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Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She Call It Rape? Lori B. Girshick. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 2002. 201 pp. ISBN 1-55553-527-5. $16.95 (paper).
If sexual violence is rooted in patriarchy, male dominance, and oppression of women, then how do we explain women's sexual violence? If women are nonviolent and lesbianism an egalitarian Utopia, then how do we understand women's violence against other women, especially their own partners and lovers? As Lori Girshick so ably points out, heterosexism and homophobia mean that the ways women experience sexual violence by other women are frequently not recognized as rape or sexual assault, thus depriving victims of support and services.
Women-to-Woman Sexual Violence confronts the paucity of research, popular press attention (even in the queer press), and services. Sexual violence is "any unwanted sexual activity" and includes "contact" and "noncontact" sexual activities (p. 19). Girshick's data come from a self-administered, largely open-ended survey and follow-up interviews collecting detailed information about sexual violence incidents and their aftermath and women's understandings of sexual violence and homophobia. Participants were recruited via announcements posted throughout the United States to domestic violence and rape crisis agencies and feminist, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender centers, organizations, groups, and media.
The 70 women, aged 18-64 (average age 37), thus comprise a...