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69 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 359 (1993-1994)
Rape, Violence, and Women's Autonomy

handle is hein.journals/chknt69 and id is 377 raw text is: RAPE, VIOLENCE, AND WOMEN'S AUTONOMY

DOROTHY E. ROBERTS*
INTRODUCTION
One of feminism's most dramatic contributions to legal culture
has been expanding society's perception of what constitutes rape. Re-
forming rape law raises the question, What is wrong with rape?-
meaning, what is the injury to women who are raped and why hasn't
the law recognized that injury? Feminists have answered these ques-
tions by demonstrating that the law of rape historically has regulated
competing male interests in controlling sexual access to females,
rather than protecting women's interest in controlling their own bod-
ies and sexuality.' Some feminist reformers proposed instead as the
object of modern rape law a celebration of our autonomy.'2 Ironi-
cally, the feminist critique of rape law has involved both explaining
rape as violence and explaining rape as heterosexual sex.3 Rape em-
bodies both physical harm and a subordinating sexuality; Rape is an
act of violence similar to other crimes of physical assault, but the
meaning of this violence is unmistakably the demonstration of power
* Visiting Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Law School; Associate Profes-
sor, Rutgers University School of Law-Newark. B.A. 1977, Yale College; J.D. 1980, Harvard
Law School. This Essay is based on remarks presented at the American Association of Law
Schools 1993 Annual Meeting and the American Bar Association 1993 Annual Meeting. I am
grateful to Stephen Schulhofer for his comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this Es-
say. Thanks also to Dale Colston and Mavel Ruiz for their valuable research assistance.
1. See, e.g., SUSAN BROWNMILLER, AGAINST OUR WILL: MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE (1975);
ANDRA MEDEA & KATHLEEN THOMPSON, AGAINST RAPE (1974); DIANA E.H. RUSSELL, THE
POLITICS OF RAPE: THE VICTIM'S PERSPECTIVE (1975).
2. SUSAN ESTRICH, REAL RAPE 102 (1987).
3. Compare BROWNMILLER, supra note 1, at 15 (interpreting rape as an act of violence)
and Patricia Searles & Ronald J. Berger, The Current Status of Rape Reform Legislation: An
Examination of State Statutes, 10 WOMEN'S RTs. L. REP. 25, 25-26 (1987) (describing one femi-
nist reform that redefined rape as sexual assault in order to emphasize that rape was a violent
crime and not a crime of uncontrollable sexual passion) with CATHARINE A. MACKINNON,
TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE 134-36, 173-74 (1989) (criticizing the view of rape
as a crime of violence, not sex, for failing to include a critique of heterosexuality). Compare also
A. Nicholas Groth et al., Rape: Power, Anger, and Sexuality, 134 AM. J. PSYCHIATRY 1239, 1240
(1977) (explaining that rape is concerned much more with status, aggression, control, and domi-
nance than with sensual pleasure or sexual satisfaction) with DIANA SCULLY, UNDERSTANDING
SEXUAL VIOLENCE 143 (1990) (Make no mistake, for some men, rape is sex-in fact, for them,
sex is rape.). The classic interpretation of heterosexual intercourse as the violent penetration of
women by men is ANDREA DWORKIN, INTERCOURSE (1987).

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