Michelle Bowdler

This provocatively titled memoir recounts the the author's traumatic rape in her early twenties and the lasting impact she is still feeling decades later. It goes on to survey the landscape of law enforcement efforts around rape, most disturbingly, the recent "discovery" of rape kit backlogs from all around the country. The author's central question, "Is Rape a Crime?" drives the research she does and the pursuit of her own rape kit. It seems that like many others, her kit was never tested, show more and in fact, doesn't even seem to have been logged as evidence. The detective assigned her case simply put it in his locker and never turned it in. It has since been lost and no attempt was made to find the men who raped her.

Although her story is horrifying, it is not particularly unusual. Rape charges are frequently dismissed or not pursued for countless reasons. Although much more attention has been brought to this issue in recent years, the author is not particularly impressed with the progress that is being made. There truly seems to be not real, concrete steps being pursued by law enforcement to change the prosecution of rape or to do better outreach with rape victims.

This is a truly disturbing account but one that asks important questions and represents a fearless pursuit of justice by the author. Not just for herself but for other victims of rape who continue to suffer around the world. show less

I can’t stop thinking and talking about Michelle Bowdler’s Is Rape a Crime? and isn’t that really the point of good non-fiction? As the subtitle maintains, it is part memoir and part serious examination of women’s role in society and crimes against them. Bowdler was assaulted and raped by strangers who broke into her apartment in the 1980s. The trauma of the event and her treatment by the police in the aftermath changed the trajectory of her life, and she chronicles every step show more forward and back through the subsequent years. Bowdler, now a health administrator and renowned women’s advocate, pulls no punches in the book--parts are difficult to read, but isn’t that also the point? Is Rape a Crime? made the longlist for the National Book Award, and with a better editor may have gone further as there were some narrative missteps for me but her content and analysis were powerful and extremely well done. I highly recommend this book for non-fiction readers looking to broaden their understanding of rape and how police and communities handle this crime against women. show less

After learning of the backlog of an estimated hundreds of thousand of rape kits untested for DNA languishing in storage facilities across the country, Michelle Bowdler starts to wonder if her own rape kit is one of them. How could this backlog have happened? How many rapists were able to continue inflicting violence because their victims' kits were never tested? We will never have definitive answers. However, for one question, would this kind of negligence have happened for any other violent show more crimes? The answer is an unambiguous, No. Throughout history rape has been trivialized and even celebrated. While modern-day laws recognize rape as a crime, what is that value of those laws if the ones enforcing them continue show little regard for the laws and the victims?Bowdler offers a long-overdue examination of the criminal justice system's, and society's, treatment of rape and it's victims. This book is comprised of her own personal experience of being failed by investigators and also extensive research into failures throughout the system and by society at large. This book is an eye-opening read for myself and, I am sure, many others. I highly recommend it. show less

By the title of this book, one would wonder what was going through the author's mind when she chose it. Then, you take the time to realize that she is actually questioning whether rape is actually treated as a crime by the police department. Bowdler takes us through her traumatic rape and the aftermath including the disregard of the head investigator and the loss of her rape kit.

As a survivor of assault, I was afraid that Michelle's story would be triggering and I would be unable to finish show more the book but I found the manner in which she told her story to make sense and allow for moments of rest between moments of concern. Michelle's telling of her story broke my heart and made me angry. She has spent so much of her life in the public health arena and sitting on committees where she had to rehash her experience knowing that no one was ever held responsible.

Allowing yourself to recover from the trauma of a sexual assault, especially one as violent as Michelle's, is the ultimate form of self-love and should be commended at all turns. show less