Susan Estrich, Real Rape (1987)

In this chapter I offer an account of Susan Estrich’s groundbreaking and influential book Real Rape (1987). I will explore what led Estrich to write the book, as well as its contribution and its significance, considering the temporal and cultural context in which Estrich was writing. In so doing I will trace the themes and findings that still resonate with current feminist activism and scholarship, highlighting those that might be contested in the current political moment. Real Rape has had a lasting influence, particularly on rape myths scholarship over the last decade. Yet questions raised by Estrich’s work – about the implementation of legal reforms and the uneven potential of legal change to bite – remain. It may well be that the battleground of the twenty-first century is not over legal territory as such, but over whose voices are heard in public debates on sexual violence, how best to conceptualise justice, and how to speak out and call out those who cause sexual harm without supporting neoliberal, carceral state agendas.