Brownmiller, Susan.
Variant namesBiographical notes:
Born in 1935 in New York City, Susan Brownmiller is a journalist and author perhaps best known for her book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975). She attended Cornell University (1952-1954) and worked for Coronet magazine, the Albany Report, and Newsweek before resigning to aid the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in its voter registration drive in Mississippi in 1964. She was also active in voter registration drives with the East Harlem Reform Democrats, where she ran for district leader. In the late 1960s she worked for a time in radio and TV; her book reviews, essays, and articles appeared regularly in the New York Times, Newsday, the New York Daily News, Vogue, the Nation, and the Village Voice, among others. Other books have included Shirley Chisholm: A Biography (1970), Femininity (1984), Waverly Place (1989), Seeing Vietnam: Encounters of the Road and Heart (1994), and In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999). Brownmiller was active in the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s; she was a co-founder of the New York Radical Feminists. Her continuing interest in women's issues led her to help found Women Against Pornography in 1979. The recipient of numerous awards, Brownmiller lectures widely on rape, sexual assault, and the history of the women's movement.
From the description of Papers, 1935-2000 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 122592525
Writer, feminist, and activist Susan Brownmiller was born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 15, 1935, the only child of Mae and Samuel Warhaftig. She attended Cornell University (1952-1954), and after leaving school, studied acting in New York City. While training as an actor, she took the stage name Brownmiller, legally changing her name in 1961. Brownmiller's interest in journalism and editorial work began with a position at a confession magazine. She went on to work as an assistant to the managing editor at Coronet magazine (1959-1960), as an editor of the Albany Report (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 .
Brownmiller published her first book, Shirley Chisholm: A Biography, in 1970. Written for young readers, the biography told the life story of the first African American United States Congresswoman. During the late 1960s, Brownmiller became active in the women's liberation movement. In 1970, she orchestrated a sit-in at the offices of the Ladies' Home Journal to protest the content of the magazine, which they considered demeaning to women. Brownmiller became inspired to explore the topic of rape after helping to organize a 1971 conference on rape with the New York Radical Feminists (an organization of which she was a co-founder). In 1975, she published the feminist classic, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape . The product of four years of research, the controversial Against Our Will argued that rape was a "conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." Against Our Will was a bestseller, and Brownmiller received both criticism and acclaim. In 1975 she was named one of Time Magazine 's twelve Women of the Year.
After publishing Against Our Will, Brownmiller lectured widely on the topic of rape. Her continuing interest in women's issues led her to help found Women Against Pornography in 1979. She published another feminist analysis, Femininity, in 1984. In 1987, Brownmiller, like many New Yorkers, was captivated by the Joel Steinberg domestic abuse case, which occurred in her Greenwich Village neighborhood, and she published a fictional treatment of the case, Waverly Place, in 1989. In 1992, Brownmiller visited Vietnam for Travel & Leisure magazine. The trip led her to write a travel memoir, Seeing Vietnam: Encounters of the Road and Heart (1994). In the mid-1990s, Brownmiller interviewed over two hundred activists for her chronicle of radical feminist movement, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999).
Brownmiller received numerous awards and fellowships. In writing Against Our Will, she was awarded both an Alicia Patterson grant for journalism and a Louis M. Rabinowitz Foundation grant in 1973. She received the Mademoiselle Achievement Award (1975), the Women In Communication Matrix Award (1984), and the Travel Story Grand Award from the Pacific American Travel Association (1994). She has served as a judge for the National Book Awards (1980) and the New York Foundation for the Arts (1991).
From the guide to the Papers, 1935-2000, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
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Subjects:
- Abortion
- Abortion
- Authors, American
- Authors and publishers
- Civil rights
- Demonstrations
- Family violence
- Feminism
- Feminists
- Jewish women
- Journalists
- Pornography
- Rape
- Rape victim services
- Rapists
- Sex discrimination against women
- Violence
- Wife abuse
- Abortion
Occupations:
- Authors
- Journalists
Places:
- Vietnam (as recorded)
- United States (as recorded)
