler, who understand the body as fluid and indeterminate, a site for the negotiation of power and resistance. Cahill interprets rape as an embodied, sexually marked experience, a violation of feminine bodily integrity, and a pervasive threat to the integrity and identity of a woman's person.The wrongness of rape, which has always eluded legal interpretation, cannot be defined as theft, battery, or the logical extension of heterosexual sex. It is not limited to a specific event, but encompasses the myriad ways in which rape threatens the prospect of feminine agency. As an explication that fully countenances women's experiences of their own bodies, Rethinking Rape helps point the way toward reparation, resistance, and the evolution of feminine subjectivity.
Industry Reviews
"Cahill provides a readable and well-researched book on feminist theories that have guided our strategies on rape... This provocative book will re-draw our attention to rape as a central concern for feminist activism."-Feminist Academic Press, July 2001 "Influenced by poststructuralist and feminist thought, Cahill reconsiders the social and political phenomenon of rape... Recommended for upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice, November 2001, Vol. 39, No. 3 "Ann Cahill has written an important and well-balanced book on a subject that is known to fuel passions and not much clear thinking. The book merits the more praise for such qualities since it is written from a feminist perspective, which some may consider off-putting... Ann Cahill's Rethinking Rape stands out for its unruffled approach, as well as its careful argumentation... All in all, I would vividly recommend this book to a wide audience. It is full of insightful reflections, and certainly talks to women's experience of the fear and facts of sexual violence."-Isabel Gois, King's College London. Metapsychology Online Book Reviews, May 2002 "Ann Cahill's Rethinking Rape is a theoretical intervention that rightly challenges unproblematized histories of the body and subjectivity. Cahill begins with an analysis of two major schools of feminist philosophy. The first one defines rape as 'violence, not sex' and is characterized by the work of Susan Brownmiller, while the school associated with Catharine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin represents rape as an extension of compulsory heterosexuality. For Cahill, both schools wrongly establish an opposition between the violent and the sexual and perpetuate in doing so the nature / culture binary. Woman is seen as slave to biology on one hand and the dupe of patriarchal culture on the other. Neither theory adequately addresses the sexed body, which is what Cahill seeks to remedy in Rethinking Rape."-Sue Scheibler, Loyola Marymount University, Signs Autumn 2003 "Rethinking Rape is an extremely interesting, well researched, and accessibly written book on a significant and timely topic. Ann Cahill's focus on rape as seen through recent continental feminist theories is original and much needed in the literature."-Susan J. Brison, Dartmouth College "It is high time rape was back on the agenda of feminist theory and being dealt with anew in the frame of contemporary well-developed feminist theories of the body. Up-to-date and respectful of 'second wave' theories, rich with both reminders and new questions, Cahill's discussions will be accessible and provocative to theorists and activists of all the waves."-Marilyn Frye, Michigan State University
