Synopses & Reviews
Review
Real Rape is a vital book for judges, lawyers, law students, legislators, police officers, and those working in rape crisis centers...Estrich's writing is calm, logical, eloquent, and often scathingly ironic. On its own terms, her book is valuable for its untangling of the various threads of illogic that have formed the centuries-old web that has prevented justice from being served. Catherine Foster
Review
Real Rape is a powerful book. It reveals and empowers women's experiences in law. If it succeeds in creating a drive for the revision of rape law, it may enable women to get out from under the 'unfair struggle with the forces of perception.' Carole Gould - New York Times Book Review
Review
A powerful indictment of the sexism, double standards and institutionalized distrust of women that lie behind the legal system's refusal to treat 'simple' rape (the legal term for sexual assault in which the victim knows her assailant and no weapon or overt physical violence is used) as a real crime. This is an important book, well researched and tightly argued...Estrich addresses the issues directly, cogently and with the sense of urgency and outrage the seriousness of the crime deserves. Christian Science Monitor
Review
No one will ever again be able to address the legal problems of rape without taking Susan Estrich's landmark work into account. It is a model of how to think about a perplexing legal issue without losing track either of logic or of human experience. K. Kaufmann - San Francisco Examiner
Review
A persuasive argument for legal change. Laurence Tribe
Review
[A] brave, simply focused and powerfully reasoned book. Kim Lane Scheppele - University of Chicago Law Review
Synopsis
Many men believe that they can force women to have sex against their will and that it isn't rape--at least, not if the man knows the women and doesn't beat her up or wield a wepon. The law's casual treatment of such rape cases is the subject of this pioneering book, which is both a powerful exposé of the often shocking facts and a trenchantly written call for reform.
About the Author
Susan Estrich is Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California.
University of Southern California
Table of Contents
1. My story
2. Is it Rape?
3. Wrong Answers: The Common Law Approach
4. Modern Law: The Survival of Suspicion
5. The Law Reform Solution
6. New Answers
Notes
Index of Cases
General Index