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BIO
Susan
Brownmiller was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 15, 1935. She attended
Cornell University on scholarship and later studied acting in New
York. In February 1960 a southern movement to end segregation inspired
her to become a political activist. Since then she has worked as
a writer for Newsweek and ABC Television News. Her other works include
AGAINST OUR WILL and FEMININITY.
INTERVIEW
May
26, 2000
Starting with her classic, AGAINST OUR WILL, Susan Brownmiller has
paved the way for women over the years with her journalism and feminism.
Her most recent work, IN OUR TIME: Memoir of a Revolution, is more
history than memoir, although Brownmiller does share her first feminist
epiphany, which took her by surprise at the age of 33. Bookreporter.com's
Senior Writer Jana Siciliano was thrilled to speak with this cultural
icon. Learn more about the woman, the feminist, and the author in
this in depth interview.
TBR: Before asking you anything, I want to thank you for IN OUR
TIME. As I grew up I was conscious of what was going on during the
last years of the period you're writing about and the book makes
me jealous that I wasn't born sooner and didn't get to be part of
it. IN OUR TIME looks at the contemporary feminist movement from
the your dual perspective of participant and journalist. But what
do you think these feminists passed on to my generation and are
we fulfilling your hopes and dreams?
SB: I think so. But the most
important thing is that we opened so many doors, so many opportunities
in work, especially in corporate jobs and what we call nontraditional
jobs, such as bus drivers, taxi drivers, telephone repair people,
firefighters. We have also come up with new ways to cope with very
old problems, such as violence, rape, and sexual harassment. There
is a corporate responsibility now. The downside is that few people
give credit to the movement.
TBR: Why did you decide that this was the time to write about
those experiences? Did you hope that this would bring greater attention
to what women of that generation accomplished?
SB: I think that America forgets
the contributions of its radical political movements. This isn't
true in Europe or even Canada.
TBR: What contact do you have today with a lot of the feminists
you mention in the book? What organizations that started in the
70's movement do you still participate in or support? Was anyone
angry or flattered by their portrayals?
SB: Well, I play poker with
some of them on Saturday nights.
TBR: Are you a good poker player?
SB: Yes, but we have very low
stakes. Otherwise we keep in touch by email. [As far as organizations
go], NOW is increasingly important because the movement is in a
holding pattern. They have a national presence in Washington, which
is great. A reporter can always call someone for a response on any
issue.
TBR: When you watch something like the Million Mom March, what
do you see? A new wave of activism that will continue or a singular
event that raises public consciousness briefly, then fades away?
SB: I think it would be nice
to have it continue but I don't know. The women who are doing it
are wonderful, though, and they seem to have come out of nowhere.
TBR: Isn't that how any feminist movement works?
SB: Absolutely.
TBR: Do you still think that a book can change the political
focus of a country? AGAINST OUR WILL certainly seemed to do just
that.
SB: I make the point in IN OUR
TIME that AGAINST OUR WILL isn't an isolated work. It came out of
a movement. I wouldn't have thought to write about rape without
that movement and it was the movement people who pushed it onto
the bestseller list. When people talk about Rachel Carson and SILENT
SPRING, that book did not seem to come out of a movement. Instead,
the ecology movement seemed to follow Rachel Carson. So there's
a book that was really ahead of its time. Same with [Betty] Friedan's
THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE and [Simone de] Beauvoir's THE SECOND SEX.
Those books did not come out of movements but helped to create movements.
My book came from the movement and indeed it did change things internationally.
TBR: What have you read recently that you think has given a new
slant on a particular feminist issue?
SB: I really read anything like
that recently. Someone read me a review in PW about Andrea Dworkin's
new book, SCAPEGOAT, in which she makes connections between the
oppression of Jews, blacks, and women, and ties them together. I'm
interested in reading that, but I haven't yet.
TBR: Are you familiar with the book THE RETURN TO MODESTY, by
Wendy Shalit?
SB: No. I've heard of it but
I haven't read it.
TBR: When you hear about women writing about a return to more
traditional role in society . . .
SB: Is that what she's saying?
A traditional role? I thought her book said that our position as
women is the need of fidelity, faithfulness, and intimacy, and that
random sexual experiments don't work. For example, many
men are promiscuous, and her book was a reaction against the fact
that when women tried to claim that same privilege, it didn't work.
TBR: One of my favorite quotes from IN OUR TIME comes from the
Epilogue: "And what malevolent trickster in the government mint
honored Susan B. Anthony and the suffrage struggle with a dollar
coin that looked and felt like a quarter?" I read a lot into the
changing of the dollar coin to Sacajawea but what is your enlightened
perspective on this. I see it as a dangerous signal about this society
not recognizing women's past achievements and how our achievements
now are being built on those foundations. Do you think it represents
a general lack of knowledge about the importance of achieving women
in American history? Or is it all about publicity?
