Susan Brownmiller

Susan Brownmiller (born February 15, 1935) is an American radical feminist, journalist and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975). Brownmiller says that rape has been defined by men rather than women until now. Men use rape as a means of continuing male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear. All men benefit from this. Brownmiller also participated in civil rights activism. She joined CORE during the sit-in movement and volunteered for Freedom Summer in 1964. She first became involved in the Women's Liberation Movement in New York City in 1968. There she joined a consciousness-raising group in the newly formed New York Radical Women organization. Brownmiller went on to co-ordinate a sit-in against Ladies' Home Journal in 1970, began work on Against Our Will after a New York Radical Feminists speak-out on rape in 1971, and co-founded Women Against Pornography in 1979. She continues to write and speak on feminist issues, including a recent memoir and history of Second Wave radical feminism, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution Archived 2007-07-19 at the Wayback Machine (1999).