Against our will : men, women and rape
The publication of Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape brought rape to the national agenda and into American consciousness. Brownmiller's stark claim - that all men benefited from rape because its pervasive threat kept all women subordinated - proved revolutionary to many. There was nothing comforting in an historical analysis that indicted society for protecting rapists and contributing to the further humiliation of rape victims. Yet, Brownmiller's book, which briefly appeared on the bestseller lists, appeared at a moment when new questions raised by the women's movement were able to find their way into the mainstream. In subsequent decades, prosecutors, activists, and academics concerned with rape have all credited Brownmiller's work with leading to profound transformations in legal and social understandings of rape. Acquaintance rape has been recognized; women have been more likely to report rape; rape crisis centers have become more common; laws that made it difficult to prosecute rape or that refused to recognize marital rape have been overturned. The transformation in public understanding of rape from an expression of sexuality to an expression of power, that grew from Brownmiller's work, continues to echo in American and international public policy. Brownmiller described rape in wartime as a "weapon of terror," but showed how it had long been understood as part of the "regrettable" but "inevitable" disorder that accompanied battle. One clear measure of Brownmiller's continuing impact is reflected in the 2002 ruling by the International Criminal Court that rape in the context of war constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity. Susan Brownmiller is an author and feminist activist, and her best known and groundbreaking book "Against Her Will: Men, Women and Rape", which helped modernize attitudes toward rape and placed it in the broader context of pervasive gender oppression. In 1995, the New York Public Library selected "Against Her Will" as one of the one hundred most important books of the twentieth century
480 p. ; 23 cm
9780449908204, 0449908208
1085837647