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.
Editorial Reviews
Review
In this startling and brave personal examination of rape and its aftermath, Cathy Winkler asserts her own truth of sexual victimization and analyzes the ways in which a range of others make sense of the rape event and of her efforts to pursue justice…One Night makes important substantive contributions to the social science literature on rape and rape processing…Winkler’s phenomenological account of her rape trauma will be useful to counselors and legal personnel…its value as an empirical contribution to the fields of sociology and anthropology cannot be overestimated. It would be a good addition to courses on the criminal justice processes, women’s studies, criminology, and the sociology of emotion. — Amanda Konradi, Ohio University ― Contemporary Sociology
One night in September 1987, a rapist broke into the home of anthropologist Cathy Winkler and kicked her awake. Her narration of the seven year saga that began that night and ended in a courtroom constitutes a unique social and personal chronicle of the subtle and not so subtle ways in which women raped are debased in their pursuit of justice. It is a riveting tale, told in the true crime mode with the kind of attention to social detail only a professional anthropologist could supply. Cathy emerges as a modern American heroine, and her story will surely become an anthropological classic. — Peggy Reeves Sanday, (University of Pennsylvania, author of Fraternity Gang Rape)
…horrific, farcical, tragic, incisive and inspiring…Winkler’s innovative style is highly effective…[she] makes important contributions to social theorizing about culture even as she adds significantly to a much-needed substantive literature on the lived experiences of VISAs (Victim as Survivor and Activist)…[The] elements combine to create a compelling saga and analysis that has the potential to inform, educate, and moblize diverse audiences…Winkler documents [her experience] brilliantly and in doing so adds tremendously to scholarship in this area. — Jennifer Dunn, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale ―
American Ethnologist, Vol. 30, No. 4, August 2003
Cathy Winkler should be commended for her sustained courage and determination to seek justice and raise awareness of the multiple facets and phases of rape. Her ethnographically-rich criminological insights are powerful. She tells a compelling story and offers a penetrating cultural critique of our society and its criminal (in)justice system. Her expose of the discrimination she faced is simply poignant. — Faye V. Harrison, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
About the Author
Cathy Winkler is a cultural anthropologist and rape-survivor activist in Virginia.
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