In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution - Softcover

Susan Brownmiller was a Gucci-clad, 33-year-old writer grappling privately with the decidedly masculine preserve of feature journalism when she attended her first consciousness-raising session in 1968. Her first impression? Oh, brother! But as other women around the room told their stories, they resonated with something deep in Brownmiller's psyche, and when it was time to tell her own--"I've had three illegal abortions"--the ambitious reporter experienced something akin to a road-to-Damascus conversion.

Brownmiller's 1975 classic, Against Our Will, helped to change our perception of rape and turned her into a feminist icon overnight; In Our Time, though, is less an argument for transformation than an encyclopaedic look at the forces that shaped the social movement of late 20th-century feminism, from occasional clashes of colourful personalities like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Germaine Greer (who, 30 years later, have a tendency to seem larger than life) to the methodical, often unexciting, day-by-day planning behind the landmark sit-ins, lawsuits, and other headline events. Sisterhood's call to arms was most persuasive when the enemy was economic oppression and the battle cry "equal pay for equal work!" Solidarity was harder to muster, Brownmiller reports, when it came to targeting social injustices, particularly those pertaining to sex. Were Clarence Thomas's raunchy remarks to Anita Hill business as usual or a type of harassment? Was pornography a male counter-reaction intended to degrade newly liberated women or an effort to make sexual pleasure available to fantasists of all persuasions? These arguments persist today--and In Our Time reminds us that they must be viewed in historical context. --Patrizia DiLucchio

Praise for Susan Brownmiller:

Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape

"The most rigorous and provocative piece of scholarship that has yet emerged from the feminist movement. . . . May significantly change the terms of the dialogue between and about men and women."
--Time magazine

"Chilling and monumental. . . . Deserves a place next to those rare books which force us to change the way we feel about what we know."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Susan Brownmiller has succeeded in that rarest and most difficult task: She has written a book that not only must be read but also is readable. As a literary experience this book is as excellent as its ideas."
--Chicago Tribune Book World

"Against Our Will is a work of stunning originality which goes far beyond the statistics of rape to challenge some of society's most accepted assumptions. . . . A landmark work, one of the most significant books to emerge in this decade."
--Houston Chronicle

"A monumental work and a thoroughly chilling eye opener."
--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Femininity

"Illuminating and informative. Miss Brownmiller has turned a treacherous subject into a lively and compelling book . . . essential reading."
--Carol Gilligan, The New York Times Book Review

"She eloquently tells stories many women will identify with."
--The Washington Post Book World

"A positive joy to read!"
--Nora Ephron, Chicago Tribune Book World