Against Our Will : Men, Women, and Rape

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of her time
Review: Controversial? She said things noone dared say before her. She just put the subject on the wall. And all the nice reviews wouldn't have existed if Ms. Brownmiller wouldn't have taken the brave step of putting such a hard issue on paper. Maybe her view is best suited for the American and British societies, but that's where the truth hurts most. And one can see that in the reviews this book got.

Rating:
Summary: The enormity of such crimes still is overwhelming
Review: For an excellent read on the topic of rape and war, please read "Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape" by Susan Brownmiller. The enormity of such crimes is well documented by Brownmiller.

When I read the book in the late 1970s, my understanding of the sexual abuse consequences of war left me overwhelmed by the agony of millions of women through the ages. Upon re-reading it years later, the impact of the book still left me devastated.

Rating:
Summary: Honest and extremely well-researched
Review: In this frank, unvarnished essay on rape, Brownmiller bravely dissects the delicate interworkings of sexism and misogyny within American culture. This book is startling and at times frightening, but it is a must-read for anyone interested in feminist theory, women's studies or learning more about sexual assault in America. If you read this book with an open mind, whether you agree with her or not, Brownmiller will change the way you think about rape.

Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaker still relevant
Review: It may seem hard be believe, but when this book came out in the mid-1970s a lot of people (including me) thought rape was primarily a crime of lust rather than a crime of power. This book changed the entire nature of the discussion. If rape is a crime of power, then it has very little to do with female seduction or with healthy male appetites.
The book is still very relevant, in part because the old myths are still very strong in many parts of the world, helping to hold women as virtual prisoners in their own home countries.
This is not a textbook for social scientists; it is a primer on the real nature of rape.

Rating:
Summary: A solid four stars...
Review: Ms. Brownmiller's groundbreaking work on rape may be a little dated, and some of her more esoteric points incorrect, but for the most part this is an excellent, well written book.

Others have gone into detail about the strengths of this book, but I want to particularly point out her highlighting of the Bangladesh invasion, and how Pakistan used rape as a cultural weapon. Since that time, the former Yugoslavian Republics, numerous central African nations, and many far east nations have adopted the same practice. Ms. Brownmiller explains why such an action is truly a human rights violation of the first order, and deserves more attention than what it gets.

Ms. Brownmiller's one failing, though, is her assertion that rape only exists among humans, and does not exist in any other realm of the animal kingdom. I believe she is incorrect, but that is a small point.

The strongest point in Against Our Will is when Ms. Brownmiller contrasts the film reviews regarding the numerous rape scenes from "A Clockwork Orange," with the reviewers' description of Ned Beatty's rape scene in "Deliverance." While film reviewers fell all over themselves about "fullfillment" and eroticism in "Clockwork," somehow nothing fulfilling nor erotic occured in Deliverance. Now that's a pretty clear double standard.

This book has been around a long time--but it still has something to say. Ms. Brownmiller is a good writer, and the book moves well. Most high schoolers should not have any trouble reading it--and I think most of them (boys & girls) should. It would serve as a wonderful starting point for discussion of contemporary sex roles.

Rating:
Summary: AN HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF RAPE
Review: Published in the midst of the second wave women's movement AGAINST OUR WILL remains an integral book in the feminist literary canon to the present day. Employing an historical analysis Brownmiller reveals in exquisite detail how some men have been subjugating some women since Biblical times. Her thesis of the use of rape during wartimes as an arsenal for the winning army is especially strong and admirable. This section alone deserves to be read by anyone interested in gender and women's studies as it clearly demonstrates how rape has been used to further antagonize and horrify the defeated population. The utilization of rape during the World Wars, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Serbia is certainly a difficult bit of knowledge to swallow. This book clearly demonstrates how rape has been used to keep some women on edge and weary of being both in public spaces and in their own homes.

Despite Brownmiller's important thesis I have several problems with AGAINST OUR WILL. Brownmiller has a tendency to over-emphasis her arguments with a deluge of statistics and case studies. It's almost as if she inserted every historical example she could find to further her arguments. Less is better in this instance. If she pared down her examples I believe her thesis wouldn't have been diluted in any such way. Another objection I have to AGAINST OUR WILL is her assertion of the following quote from her introduction, "Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times...[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear". My problem with this passage is two-fold. First, I think it is mundane and questionable to argue that man's discovery of rape ranks high next to the discovery of fire, etc. I also have clear problems with Brownmiller's assertion that *all* men contemplate rape to keep *all* women in a constant state of fear. It is clear that there are variations of fear and victimization in the general population. Brownmiller argued this every point later in her book when she discussed issues of class and race. To generalize this phenomenon to every man and woman is dangerous in itself. I consider myself to be a feminist but I strongly dispute some of Brownmiller's arguments.

