Susan Brownmiller wrote the landmark Against Our Will, a look at rape throughout history that hit like a bomb in 1975. It triggered a lot of controversy, and some of her facts and views were challenged (for example her argument marriage evolved as a protection racket—let one man rape you and he’ll keep the other rapists off your back. Which yeah, deserves challenging). At the same time, it drove home that rape wasn’t sexy, wasn’t rare, wasn’t something victims did to themselves (which, god help us, are still controversial views 40 years later) and that the system was lousy about dealing with it.
Unfortunately in a recent interview, she engages in a lot of victim-blaming and rape apologetics. Women who go out, get trashed and then get raped have it coming. Women who dress like hookers don’t realize they’re inviting rape (as I’ve mentioned before, if a man thinks a woman looks like a hooker, the logical response is to offer money, not rape her, unless you think sex workers are somehow fair game). Campus rape is trivial so activists are wasting their time fussing about it. And at the end of the interview wondering why nobody pays much attention to the rapists, when she’s spent the whole interview focusing on the victim.
The dissection of Brownmiller at the link also includes a great definition (I think) of rape culture: “the guys who made a video laughing about it, the spreading of the images, the unwillingness of anyone to interfere, the congratulations for domineering, abusive behavior. That is why assault happens, not because some girls drink too much. We need to help young people, both men and women, spot predatory behavior for what it is, and to push against it instead of laughing it off.”
In other links—
•Defunding Planned Parenthood would increase government spending because of the added Medicaid expenses of poor women’s pregnancies. Nevertheless, the fight to defund it is on-going.
I don’t think anyone in the current debate has ever proposed offering continued funding if PP just stops providing abortions. Which makes me suspect it’s because they’re just as horrified about PP providing birth control and for the whole concept of planning parenthood (after all, only nymphomaniacs need birth control, right?)
•Does it matter if prominent women (or men) with feminist views don’t identify as feminists?
•Matt Damon explains diversity in films (or so he thinks) to a black woman filmmaker
•Some women on Reddit explain that the robot housewifes of Stepford Wives are clearly superior to the rotten feminists they replaced, and that the protagonist was obviously irrational for thinking there was some kind of conspiracy going on (even though she was, of course, correct).