SB: I think that the gold coin
is going to fail the way the Susan B. Anthony coin did. (laughs)
But yes, seriously, it did turn out to be a slap in the face. I
said my line as a joke but I really think there were people who
were saying, "Well, this will shut them up." It means nothing. It's
a terrible irritation, too, because when I play poker, people occasionally
throw them in. But nobody wants them.
TBR: Do you think that the whole idea of recognizing the importance
of women who achieved so much in American history comes from the
attitudes of educators in this country? Or is it something that
is more a social problem?
SB: No, it's up to the educators
to see that the achievements of women are included in the textbooks.
That's a very basic need. [It's encouraging] that there are new
efforts now to start museums for women. People are trying different
strategies.
TBR: Did you read the ATLANTIC MONTHLY cover story on how the
educational system in this country is creating a backlash against
boys in its concerted efforts to encourage greater learning among
girls? What do you think about that presumption?
SB: I heard about that and thought
it was very silly.
TBR: What do you think is the single most important feminist
issue in the US today? Or do you think that the platform for feminists
is now as multitasked as women's lives are in general?
SB: I think that the most important
issue that is beginning to emerge is how to bring parenting into
the workplace. The workplace has to be flexible enough to take care
of the concerns of not only motherhood but fatherhood. And it's
increasingly becoming a very interesting issue. You've been reading
about Tony Blair and his wife...Cheri has been pushing the Prime
Minister to take time off when the new baby is born. It's exciting.
Our generation couldn't raise this issue because there weren't enough
of us in the workplace. The first pass was to get into the workplace
and have meaningful jobs. Then came the question, Hey if we have
children, will this be an impediment to our careers or will the
workplace learn to accommodate to our needs? So we'll see what happens.
It's definitely the issue on the horizon!
TBR: Do you consider yourself a journalist and writer first and
then an activist, or the other way around?
SB: I've always considered myself
a journalist first. But increasingly, as I write about the past,
I think of myself as a historian. I was very lucky that my career
in journalism was in place where the women's movement started because
I already had skills to write AGAINST OUR WILL. I wasn't the only
one who wrote about rape in the 70s, but I was the best qualified
because I knew more about writing. So they have gone hand in hand
for me. But I'm happiest when I'm doing both.
TBR: You've written a novel before. Have you considered doing
any more fiction work?
SB: I would love to.
TBR: Have you ever been approached or considered the possibility
of dramatizing the events you've watched and participated? In the
right hands, any one of the stories you tell in this book would
make an amazing film.
SB: I have tried but I haven't
been successful at it. I even wrote a one-act play but that's a
very hard form. A novel is easier than a play. I wrote a couple
of screenplays but I couldn't sell them. It's very hard.
TBR: I know. I got sick of having producers ask me, "Why does
the protagonist have to be a woman? Can't there be some action in
this? And where is all the sex?"
SB: I wrote a screenplay about
a girl gang, basing it on the great gang comedies out there. The
Italians had done them, the British had done them...I had so much
fun. The producers and directors said, "I don't understand the motivation,
why would these women opt for this life?" They never say it about
these other gang comedies, they just accept them.
TBR: Who influences you specifically as a writer, in terms of
craft and subject?
SB: Oh, of course Virginia Woolf
--- she was very brave, very very brave. Because of the work I've
done, such as for RAPE, I used Durkheim's SUICIDE as a model. This
guy chose a subject that had a history and brought it to popular
attention. For this book I kept thinking narrative, narrative, narrative.
I have to tell stories. So I got to thinking of John Reed and TEN
DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD and James Michener. I loved the idea that
James Michener might be perched on my shoulder while I was writing
because the guy had great narrative skills. It's an eclectic assortment
of people I've turned to in the course of my work. Nobody would
expect that.
TBR: Who influences you today as a political thinker?
SB: These are hard times for
political theory. The fall of Communism and Marxism discredited
so much political philosophy that it's really hard for anyone to
get excited about political philosophy today. These movements have
caused tremendous destruction --- they didn't mean to, they were
really trying to improve the world but look what happened. I always
say look at the women's movement. We have never been granted credit
for being profoundly philosophical in our approach and changing
the world.
TBR: What do you think about the Beijing Conference and the upcoming
Beijing + 5 Conference this summer to be held at the United Nations?
Do you find it encouraging that American women are reaching out
to work with women in other countries?
SB: It is encouraging. I'm always
been slightly cynical about the international conferences because
they feel like high-class tourism. They're too big. People
go maybe only to have a good time. But for the sake of those in
other countries, they have to do it.