Overall, AGAINST OUR WILL is an important book to read but please be careful not to consume all of the author's arguments at face value.

Rating:
Summary: A foundation of inequality resulting in objectification
Review: Susan Brownmiller's epic project is a carefully researched, well-written piece. "Against Our Will" is so extensive that it is large enough to include psychoanalysis, sociology, criminology, law, and historical fact; it is a marriage of investigative and personal journalism and the child in a call for liberation and justice. The marriage metaphor is a rather odd one to conjure up here as Brownmiller finds the genesis of rape, marriage and family tangled in one giant union. Brownmiller writes that marriage may have provided a modicum of shelter but the price of that protection was death in the legal arena. Brownmiller sees rape as the hidden underpinning for too much so-called social order. According to her, rape is the ultimate act of desecration by which men affirm ownership and power over the other half of humanity. Perhaps this is the junction by which I would like to remind the readers that a closer read of John Stuart Mill would prove enlightening - his premise is that the sooner we value that other half of humanity the better we all will be. Simple in all its complexity, however, having said that, I found, thanks to Brownmiller a possible source for the inability to place value all the way around. Women were seen as property and under man's law; rape was theft, a violation of his estate. This underpinning of subject/object relation certainly has a cascading effect least of which is the eventual dehumanizing of the woman as object. With this as our basis for the treatment of women, it is no wonder that the road to equality is arduous but it does not always have to be that way. "Against Our Will" is one of those rare books like Susan Faludi's "Backlash" or Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" that compels us to deal with something we somewhat intuited. A society that does not place value on women "as-such" is intuitively dysfunctional. Do we really need Brownmiller to tell us that? Brownmiller argues that husband's right to unconditional access to his wife's body was the norm. In the end the whole notion of subject/object relations is not working. In the end, according to Brownmiller, rape is a crime of brutality, often perpetuated by men in twos or gangs, and most alarming of all, that sociological research proves that the standard rapist is more likely the boy next door rather than the sexual deviant of psychological imagining. Brownmiller asserts, "The typical american perpetrator of forcible rape is little more than an aggressive, hostile youth who chooses to do violence to women." We should not be startled than to realize that female freewill means zilch to male aggressors. Within the construct of subject/object we are locked in the eternal cycle and can't get out. The one other item that I personally found disturbing was the valorization of the "rape and pillage" concept. Brownmiller posits. "Within the heterosexual world that most of us inhabit by choice, sexual violence is exalted by men to the level of ideology only when the victims are female and the victimizers are male." The Ubermensch of strength and vigor is one who rapes and pillages - and we valorize that to the point were we are almost nostalgic for it. To imply that mutual kindness is a society perennially on the verge of war is my elegy to our lost humanity. To say the least, I find that frightening. Brownmiller suggests that self-defense training as a possible solution. I counter with that in the end, the responsibility rests with us as a society to realize and value women as equals and moreover not as objects but as subjects - I know this is old news but it is rather plain. We need to remove the need for women to have to engage in self-defense as a deterrent to rape but to engage in the arts in an effort to deter all kinds of violence - and hopefully in the end we won't need it at all.

Miguel Llora

Rating:
Summary: Rape, power and violence: the definitive sociological study
Review: The term ground-breaking has probably been misused in reviews of scholoastic and sociological studies through the years, but the social and judicial ground actually shook when Susan Brownmiller unleashed her empirical study of rape, its impact on both men and women, and its implication for both the social and criminal justice systems. As it was heralded in 1975, "Against Our Will ..." remains the definitive work that forced the act of rape to be redefined as a crime of power and violence with the challenge to society to treat it as such. Amazingly and more shamefully, even in 1975 the act of rape was generally regarded as sexual coercison that, although prosecuted, nonetheless was in part due to the victim's "encouraging" it. That idea now is rightfully tossed as judicially and politically incorrect. But it wasn't until Brownmiller brought the act that had been consigned to the dark into the light for criminal and social rethinking. Because of that truly ground-breaking challenge, the act of rape was wholly reconsidered and accurately characterized as a felony crime of power and violence with sex having a far distant role, if any. At the same time, the social system was sufficiently rattled to initiate treatment, refuge and judicial services for the victim, and they remain with us today. This study is a must for any victim of this unspeakable crime of violence, for anyone who has committed it and to the professional who has to deal with the victim's and their loved ones' physical and emotional devastation. "Against Our Will ..." remains one of the essentials in guiding public policy. Truly, a shattering achievement!