Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway
From: tittle@ics.UCI.EDU (Cindy Tittle Moore)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Book Review: Against Our Will
Message-ID: <4298.673580348@blanche.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 18:05:29 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine: ICS Department
Lines: 182
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: blanche.ics.uci.edu

Review by Cindy Tittle Moore
May 6, 1991

This article may be reproduced only in its entirety; which includes
preserving the author's name, this notice, and all addresses given at
the end.  It is freely redistributable as long as all recipients are
entitled to do so likewise and no profit is made.

Copyright (C) 1991 by Cindy Tittle Moore

  Against Our Will
  by Susan Brownmiller
  Bantam Books
  ISBN 0-553-25895-8 (paperback)
  Library of Congress: not given

  All page numbers given are from the Bantam paperback version.

Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller is a disturbing, contradictory
work.  It is misrepresented both by feminist and anti-feminist camps;
feminists lauding it as a quintessentially accurate portrayal of rape,
the anti-feminists denouncing it as a virulently anti-male piece of
propoganda.  The book is neither.

I had heard so much contradictory commentary on this book; commentary
I was unwilling by and large to address since I had not read the book,
that I was hesitant about reading this.  I was surprised to find, for
example, that a substantial portion of the book is composed of
compiling a history and background to rape.  There is a solid amount
of documentary evidence collected here to illustrate the history of
rape.  At the same time, the outrageous quotes that
anti-Brownmillerians trot out at every opportunity are present, and
not taken too much out of context.  It is worth noting, however, that
the bulk of the outrageous quotes are found in the first chapter and a
half of the book.  There are a few more isolated outrageous quotes
after the first chapter, but they are few and far between.  The end
effect is that of a personal polemic tacked on to the beginning of an
otherwise solid piece of work.

I have serious qualms about portions of this book (which I will, of
course, expound on ;-), but I am willing to express admiration overall
for this book, which was a book written on rape published over 15
years ago.  As such, it is a landmark work and the influence of its
thought appears in much of today's debates, even among those who most
ferociously denounce her.  It is therefore an important book and
should be read.  However, as we will see, it is not without serious
flaws.

The first two chapters discuss the ``mass psychology of rape'' in
which Brownmiller assesses the effect that the existence of rape has
on our society.  As I have previously mentioned, this chapter is
riddled with outrageous generalizations.  Even taking into account
that she is necessarily talking in generalities because she is
expounding on the overall effect of rape in our society, comments such
as

  * ``[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process
    of intimidation by which *all men* keep *all women* in a
    state of fear.'' (pg 5)
    [Then again, ``That *some* men rape provides a sufficient threat
    to keep all women in a constant state of intimidation...'' (pg 229),
    is in contrast to the page 5 quote.  Italics are hers.]
  * ``...one of the earliest forms of male bonding must have
    been the gang rape of one woman by a band of maurauding
    men.'' (pg 5)
  * ``Female fear of an open season of rape, and not a natural
    inclination toward monogamy, motherhood or love, was probably
    the single causative factor in the original subjugation of
    woman by man, the most important key to her historic dependence,
    her domestication by protective mating [that is, mating with a
    chosen male to protect her from the rest of the males]'' (pg 6)

are clearly beyond the bounds of generalizations.  In the rest of the
second chapter she discusses the history of laws pertaining to rape,
showing how the definition of rape has remained very narrow, even, in
some ways, up to now.  She also discusses what the various penalties
were.  There are a number of interesting points brought up here,
unfortunately marred by the polemic so evident in these two chapters.

However, in successive chapters, Brownmiller devotes her time to
documenting the occurrences of rape under various circumstances.  She
discusses rape during wartime, showing the extent of rape in war and
how it fits into the general paradigm of ``the conqueror''.  She also
shows the extent to which rape is sidelined in these same histories:
the defeated side will have always been the one that raped (a good
example is the characterization of the Germans in the early parts of
WWI and WWII), or how the charges of rape were used for propoganda
purposes, or how historians commenting on the wars will ignore or
trivialize reported cases of rape (the time it took to actually verify
the ``Rape of Nanking'' by the Japanese and that its verification was
something of an accident anyway).  Rape in the contexts of
revolutions, pogroms, and riots are explored.  The function of rape in
slavery and in subjugation of the American Indians are also discussed.
All of which makes for intriguing reading.  There is still a tendency
to generalize, but in these chapters, it is overwhelmed by the sheer
amount of data she brings to these discussions.

