Season 2, Episode 6: Against Our Will

In the 1960s and early 1970s many Americans believed that rape was a rare and violent act perpetrated by outsiders and sociopaths. Popular culture taught men that women needed to be tricked or coerced into sex, and psychiatrists accused rape victims of secretly inviting their attacks. Susan Brownmiller’s best-selling book Against Our Will shattered these myths about sexual violence. Informed by the broader feminist anti-rape movement, Against Our Will portrayed rape as a systemic, pervasive, and culturally sanctioned act of power and intimidation. Yet even as Brownmiller provided a framework for naming sexual violence as a mechanism of patriarchy, she also minimized the importance of race and denied the ways that rape accusations have long justified the criminalization and murder of men of color. At a moment when has brought about yet another national reckoning with sexual violence and male power, Brownmiller’s book, its legacy, and the contexts that produced the anti-rape movement of the 1970s demand re-examination. Hosts and Creators: Gillian Frank and Lauren Gutterman Senior Producer: Saniya Lee Ghanoui Producer and Story Editor: Rebecca Davis Assistant Producers: Chris Babits, Isabel Machado and Mallory Szymanski Intern: Julian Harbaugh Thank you to Susan Brownmiller for sharing her story with us. If you enjoyed this episode, please review us on iTunes or Soundcloud and share us on social media. Please support our work and keep new episodes coming by making a small donation to Sexing History.

You can listen to Season 2, Episode 6: Against Our Will online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Season 2, Episode 6: Against Our Will is an episode from Sexing History by Gillian Frank & Lauren Gutterman.

This episode is 41:40 long.

This episode was published on Nov 15, 2019.

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