When the author started graduate school in the late 1970s, she was drawn to studying sexual assault. She had been a declared feminist since high school as the Women's Movement even reached the coal region of eastern Pennsylvania! Attending college in New York City, with its myriad opportunities for more exposure to what feminists were up to, made her increasingly aware that violence against women was a greater problem than had been acknowledged up to that point. In this article, the author discusses how her own work in these areas developed with reference to two highly cited papers published in "Psychology of Women Quarterly" (Norris & Cubbins, 1992; Norris, Nurius, & Dimeff, 1996) as well as her other research, how her work fits into the general body of current research on these topics, and where one might go from here. In particular, the author addresses three dilemmas that feminist researchers face in addressing these topics. These dilemmas focus on three areas: (a) what she and her colleagues termed the "cognitive tightrope" (Norris et al., 1996); (b) contradictory messages that women receive about drinking; and (c) how to avoid victim blaming but still empower women to assertively resist sexual assault. (Contains 1 footnote.)