SOURCE: Pistono, Stephen P. “Susan Brownmiller and the History of Rape.” Women's Studies 14, no. 3 (February 1988): 265–76.

In the following essay, Pistono evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Brownmiller's argument in Against Our Will with respect to the history of rape laws.

A decade ago, Susan Brownmiller's book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape first appeared in print.¹ She insisted that it was a history of rape. Most historians ignored her work, perhaps, because as one of them suggested the subject of her inquiry was hitherto “as well known to conventional scholars as the dark side of the moon.”² Those few who took account of it were extremely critical. They found her central thesis difficult to accept. She argued that rape amounted to “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.”³ It was “the quintessential act by which a male...