Susan Brownmiller

Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935) is an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which was selected by The New York Public Library as one of 100 most important books of the 20th century.

Quotes

"Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." Against Our Will p.6

Against Our Will

Against Our Will (1975) is a feminist book in which Brownmiller argues that rape "is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." In order to write the book, after having helped to organize the New York Radical Feminists Speak-Out on Rape on January 24, 1971, and the New York Radical Feminists Conference on Rape on April 17, 1971, she spent four years researching rape. She studied rape throughout history, from the earliest codes of human law up into modern times. She collected clippings to find patterns in the way in which rape is reported in various types of newspapers, analyzed portrayals of rape in literature, films, and popular music, and evaluated crime statistics.

Brownmiller's basic premise was contested by some sections of the left wing, who considered it untrue that "all men benefit" from the culture of rape, and who believed rather that it was possible to organize both women and men together to oppose sexual violence. The book also received criticism from feminists, including bell hooks and Angela Davis, who wrote Brownmiller's discussion of rape and race became an "unthinking partisanship which borders on racism".

After the book was published, she was named as one of the Time magazine people of the year. In 1995, the New York Public Library selected Against Our Will as one of 100 most important books of the 20th century.