In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution

This was the most memorable book of my summer reading list. I loved it. Susan Brownmiller has thought carefully and insightfully about feminism's herstory. The little gems she recalls, like the (reluctant) appearance of 'feminist media stars' on particular television shows, grounds the larger story she is trying to tell. These little moments give the grander story that she is trying to tell a richness and an intensity that is unlike most histories (whether they are about feminism or any other movement). I know that the patterns and shifts that Brownmiller describes could only have been identified and interpreted with the passage of time. Still, I left the book with a sadness because I was born just enough too late to enjoy the heady days of feminism that she recounts in these pages. I am grateful that she left me convinced it was worth continuing to fight in the (vapid) post-feminist age that we are supposed to be living in now. I shall return to her words when I need a refill of feminist energy.

Like the rest of the world I was fammillar with Ms. Brownmiller through her 1975 classic on rape, I was previously unaware to this time, the extent to which she had been involved in the feminist movement. Certainly, with Rosalyn Baxendal/Linda Gordon and Ruth Rosen, there is no shortage of insider accounts of the women's liberation movement, but this book manages to take the reader--whatever their perspective on feminism---to a deeper level than the other two. Aside from some clearly defensive behavior towards Gloria Steinem's popularity and past involvement with a Helsinki festival (Brownmiller uses emotion-ladden words to infer Steinem knew exactly how shady her actions were--but did it anyway) the book is impartially written and balanced, not an easy task when chronicling your own victories. Because the names mentioned in this book may be unfammilar to a large number of Americans, this book could have wound up as an enlarged ego trip, but name dropping is balanced with clear examples of street actions and demands. It would have been much easier to write off or down play the erractic behavior of some of the media-annointed (many of the early groups with New Left refugees rejected a hierarchy in favor of collective consensus) leaders of the women's movement, but Brownmiller sympathetically and crtically examines their contributions to the larger goal of eradicating sexism. As far out as some of these women were, their flamboyant media personalities were in retrospect what the movement needed to have impact long after the male left was delegitimized.

I just finished reading Susan Brownmiller's book, having begun it only a few days before (it was hard to put down). I found it fascinating for several reasons. First, as a guide to the women's liberation movement--its confrontation with age-old grievances, its astonishing wealth of new ideas, its many diverse personalities (with pages of photos), its stormy organizational development, and its years of intense political struggle--it is invaluable. It brought back many memories and taught me much I didn't know. Especially interesting was her intelligent and judicious treatment of the movement's inner conflicts and crises, as well as as their personal ramifications--for the author and for others.If the personal is political (as it is) then certainly the political is personal. That was a lesson that for many people was bought at a very high price. For anyone who passed through the cauldron of the revolutionary years of the late sixties and seventies and managed to retain some political consciousness this is perhaps one of the most difficult areas to talk about honestly and objectively. It is also one of the most important. Brownmiller has succeeded brilliantly. Younger people reading her book will get a helpful inoculation against some forms at least of that movement madness that was so destructive even to its own purposes. There are few writers who could match the fairness and dignity that Brownmiller brought to her task.It is impossible to understand the transformation of American society that resulted from the struggles of the 1960s and 70s without a knowledge of the women's liberation movement. There is no better book than Brownmiller's for this.All in all, I found this to be an extraordinary book, highly engrossing, extremely important, and a pleasure to read. It offers a unique and balanced history of the women's liberation movement as told by one of its leading activists, as well as a candid personal exploration into the complex experience of participating in a mass movement for social justice. Told with great wit and intelligence, sensitivity and poise, the book is amply rewarding on many levels. What most impressed me about Brownmiller's narrative was its seamless blend of revolutionary ideas, fascinating personalities, amd intense political struggle, leavened with an honest appraisal of her own role and that of others. I highly recommend it for all readers. To borrow a phrase, it will raise your consciousness.

If you didn't participate in the women's movement during the 70s, In Our Time illuminates those heady days. For those of us who were there, it brings back the most intense memories - some of them hilarious and some downright painful. Brownmiller gives us an account of her own participation embedded in a more general history, written in a vivid prose style that carries the reader along like a river in spring flood. Yet despite the swift pace, the author never fails to provide clear explanations of the multitude of ideologies that clashed or came together under the rubric of feminism. This is an essential book for the historian. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the inner dynamics of a political movement and the origins of ideas that are still changing the world.

IN OUR TIME is an interesting and dramatic story of a grass-roots social movement, which revolutionized and liberated this society (and the world). It was very interestng to see, that other than the brutal punishing law outlawing abortion, which the women's liberation movement succeeded in taking off the books, the movement succeeded in changing the world by changing the consciousness of women. What an extraordinary movment this was-- which liberated the female half of the population. If not totally, then a very great difference from where it was before. It seems like such a hard thing to do-- to write a history of a grass-roots movement-- about emerging consciousness. I think Susan Brownmiller did an excellent job. Although (I think) the founding member (Shulamith Firestone) supplied the vision; her vision was just a trigger-- to trigger this explosion in consciousness. How any historian can write about these consiousness-raising liberation movements of the '60s, I don't know-- because they're not really about leaders-- they're about consciousness moving in the masses (us) (or in mass-consciousness). Here is a book, which can actually take someone through the whole experience. Now the story of this extraordinary movement is out in the world, for all to read. Thank you. Love, Anne