Andra Medea and Kathleen Thompson
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974
Sharp as a karate chop and as right-on about the reasons why men rape women as the issue demands …
Publisher’s Weekly
Against Rape broke the silence on rape, not only in the United States, but around the world. It was the first book to look at the causes and patterns of rape in order to reduce its power in the minds and lives of women, enable women and men to begin to change a society that engendered it, and help women avoid and/or survive the trauma of rape.
Written to be readable by virtually all women, it assiduously avoided the sensationalism and fear-mongering that keep women from being able even to think about rape. Against Rape presented a powerfully feminist analysis that did not flinch from showing the sources of rape within the culture. This was also a realistic and practical book. It explained how to recognize and avoid dangerous situations and gave instructions on various self-defense techniques and advice on what to do in the event of rape. It also considered the act of rape in context, discussing why it happens, what forms it can take, how it affects the victims and who the rapists are.
The book went through seven printings before publication, was serialized in more than 200 newspapers around the country and remained in print for eighteen years. It was translated into French (Horay, 1975) and published in a British edition (Peter Owen, Ltd., 1975). It was widely used in rape crisis centers and women’s studies courses and was the primary text for Chimera, Inc.’s self-defense courses for women for more than a decade. It has had a major impact on the way our society deals with this crime.
Publishers Weekly
Sharp as a karate chop and as right-on about the reasons why men rape women as the issue demands–a short, incisive polemic-cum survival manual that could well become the big seller that its merits warrant. Ms. Medea and Ms. Thompson, both founders of Chicago Women Against Rape and well known in the Midwest for their lectures on the subject, are brief, eloquent and to the point in defining rape and setting this “deadly insult” to a woman’s personhood in its psychological, social, and legal contexts. Seldom has the dominant male attitude toward women as property–especially as this attitude is embodied in laws covering rape–been so incisively encapsulated. Ms. Medea teaches self-defense and doubtless has contributed the excellent parts of the book (illustrated by line drawings) which describe defense techniques. Appendices. Excerpted in Ms. Woman Today Book Club selection. [July 26, 1974]
Kirkus Reviews
A shrewd, eye-opening book which deals squarely and from a strong feminist perspective with the social and human ramifications of a crime that is frequently deplored but seldom punished.”
Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter Sep/Oct 1974
“Against Rape is the first book on rape to come directly out of the experience of women who are active participants in the fight against rape. And it shows.”
Harvard Crimson
Amanda Bennett
The way Andra Medea and Kathleen Thompson define rape in Against Rape, every woman–even the most independent–is likely to be raped. Every man–your father, your lover, your brother–is capable of rape. Rapes, they say, are any acts of sexual intercourse forced on one person by another. And rapes, they say, are not committed only by deviants but are a natural outgrowth of the sexual patterns we are all thrust into.
They make a strong statement. And one that on the face of it is likely to arouse a lot of anger and resentment from women and men alike. The anger that this book draws forth from women is the anger of slow recognition of the truth of what the authors are saying: that rape is not just a violent attack to be feared from hostile strangers on the street, and to be guarded against by mace and midnight escorts. It is consistent with a pattern of behavior, beginning with the hundreds of “little rapes” that women face every day, and ending, in its most hideous form, with the actual physical violation. To read the full review, click here to go to the Harvard Crimson archives.