Susan Brownmiller
| Susan Brownmiller | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Susan Warhaftig 15 February 1935 Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | US |
| Known for | Authoring Against Our Will |
Susan Brownmiller (born 15 February 1935) is an American feminist journalist, author, and activist best known for her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. Brownmiller argues that rape had been previously defined by men rather than women, and that men use it as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear. The New York Public Library selected Against Our Will as one of 100 most important books of the twentieth century.
Brownmiller was born in Brooklyn to Mae and Samuel Warhaftig, a lower-middle-class Jewish couple. Her father was a salesman in the Garment Center and later a vendor in Macy's department store, and her mother was a secretary in the Empire State Building.
As a child she was sent to the East 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 the Jewish people. ... I can argue that my chosen path - to fight against physical harm, specifically the terror of violence against women - had its origins in what I had learned in Hebrew School about the pogroms and The Holocaust."
She had "a stormy adolescence", attending Cornell University for two years (1952 to 1954) on scholarships, but not graduating. She later studied acting in New York City. While training as an actor, she took the stage name Brownmiller, legally changing her name in 1961. She appeared in two off-Broadway productions.
Brownmiller's path into journalism began with an editorial position at a "confession magazine". She went on to work as an assistant to the managing editor at Coronet (1959–1960), as an editor of the Albany Report, a weekly review of the New York State legislature (1961–1962), and as a national affairs researcher at Newsweek (1963–1964). In the mid-1960s, Brownmiller continued her career in journalism with positions as a reporter for NBC-TV in Philadelphia (1965), staff writer for the Village Voice (1965), and as network newswriter for ABC-TV in New York City (1966–1968). Beginning in 1968, she worked as a freelance writer; her book reviews, essays, and articles appeared regularly in publications including The New York Times, Newsday, The New York Daily News, Vogue, and The Nation. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
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