The past two decades have seen a succession of reforms to sexual assault laws in all Australian jurisdictions. This book examines how effective these reforms have been in light of the fact that such changes challenge the "traditional" social norms of the legal system: male dominance, acceptability of male violence, and women's responsibility for male violence. Has a better balance been struck between the rights of victims to protection, assistance, and compensation and the rights of accused to a fair trial and preservation of the presumption of innocence? And what still remains to be done? These and many other questions are those explored by the contributors.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: The cultural context of rape and reform - Patricia Easteal
CHAPTER 2: Disputed truths: Australian reform of the sexual conduct elements of common law rape - Mary Heath
CHAPTER 3: Constructing lack of consent - Bernadette McSherry
CHAPTER 4: The rules of recent complaint: Rape myths and the legal construction of the "reasonable" rape victim - Simon Bronitt
CHAPTER 5: "You should scrutinise her evidence with great care": Corroboration of women’s testimony about sexual assault - Kathy Mack
CHAPTER 6: Rape victims on trial: Regulating the use and abuse of sexual history evidence - Terese Henning and Simon Bronitt
CHAPTER 7: Tipping the scales in her favour: The need to protect counselling records in sexual assault trials - Annie Cossins
CHAPTER 8: Rape in marriage: Has the license lapsed? - Patricia Easteal
CHAPTER 9: Heroines of fortitude - Pia van de Zandt
CHAPTER 10: Sexual offence prosecutions: A barrister’s perspective - Ian Freckelton
CHAPTER 11: Character, credit, context: Women’s lives, judicial "reality" - Jocelynne Scutt
CHAPTER 12: Sentencing for rape - Kate Warner
CHAPTER 13: Compensating the sexually assaulted - Ian Freckelton
CHAPTER 14: Beyond balancing - Patricia Easteal

Table of cases
Table of statutes
Readings
Index