Susan Brownmiller | |
|---|---|
 Brownmiller (née Warhaftig) in 1952 | |
| Born | Susan Warhaftig (1935-02-15)February 15, 1935 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | May 24, 2025(2025-05-24) (aged 90) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Cornell University |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable work | Against Our Will (1975) |
Susan Brownmiller (bornSusan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935 – May 24, 2025) was an American journalist, author andfeminist activist, best known for her 1975 bookAgainst Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which was selected by TheNew York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
Susan Brownmiller was born inBrooklyn,New York City, on May 24, 1935, to Mae and Samuel Warhaftig, a lower-middle-classJewish couple. She was raised in Brooklyn and was the only child of her parents.[1][2] Her father emigrated from a Polishshtetl[2] and became a salesman in theGarment Center and later a vendor inMacy's department store, and her mother was a secretary in theEmpire State Building.[3][4] She later took the pen name Brownmiller, legally changing her name in 1961.[3][4]
As a child Brownmiller was sent to theEast Midwood Jewish Center for two afternoons a week to learn Hebrew and Jewish history. She would later comment, "It all got sort of mishmashed in my brain except for one thread: a helluva lot of people over the centuries seemed to want to harm Jewish people. ... I can argue that my chosen path – to fight against physical harm, specifically the terror ofviolence against women – had its origins in what I had learned in Hebrew School about thepogroms andThe Holocaust."[5]
She had "a stormy adolescence",[6] attendingCornell University for two years (1952 to 1954) on scholarships, but not graduating. She later studied acting inNew York City. She appeared in twooff-Broadway productions.[7]
Brownmiller also participated incivil rights activism, joiningCORE andSNCC during thesit-in movement in 1964. Brownmiller volunteered forFreedom Summer in 1964, wherein she worked onvoter registration inMeridian, Mississippi. According to her own account:
She first became involved in theWomen's Liberation Movement in New York City in 1968, by participating in aconsciousness-raising group in the newly formedNew York Radical Women organization,[9] where she stated: "I've had three illegal abortions."[2]
Brownmiller went on to coordinate a sit-in againstLadies' Home Journal in March 1970.[10][2] As the informal leader of the West Village-1 brigade within theNew York Radical Feminists (formed in late 1969), by February 1970 she began to mount a challenge toShulamith Firestone's leadership, which eventually split the organisation and prompted Firestone's departure in late May/early June 1970.[11]
She began work on her bookAgainst Our Will after a New York Radical Feminists speak-out on rape in 1971, and then spent four years researching and writing in theNew York Public Library.[9]
In 1972, Brownmiller signed her name to theMs. campaign “We Have Had Abortions” which called for an end to "archaic laws" limiting reproductive freedom; they encouraged women to share their stories and take action.[12]
In 1977, Brownmiller became an associate of theWomen's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP).[13] WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media. She attended a feminist anti-pornography conference in 1978.[2] She co-foundedWomen Against Pornography in 1979.[14]
Brownmiller's path intojournalism began with an editorial position at a "confession magazine". She went on to work as an assistant to the managing editor atCoronet (1959–60), as an editor of theAlbany Report, a weekly review of theNew York State legislature (1961–1962), and as a national affairs researcher atNewsweek.[15] In the mid-1960s, Brownmiller continued her career in journalism with positions as a reporter forNBC-TV in Philadelphia, staff writer forThe Village Voice, and as anetwork news writer forABC-TV in New York City.[16]
Beginning in 1968, she worked as afreelance writer; her book reviews, essays, and articles appeared regularly in publications includingThe New York Times,Newsday,The New York Daily News,Vogue, andThe Nation.[3] In 1968, she signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against theVietnam War.[17]
In New York, she began writing forThe Village Voice and became a network TV newswriter at theAmerican Broadcasting Company, a job she held until 1968. In her later years, she continued to write and speak on feminist issues, including a memoir and history ofSecond Wave radical feminism titledIn Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999).[18]
Against Our Will (1975)[19] is afeminist 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."[19] In order to write the book, after having helped to organize theNew 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.[9] 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.[20][better source needed]
Brownmiller's book received criticism from feminists, includingbell hooks andAngela Davis, who wrote that Brownmiller's discussion of rape and race became an "unthinking partisanship which borders on racism".[21][22][2]
After the book was published, Brownmiller was named as one of theTime magazine people of the year.[9] In 1995, theNew York Public Library selectedAgainst Our Will as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.[23]
Brownmiller described herself as "a single woman", even though "I was always a great believer in romance and partnership."[24] "I would like to be in close association with a man whose work I respect," she told an interviewer in 1976, attributing her unmarried status to the fact that she was "not willing to compromise."[25] She never married.[2]
Brownmiller died from a long illness at a hospital in New York City, on May 24, 2025, at the age of 90.[18][26] Her papers have been archived atHarvard, in theArthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.[3]
Brownmiller won anAlicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship[33] in 1973 to research and write about the crime of rape. She was named as one of 12 Women of the Year byTime magazine in 1975.[21]
She is featured in the feminist history filmShe's Beautiful When She's Angry (2014).[34][35]
Brownmiller described attempting to acquire femininity as "bafflingly inconsistent at the same time [as]… minutely demanding… Femininity always demands more". And she warned that "an unending absorption in the drive for a perfect appearance… is the ultimate restriction on freedom of mind".
