One Night: Realities of Rape

By Cathy Winkler

Book Overview

One night, anthropologist Cathy Winkler awoke from a deep sleep to discover a rapist standing by her bed. For the rest of that night, she lived a woman's worst nightmare as she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the stranger. The event changed her life into something resembling a Kafka novel: a justice system that bungled the case then blamed the victim, a social service system that provided no services or comfort, uneasy and awkward friends, exploitative media, and insensitive university administrators and colleagues. The pain of those four hours was dwarfed by the frustration of her decade-long fight to find the rapist and bring him to justice, ultimately through one of the first successful uses of DNA evidence in a rape case. Winkler, a brilliant observer and ethnographer, chronicles this struggle here-including her own growing awareness of her power to stare down district attorneys, to use the media to her own ends (including segments on 48 Hours and Court TV), and, ultimately through her persistence, to put the rapist behind bars for life. As a story of triumph over adversity, One Night is an inspirational work. And it provides a model of how researchers can turn the lens inward and incisively examine ourselves and our own world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0759101213
• ISBN13: 9780759101210
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Altamira Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Review of One Night

A stranger broke into Cathy Winkler's home, stood over her bed and kicked her awake. After that night of horror she began a determined effort to find, prosecute and punish the rapist. In the process, her efforts helped other victims gain relief. Her account informs as well as holds your attention through the numerous twists and turns of human interest and self interest.Winkler is a gifted writer. Why read this book? It is more than just another account of rapes with clichés, 'ho hum.' Dr. Winkler is also a professional anthropologist with knowledge and insight into human behavior. She examines the many aspects of the situation in a clinical manner. The reader will find answers to frequently asked questions, such as: is sexual need or power and brutality the driving force? what should the victim do at different times in the whole series of events from rape through recovery? what should friends do? to whom should the victim turn for assistance? Winkler presents enough information in a structured manner to support study groups in the many communities that are now developing programs to prevent rape and treat rape victims. The contents include three major parts: four chapters on key aspects of the physical rape; four chapters on the social consequences and problems; and four chapters on the legal aspects of gaining justice. She adds substance to other works listed in her extensive bibliography that can be included in a study. ...Winkler is a victim, a survivor, an activist, a defender and chronicler. ... One Night realities of rape reflects Winkler's professional authority and her humanity.

An Exemplar of Feminist Cultural Critique

Cathy Winkler should be commended for her sustained courage and determination to seek justice and to raise others' awareness of the multiple facets and phases of rape. Her book is an exemplar of the personal being political in feminist social analysis and criticism. Her success is based in large part on her skill as an ethnographer. Excellent ethnographers are able to produce three-dimensional descriptions and richly nuanced analyses of complex, power-laden social situations and cultural scenarios. The situations that Winkler describes are those related to the physical, social, and legal rape that she experienced and struggled against as an activist committed winning social justice. She offers a poignant cultural critique of how American society, with its gendered biases, treats rape as a crime and as a violation of women's human rights. Her critique implicates not only the criminals who rape but also others--friends and acquaintances, colleagues and administrators in work places, and, of course, legal and criminal justice personnel--whose actions extend the scope and effects of rape. Winkler joins the ranks of distinguished scholars like Peggy Sanday who has written on varying forms of rape in "rape-prone" societies. As a teacher at the university level I am eager to expose more of my students to this important body of work and to the powerful way that Winkler's reflexive account complements Sanday's research. Winkler's book can also be read in conjunction with with one of Micaela di Leonardo's essays in which she critically deconstructs the racist iconic representation of the rape she experienced when a Black male stranger violated her. Winkler's book also invites us to think about racist constructions of Black male sexuality and the pro-lynching myth of black men's propensity to rape White women. Although she does not address this aspect of the country's culture of race, she does express anti-racist sensibilities in the relationship she describes having with her Black students and with her concern about the way her case is presented to the public and to jurors, especially to Black jurors. She insists that her case is about violence against women and not race. Nonetheless, I think her excellent analysis could have been even more compelling had she elaborated on the emotionally-charged politics of representation and the relationship between the racist myths--through which many Americans still interpret cross-racial sex and sexual assault-- and the reality that her experience reveals. Although not discussed at length in the text, Dr. Winkler is well aware of these issues. Months after the physical rape, we shared a hotel room at the national anthropology conference and discussed her worry that racist cultural assumptions about Black male sexuality would muddle the facts of her case and the motivation that inspired her to seek justice. I didn't know then where her convictions would take her nor did I understand what a full-fledged auto-et

The tragedy of rape

Congratulation to Cathy, who is a good person who saved many other women.Throughout her book, she showed that the pain of three rapes could have been avoided. First, during the rape attack, two men heard her screams and did nothing.Her ability to detail a rape attack lets me understand why such a traumatic experience cannot be forgotten. Second,she lost her university job due to her persuit of the rapist with the police.An administrator abused her and terminated her appointment.Like a rapist, who will not apologize. Likewise, the dean of the school would not admit his error and give her her job back. Universities should support their faculty suffering crimes. A university is a part of a community and should work with the community. Third, the law enforcement, hospital and lawyers did not act effectively or swiftly. Fortunately,Cathy had good morals and along with persistance and determination to get real justice.She saved many other women who later would hve had to endure such traumatic experience from the rapist. I highly recommend this book. It was captivating and gave me as a man, understanding into the real tragedies of rape.

Something most woman fear

I would recommend this book. It is a story of horrible events which changed the life of the author, Dr. Cathy Winkler. However, against all the obstacles she faced, she was able to continue fighting for justice until this rapist was behind bars. It is a testament to her strength and courage. And a chilling look at the realities of how much can change in just one night.

ONE NIGHT-- harsh, but important, realities

I had been waiting for the publication of ONE NIGHT for quite some time, so it was with great anticipation that I devoured the text from cover to cover upon receiving it. The social science of sexual violence, let alone any violence at all, is often difficult to come by. Sexual violence is something that affects so many of us, but it also happens to be one the least researched, thought about, and written about topics in the academy. It is refreshing that Dr. Winkler has been so generous with her self-ethnography. As a woman and a researcher, I am rarely surprised by what I hear about sexual violence-- and I think that Dr. Winkler has done a fine job in bringing to light in a particularly nuanced way many things which we take for granted, especially with respect to the following two points: 1) by showing us how tenuous and subjective the "path to justice" truly is,and 2) elaborating the many different axes of life that can be and often are disrupted for victim-survivor-activists, particularly those things which are imperative constituents of our everyday lives. ONE NIGHT is a rich and honest ethnography that preserves the individualness of the events shaping Dr. Winkler's life without making grand claims to generalization. At the same time, ONE NIGHT tells a terrifyingly familiar story, one that must be told if sexual violence is going to be considered as a multi-layered social problem and not simply as the burden of individuals. Finally, I must mention that I appreciated Dr. Winkler's care in producing a text about rape that was neither pornographic nor titillating. ONE NIGHT is an important step in unpacking the problem of sexual violence in the U.S.