Description: The uproar over "legitimate rape" during the 2012 U.S. elections confirms that rape remains a word in flux, subject to political power and social privilege. Redefining Rape describes the forces that have shaped the meaning of sexual violence in the U.S., through the experiences of accusers, assailants, and advocates for change.
Brief description: Estelle B. Freedman is Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford University.
Review Quotes: Redefining Rape is a brilliant, vitally important, and richly textured history of the shifting definitions of rape in America, and of the relentless challenges that black and white women waged to protect their humanity and to own their bodies. Freedman perceptively traces the self-defense mechanisms women developed in order to sustain a culture of activism and resistance.--Darlene Clark Hine, Board of Trustees Professor of African American Studies and Professor of History, Northwestern University