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Despite the undeniable, experiential reality of sexual violence in women's lives, sexual violence as a "public reality", and subsequently as a viable topic for social scientific and historical inquiry, did not emerge until this time. The women's liberation movement created the conditions that made possible--and salient--the articulation of the problem and its alarming normalcy in the lives of women and girls, thus altering public awareness, if not the prevalence of sexual violence itself, in unprecedented ways. Research by feminist psychologists and other social scientists both emanated from and contributed to this sea change in awareness. In this article, the author (a) briefly reviews the political, social, and intellectual contexts in which psychological research on rape became possible in the United States in order to remind readers how new and unprecedented it was for social scientists to study rape; and (b) outlines some of the challenges that have beset this research enterprise over the course of the last 30 years.

Feminist psychology began as an avowedly political project with an explicit social change agenda. However, over the last two decades, a number of critics have argued that feminist psychology has become mired in an epistemological impasse where positivist commitments effectively mute its political project, rendering the field acceptable to mainstream psychology yet shorn of its transformative vision. In this article, we explore the complexity of allying positivism with a transformative project using two illustrative examples from feminist psychology's history. Both Naomi Weisstein, whose work was catalytic in the creation of feminist psychology in the 1970s, and Ethel Tobach, who has consistently fought against sexism, racism, and other forms of injustice as both scientist and citizen, have remained committed to the scientific ideal without losing sight of their political projects. An examination of their efforts reveals the vital necessity, but ultimate insufficiency, of this position for creating large scale social change as well as a need for constant vigilance to the politics of knowledge in which science--and feminism--are embedded.

Wayne Viney is Professor of Psychology and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the history of psychology. He is also inaugurating a new course, The Development of Scientific Thought, for the College of Natural Sciences at Colorado State. Earlier in his career, he served as Head of the Department of Psychology, Associate Dean of the College of Natural Sciences, and Director of the University Core Curriculum in the Biological Sciences. Viney was elected President of Division 26 (History of Psychology) and of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association. He has been the recipient of 15 teaching awards at Colorado State University. In 1998, he served as a G. Stanley Hall lecturer for the American Psychological Association. He is coauthor with D. Brett King of A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context. He is also coauthor with Michael and Marilyn Wertheimer of a major bibliography entitled History of Psychology: A Guide to Information Sources. The focus of Viney's historical research has been the psychology and philosophy of William James as well as the life and work of the American humanitarian reformer, Dorothea Lynde Dix.