Victims in a male world

Press, 26 February 1977, Page 15

Victims in a male world

gainst Our Will. By Susan Brownmiller. Penguin Books. 472 pp. $2.50. (Reviewed by Jennifer Hamilton) Susan Brownmiller sets herself an ■nibitious task when she attempts to justify the statement that tape is a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. Undaunted, she confronts the reader with historical attitudes and wellsupported studies on the relevance rape to women in today’s society. She defines rape in feminist terms. If a woman chooses not to have intercourse with a specific man. and the man chaoses to proceed against her will, that is a criminal act of rape The book traces the degradation of women by men through history. Until the thirteenth century. the ravished woman was regarded more in terms of devalued goods worth less to her master. After that time rape became recognised a a public wrong. Women are described as the inevitable victims of war throughout the centuries. “War provides men with a perfect psychologic backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women,” says Susan Brownmiller. The author dismisses the American rapist stereotype as a psychoschizophrenic who is timid and sexually deprived. She defines rapist murderers as brutalised, violence-prone men who act out their raging hatred against the world through an object offering the least amount of physical resistance — a woman's body. Susan Brownmiller believes that a rape victim in our society faces almost impossible odds in getting a conviction brought against her attacker. Every channel the

complainant passes thr ugh is ma e dominated. She claims that the victim must fight the fallacy of views such as “no woman can be raped against her will," “all women want to be raped.” and “she was asking for it Juries are mah-dominated, i"o. and are extremely reluctant to cons cl In the courts the victim 's on ria . and Susan Brownmil\t believes ’h< pr.u edures are patent!) says that the special burden on a rape victim of proving that she t si-ied. and that her eventual compliance was no indication of lam consent, s unlai’ because such standard* aie not applied to the behaviour of victims in <nh<T kinds of v iolent crime Susa women will have to press fet tneir rights and involve themseves in legal processes to reduce -ex bias, which favours the male rapist In 1973 the I 8.1 reported that 15 pet cent of rape complaints were false accusations When women interviewed the complainants the figure fell to tw per cent. According to ;he author, women seem to believe the word of other women: men do not. For her basic premise of the male’s intimida: on of women. Susan Brownmiller finds most support in society's values and expectations. Rape has become a norm in our society and rapists are memorialised in history as well as films. “Against Our Will" makes a strong case against the rapist. But this reviewer would temper the author's assertion that rape is a process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. The male attitude is nm usually conscious, although man's superioritv is deeply ingrained.