Are Rape Crisis Centers Feminist Organizations?

Abstract

Although rape crisis centers began as feminist organizations, research exploring centers' current feminist identity is limited. Data from interviews with 63 staff, volunteers, interns, and directors affiliated with six rape crisis centers and programs located in four East Coast states are used to examine how they view feminism and whether they believe their rape crisis centers maintain a feminist ideology. Although most directors identified their organization as a feminist one, they also indicated that the feminist identity of rape crisis centers has changed over time as organizations increasingly collaborated with mainstream organizations and became less politically active. Because of the possible negative connotation of the word “feminism,” some directors and advocates spoke of their reluctance to advertise as a feminist organization for fear of alienating victims, potential volunteers, and/or funders.