The social and cultural conditions we live in today continue to perpetuate and maintain the rape culture that pervades our lives, especially the lives of individual women. As a feminist thinker, Ann Cahill works to change this by challenging current definitions of rape as assault and addressing the questions of why rape exists in the first place and how we can begin the process of prevention. In “Rethinking Rape,” Cahill addresses the topic of rape by analyzing the works of contemporary feminist theorists such as Judith Butler, who perceive the female body as a potential site of resistance against gender-based oppression and a “larger system of sexuality ”. domination” (Cahill 32). While each addresses very different issues in feminist theory, Cahill draws on some of Butler's ideas about imitation and the performance of gender in Butler's essay "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Cahill does this to further articulate her critique of “the body” and the role it plays in the phenomenon of rape “as women's embodied experience” on an individual level (Cahill 109). There are some concepts beyond the performance of gender that both authors touch on, including “the body,” heterosexual norms as inhibitions to achieving liberation, the relationship between sexuality and gender, and the problematic nature of social constructs. Comparing and contrasting the works of Cahill and Butler, this article will explore the importance and complexity of the "body", the central role it plays in Cahill's critique of the phenomenon of rape, and how Butler's critique of "coming out" " values ​​the notion of gender "performativity" more than the notion of the "body" itself. Before... middle of paper...... female body, we then internalize that ideal and subject ourselves to the " intrusive, costly practices and high maintenance to be made beautiful” (Cahill 155). There are a number of factors that play into the perpetuation of rape culture, gender hierarchy, and gender performativity. The one thing they all have in common and is essential to understanding how men have been able to oppress us for so long and continue to oppress us. “The body” is the only thing that can maintain our inferiority and helplessness, but it can also be the only thing that can free us from the same system of oppression. Works CitedButler, Judith. "Imitation and gender insubordination". The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. New York: Routledge, 1997. 300-15. Print.Cahill, Ann J. Rethinking Rape. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001. Print.