In addition, Brownmiller details a profile of the ``typical rapist'',
a discussion of gang rape, and the function of rape in prison.  A
point that Brownmiller is at pains to illustrate throughout her book,
that rape is a crime of *violence* and not sex, is beautifully made in
this section.  For example, in prison, the systematic raping of smaller
and more vulnerable men exactly parallels raping of women in society
at large.  In gang rape, Brownmiller descends again into her anti-male
polemic, but an essential point is made: rape is very often committed
by two or more men on one woman and as such is very often planned
(debunking the myths of a single passion-inflamed man raping on the
spur of the moment).  She discusses group dynamics in this section:
points are made here that I've seen elsewhere such as how it is easier
to commit violent acts as a group (think of the Rodney King/LA police
incident). Another point that she hammers home is that rapists are not
depraved, mentally ill, exceptional individuals.  They are ordinary
men who are used to using violence to achieve their ends.  Given that
society as a whole encourages violence in men (as opposed to women),
this has serious implications.  A number of other myths about rape are
discussed in the sixth chapter and are exploded with the precise aid
of various studies done on rape and observations of police and other
statistics.

I considered the most interesting part of the book to be the
discussion on the way rape ought to be treated in court.  She first
argues that we need a simple, straightforward *gender-free* definition
of rape, including but not limited to forcible genital copulation (pg
425).  She argues that the victim's prior sexual history is
irrelevant.  She does admit that the victim's prior sexual history
with the defendant may be relevant.  She argues that a prior sexual
history should not be considered as carte blanche for later sex (e.g.,
that marital rape can occur).  She then goes on to say:

  ``A modern perception of sexual assault that views the crime
  strictly as an injury to the victim's bodily integrity, and not as
  an injury to the purity or chastity of man's estate, must normalize
  the penalties for such an offense and bring them in line more
  realistically with the penalties for aggravated assault, the crime
  to which a sexual assault is most closely related.'' (pg 425)

Even though up to this point, she had made it clear that rape fell
somewhere between aggravated assault and robbery in terms of the
amount of violence used, I was not expecting this.  She goes on to
argue that the severity of the penalty should be based on:

  * the severity of objective physical damage
  * the manner in which the assault was accomplished (e.g., with a
    gun, the number of rapists)
  * any permanent physical damage or lasting phsycological damage

She also discusses how rape should be handled with children and with
the tricky ages between childhood and adulthood.  All of this is a
gem; I would happily distribute copies of pages 422 to 439 as far and
wide as I could if there weren't copyright laws.

Pornography is attacked in this book, as one would expect.  This has
been a long and continuing point of discussion in feminist circles;
this book was certainly one of the earliest that detailed the case
against pornography.  I'm not particularly convinced by the argument
given here, but then I'm in the ``pornography is just a symptom, let's
concentrate on real problems'' camp.  S&M is likewise attacked here; I
disagree with her argument because she does not consider nor discuss
*real*, consensual S&M.  I have no quarrel with the objection to
non-consensual S&M, but this is not the whole story of S&M.

A definite lack in this book is the consideration of non-traditional
rape: she dismissed female-on-male rape even though that does happen
(under the purview of coercive rape) because the only authoritian view
she subscribes to is that of male over female, even though there are
situations, especially adult over child, where the female will be in
authority.  She also discussed male-on-male rape only in the context
of prison.  Female-on-female rape is not even considered.

There are so many good points brought up in this book that I've had to
leave them some of them out for room's sake in this review.  To
summarize, the book is worth reading; she even explodes some of the
myths about *herself* in it, but you have to pick through a certain
amount of dross.  I would assign the book historical importance.
Certainly there is much in the book that it could do without: if you
took out the polemic, you would be left with an excellent book.


There is no king who has not had a       | INTERNET: tittle@ics.uci.edu
slave among his ancestors, and no slave  | BITNET: tittle@uci.bitnet
who has not had a king among his.    __  | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucivax!tittle
  -- Hellen Keller                   \/  | USNAIL: POB 4188, Irvine CA 92716