‘Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” – Susan Brownmiller, 1975.
“Culture may tell you, ‘You can drink as much as men’, but you can’t. People think they can have it all ways. The slut marches . . . said you can wear whatever you want. Well sure, but you look like a hooker. They say, ‘That doesn’t matter’, but it matters to the man who wants to rape . . . I don’t know what happened to the understanding people had in the 1970s.” – Susan Brownmiller, 2015
In 1979 when I was a student at Trinity College some experiences of my own and a good look around me led me to join the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre as a volunteer. It had just recently burst onto the public stage with its radical denunciation of a culture that so disrespected women that it blamed them for the most extreme acts of sexual violence committed upon them by men.
Part of our training was to read and debate Brownmiller's Against Our Will – Men,Women and Rape, which had been published in 1975. I think we all had misgivings about the claim about all men deliberately intimidating all women. However, young and full of righteous anger about the glaring gap between the reality of women's experience of rape and the smug social attitudes which prevailed about it in Ireland at that time, we threw it out there anyway as a challenge and a provocation.
This was a time when there could be over 100 women and children in the four-bedroom Women’s Aid refuge, when not only was rape in marriage not a crime, but a man could sue the rapist of his wife for compensation, when a judge could give a man who raped women at knifepoint a suspended sentence on the grounds that he was frustrated in his marriage, when a barrister could force a young unmarried woman alleging rape to “admit” she had previously had consensual sex. No wonder women blamed themselves and felt shame.
Modern feminism
Against Our Will is one of the landmark texts of modern feminism. Brownmiller's powerful analysis bolstered campaigns, like ours, to change laws based on patriarchal prejudice rather than on women's experience of violence. She laid bare the evidence that the source of rape is a deep-seated hatred of women and she insisted that women neither provoked nor colluded in the violence.
Forty years later, Brownmiller, now 80, has just given a cranky and embarrassing interview to the New York Times magazine. Speaking about the young women currently campaigning against campus rape in the US, she huffs that they think they have discovered rape and accuses them of running "a limited movement".
Poor women are not only at greater risk, “they are more important than the college kids”. Getting drunk is “crazy” because “there are predators out there and all women have to take special precautions”. She implies that if you dress a certain way you are inviting rape, and says it is “a little late” to say no to sex “after you are both undressed”. She also takes “a hard line” with victims of domestic violence, and admits she does not respect those who stay in abusive relationships, whatever the reason.
When she wrote Against Our Will Brownmiller described how her intellectual defences had been swept away by the study of rape, and she stressed the need to have an open and a flexible mind. Sadly, she seems to have reverted to denial. Let us be clear: women do not provoke rape. Rapists have preyed upon babies, children, young women and old women, even dead women. There are complex reasons why women experiencing domestic violence, including rape, may stay even in situations that are life threatening. No victim of rape is more, or less, important than another.
‘Let go of our heroes’
Inevitably, some of the feminists who are today leading the debate on rape have denounced Brownmiller. Kate Harding, author of Asking For It, said she had got used to warning people that revelations about sexual crimes by public figures mean that "we have to be ready to let go of our heroes" and that now Brownmiller has, disappointingly, fallen into that category.
Jessica Valenti wrote, snidely, that the interview was “a reminder for those with their heyday behind them that young people do not make you irrelevant, living in your own bubble does”.
Brownmiller blazed a trail and deserves respect for that but she has stooped to folly and must expect a harsh response. New generations of activists will inevitably develop new arguments based on their own experiences. Maybe some of today's ideas and tactics will look wrongheaded in 40 years but some of Against Our Will has not stood the test of time either. Those who are courageous will make mistakes. It will always be the prerogative of the fiery young to lead the women's movement, and older women must support them, however critically, and yield with grace.
None of us, young or old, have managed to stop the culture of rape from flourishing. Any hope we have must lie in a generous respect for all of those who try.
Susan McKay was one of the founders of the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre and her books include Without Fear – A History of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (New Island, 2004). The National Rape Crisis Helpline is: 1800-778888