Susan Brownmiller (1935–2025)

As powerful and timely now as when it was first published, Against Our Will stands as a unique document of the history, politics, and sociology of rape and the inherent and ingrained inequality of men and women under the law. Fact by fact, Susan Brownmiller pulls back the centuries of damaging lies and misrepresentations to reveal how rape has been accepted in all societies and how it continues to profoundly affect women’s lives today.

A keen and prescient analyst, a detailed historian, show more Susan Brownmiller discusses the consequences of rape in biblical times, rape as an accepted spoil of war, as well as child molestation, marital rape, and date rape (a term that she coined). In lucid, persuasive prose, Brownmiller uses her experience as a journalist to create a definitive, devastating work of lasting social importance. show less

This book has all of the problems of second wave feminism. It's a very white, middle to upper class look at rape, seeing it as a male-female inequality without a big look into bigger institutional issues. (And by bigger I don't mean the criminal justice system. I mean capitalism, classism, racism, etc.)

I particularly dislike Brownmiller's take on interracial rape as a burden of white women, which stood out as a starkly racist stance to take on the issue. I also dislike Brownmiller's show more thoughts that the criminal justice problem will solve rape if only rapists would be arrested and sent to jail for their crimes. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system is broken, and is really used as a way to incarcerate poor people of color. Maybe people didn't realize that in the 1970s, but these days I wouldn't excuse an author for taking that stand.

Finally, I dislike how Brownmiller almost completely ignored rape outside of the realm of male rapists violating women. The only male on male rape she explored was within the prison system. Again, maybe this book is just a product of the times, but I found it shocking that such an exhaustive treatise on rape would completely ignore male on male rape, female on male rape and female on female rape. While male on female rape has the highest rate of occurrence, it's not like the other rapes don't happen. They're just ignored, and that doesn't help anyone. show less

Clássico da segunda onda feminista, este livro é dolorosamente excelente e ainda tem o mérito de destruir alguns dos meus ídolos (como Hunter Thompson, Stanley Kubrick e Sam Peckinpah) e alguns desafetos (como Freud e a teoria psicanalítica), fazer um apanhado no estupro através da história (guerras, racismo, disputa por território e propriedade capitalista em geral) e destrinchar os meandros da culpabilização da vítima e como eram as coisas até os anos 70. Coisa linda esse livro.

Written in 1994 when I originally read it but found it just as interesting and useful January 2015 when revisiting Vietnam. Parts of this well-written book are evergreen--for example, the sections on history and geography--while other elements have obviously changed with the 20 years that have passed. But that is the charm of this book and why I would recommend it to anyone traveling to or in Vietnam today. This 20-year gap is both amusing and enlightening as I read each chapter as I show more travelled many parts of the same route Brownmiller travelled. The Cham Museum in Danang remains exactly as described. However, Hoi An has become a tourist town with its main streets lined with travel agents and coffee shops. Today one can talk to anyone willing to engage with a curious visitor unlike Brownmiller's days but many of the conversations remain unchanged. On my last day I sat in a small concrete shop with its eager 30-year old owner clutching my hand as she told me of her dream to become rich taking in tourists' laundry at $1/kilo and selling cans of LaRue beer and bottled water (and renting motorbikes and providing a taxi service and ...). I thought the stroking of my hand a bit odd until later that day I read on page 45 of Brownmiller's text from 1994 "It's a Vietnamese thing, this tactile stroking. A sign of approval." show less