The I Index

Is Rape a Crime?: A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto

Top of the pile

88

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

96/100

Critics

81/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Michelle Bowdler

Publisher:

Flatiron Books

Date:

July 28, 2020

The Executive Director of Health & Wellness at Tufts University blends memoir and analysis to examine her own rape in the early 1980s and the continued marginalization of sexual violence by U.S. law enforcement: Rape is the least reported and least successfully prosecuted major felony, with fewer than 3 percent of reported rapes resulting in conviction

What The Reviewers Say

Anjali Enjeti,
The Boston Globe
Blame and objectification of the victim is a barbaric age-old tradition that Bowdler bracingly examines in her urgent book.
Jessica Wakeman,
BookPage
blends Bowdler’s own narrative with detailed research about how law enforcement—from crime labs to individual cops—fail rape victims. Bowdler is candid about how trauma from the break-in, rapes and police inaction still affects her entire life. She is now a wife and mother of two, but piecing her life together following the rapes has been a slow process. Understandably, a lot of conversations about rape victims focus on positives, like their strength to survive. Bowdler’s voice in the conversation will make sure you know that her survival is hard won..
Laura Chanoux,
Booklist
Bowdler’s combined memoir and manifesto is provocative and illuminating.
Barrie Olmstead,
Library Journal
Chanel Miller's Know My Name demonstrated that coming forward to tell one's story is in itself a powerful form of victim advocacy; Bowdler does the same in this affecting account..