TBR: Is this one of the legacies of the 70's movement? People
in other countries have been inspired by what your generation did?
SB: We opened up a new way of
thinking around the world, yes. Third world countries are just discovering
it now. I really don't know how much of a role American women can
play. There's a big differences of opinion about what American women
can do to alleviate the plight of women in Afghanistan and it's
my sense that the women in Afghanistan must rise up, as difficult
as that might be.
TBR: I think there are so many issues that need to be dealt with
here. Do you wish that women who are doing things for women elsewhere
would take a look at what needs to be done at home first?
SB: Absolutely. We feel that
way, but others might not. The Feminist Majority Foundation has
put a lot of its resources into raising consciousness in Afghanistan,
but I agree with you. We have a lot of problems here. A lot of people
ran off to Serbia and Bosnia and were very upset about rape in those
areas, but we haven't quite solved that problem here.
TBR: Did you read THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RAPE?
SB: Oh, sure. (laughs)
TBR: Please tell us what you thought about it.
SB: The science was lousy. Its
social policy was unbelievably bad, calling for chaperones and women
to dress more modestly. I thought it was a joke. It was disturbing
to me that the book got so much attention. It can have no effect
on working against rape and alleviating crime.
TBR: Do you think the media is just way too eager to jump onto
the next big thing instead of putting it in context?
SB: It upset me with the Thornhill
book, especially, because [every] reporter I spoke to --- they were
all calling me for comments --- created their stories based on the
controversy surrounding the book and not on the book itself.
TBR: What are you working on now?
SB: Ah! I am just now trying
to work out a proposal to examine male promiscuity. I think if we
collect all the stories and get the whole picture, it could be helpful.
How do women know when they've run into a promiscuous man? So that's
what I'm trying to do.
TBR: Does your writing process change depending on the type of
book you are doing or does it just evolve generally over time?
SB: It totally depends on what
I'm doing, yes. When I wrote my novel, I had to give myself permission
to imagine, to create, because all my life I have been rooted in
facts. It was scary at first and exciting to do. But you have to
keep earning a living and consider what's going to sell and how
to get a contract for it.
TBR: How do you see women's roles in the American political system
changing over the next few years?
SB: I think that '70s feminists
never anticipated a Hillary Clinton or a Monica Lewinsky. They're
disappointing, both of these women. They're not what we envisioned.
What's lacking [in Hillary] is the ability to tell the truth. I
can't believe how deceitful she's been willing to be and I think
it is to protect her own corner there, to protect her own interests.
TBR: It is unfortunate. But do you see anybody out there, a lone
figure standing on her own, in the political spectrum?
SB: I prefer Diane Feinstein.
TBR: That's exactly who I was thinking of. I also miss Pat Schroeder.
SB: Yes, absolutely.
TBR: When will a woman truly be able to run for president of
the USA?
SB: I don't know.
TBR: This question is about you personally now. Is this the life
you always imagined yourself leading?
SB: (laughs.) No! I totally
had another plan. First of all, I never thought I would be a single
woman. I don't know about children, but I was always a great believer
in romance and partnership. I always had a dream to write but I
spent years trying to be an actress. So in the master plan, I was
going to be an actress, then I was going to write plays and then
I was going to be a theater critic. That's how I thought my life
was going to go. It's funny because I really miss theater and I
go to see a lot of it. I'm not a participant and sometimes it hurts
me that I'm not. I tried to use those principals in my books, the
nonfiction books, to set up conflicts. I think the training and
dramatic conflict [is important] or otherwise the page is pretty
boring.
TBR: What plays have you seen recently that you think bode well
for the future of drama as a social or political tool? Did you see
HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE?
SB: That's just what I was thinking
of. By Paula Vogel. That was good. I saw it late and I loved it.
And the Marsha Norman plays were wonderful.
TBR: What did you think was the power in becoming an actress?
I'm still blown away by the idea that you would want to be an actress.
SB: It was a time when women
couldn't say they wanted to be engineers or lawyers or doctors.
So being an actress was the safe ambition because we knew there
were roles for actresses. So many women I knew who should have been
lawyers spent years studying acting and making the rounds and we
were probably very unsuited for that work.
TBR: Do you get sad when it's time
to hunker down and work on a book?
SB: Oh, no, I feel so fragmented
now, since I've been doing a little bit of speaking at colleges.
I went to London to promote the book and Grenada is doing a documentary
on the Ten Commandments and asked me back to be on the panel so
I'm going back next week. I can't complain. But what I want to do
is work on another project, so when I get up in the morning, I know
exactly what I have to do--go to the computer and work! That makes
me happiest.
TBR: I look forward to reading anything
you do. It's been a great pleasure to talk to you. Good luck with
your new work!
SB: It's been fun. Thank you!
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