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From: jpj@mss.UUCP (J. P. Jenal)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Brownmiller & Rape - A Personal View
Message-ID: <163@mss.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Mar-84 21:28:11 EST
Article-I.D.: mss.163
Posted: Wed Mar 14 21:28:11 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Mar-84 07:29:00 EST
References: <1013@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: Mayfield Senior School, Pasadena, Ca
Lines: 42

When I was in graduate school I dated a woman who was working at the
Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center.  Due in part to my association with her
I started looking more closely at the subject of rape and read Brownmiller's
book.  The interesting part of this is that I wound up at a party with
Brownmiller and the staff of the rape crisis center.

My principle difficulty with the book was that its major premise, that
ALL men use rape to subjugate ALL women, simply left no room for a man
(as an individual) to feel part of the solution instead of part of the
problem.  While I was at the party I finally fought my way through the
crowd to ask Ms. Brownmiller about the strident tone of her otherwise
informative book.  She simply responded that she was in a fight and 
didn't have time to worry about the sensibilities of the (relatively)
few males who would bother to read her book.  She was trying to make
a point and didn't want to dilute that point with equivocations.

A couple of the women that were at the party later came up to me and 
said that they too were uncomfortable with the tone of Brownmiller's
work and felt that alienating men and women further was not a solution
to the problem.

Apparently Brownmiller feels somewhat uncomfortable now as well.
I remember reading recently (sorry, can't quote the source -
I read this in a hurry and didn't think I was going to cite it!)
that she now feels that she may have erred by making her book
too condemning of men in general.

Rather than condemning any group in general - we need to work toward
educating people to the point of caring about others - not just kin,
but kind.  As to how we do this - certainly in part by trying to show
that caring as we go and very importantly, instilling that concern in
our children.  

I'll try to remember those words tomorrow as I *drive* to school - we've
got to start somewhere.
-- 

Cheers...

	Jim Jenal		(aka sdcrdcf!trwrb!scgvaxd!mss!jpj)
	Mayfield Senior School	( "  vortex!wlbr!scgvaxd!mss!jpj)