Sisterhood Will Get Ya: Anti-rape Activism and the Criminal Justice System

The spectre of a serial rapist invading homes is terrifying. Women who are conditioned from a young age to monitor their behaviour to protect themselves from rape react strongly when they are faced with the prospect of being attacked in their most vulnerable moments — at home, sleeping, presumptively safe. In the summer of 2008, women in my Edmonton neighbourhood, the Garneau, were being attacked by a serial rapist. Newspaper headlines announced “Southside Sex Attack Makes Four,”¹ “New Crime Target,”² and “Neighbours on Alert after Sexual Assault.”³ These messages were manifestations of the fear many women in the largely student neighbourhood