Against Our Will Author on What Today’s Rape Activists Don’t Get
http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/09/what...b-share-thecut
Susan Brownmiller, who published the groundbreaking Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape in 1975, takes issue with the current conversation around sexual assault.
She believes it's unrealistic for women to think they can drink like men and still be safe, and that women are responsible for keeping themselves out of dangerous situations.
The 80-year-old is also concerned the campus activist movement ignores the experiences of women of color and low socioeconomic status, whom she says are statistically more likely to be assaulted.
They have been tremendously influenced by the idea that "You can drink as much as you want because you are the equal of a guy," and it is not true. They don't accept the fact there are predators out there, and that all women have to take special precautions. They think they can drink as much as men, which is crazy because they can't drink as much as men. I find the position "Don't blame us, we're survivors" to be appalling.
Also, they [college women] are not the chief targets of rapists. Young women and all women in housing projects and ghettos are still in far greater danger than college girls.
The women's movement in the '70s was not a campus movement at all. I like to see activism wherever it rears its head, but this is a very limited movement that doesn't accept reality. 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 bothered me, too, when they 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. It's unrealistic. I don't know what happened to the understanding people had in the 1970s.
And my feeling about young women trapped in sex situations that they don’t want is: "Didn’t you see the warning signs? Who do you expect to do your fighting for you?"
It is a little late, after you are both undressed, to say "I don’t want this."