ABSTRACT
Not too long ago rape was regarded very differently from how it is understood today. Despite long-standing recognition of the sparse existence of heinous rape as a serious crime, rapes were more often silenced, denied, minimized or condoned. Crucially, public discourse on rape was sorely missing a woman’s point of view. In just over thirty years, there has been a marked transformation in Western representations of rape – in psychology, the law, and the media. Rape is in many ways still tolerated in our society, but no longer without fierce contestation on multiple fronts. In this chapter I will sketch some of the key elements of this recent history as they relate to my interest in exposing the cultural scaffolding of rape.1
