Book Review: In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution

Abstract

(hardbound).This memoir of the women's movement, arguably one of the most successful social movements of the 20th century, is a valuable resource for teaching about social movements and social change. The author, who was prominent in the second wave of the women's movement, offers a well-written, honest, and insightful memoir of how the women's movement started, emanating from women's anger with their male colleagues in the New Left of the 1960s who ignored women's oppression. She then describes conflicts among various factions of the women's movement and the movement's development over 2 decades. Anyone who has been involved in a social movement will recognize the personality conflicts, schisms, and counterproductive, dysfunctional aspects of political organizing, along with the euphoria of contributing to social change.In subsequent chapters, Brownmiller documents the spinoffs from the original women's movement, addressing legal abortion, rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and antipornography. Conflicts between lesbian and heterosexual women, women of color and White women, and liberal and radical feminists are all recalled through the lens of the author, who was an active participant in most of these conflicts. Of

Feminist theory, method, and praxis: Toward a critical consciousness for family and close relationship scholars

“…I naively walked into this moment with a belief about universal sisterhood and learned a sharp lesson about the proliferation of identities and politics among lesbians, some of whom were feminists, some of whom were mothers, but in no way was our identity universal. Feminism has always been "beside itself" (Elam & Wiegman, 1995), critiquing one another internally, just as we dealt with the external critiques from those who were not feminists (Brownmiller, 1999). The critique of feminist thinking and action is built in-often painful, but always leading feminists to urgently ask, so, what is next?…”

Protectionism, Paternalism, and Women’s Agency: Intimate Partner Violence, Mandatory Charging Policies, and the Victim-Offender Overlap

“…Walker (1979) postulated that the battered woman perceives death as the sole way to escape the situation -whether this is the batterer's death or her own 19 (Houston, 2014). Although Walker's theory does not explain why IPV occurs initially, it is beneficial in addressing what Susan Brownmiller (1999) deemed the "bugaboo" of the battered women's movement -the question "why doesn't she leave?" (Houston, 2014, p. 247).…”

Practical judgment as reflective judgment: On moral salience and Kantian particularist universalism

“…The creation of new normatively freighted concepts or amelioration of preexisting terms, for instance, can do much to make morally relevant features more explicit. The term “gentrification” was only coined once sweeping processes of displacement in London neighborhoods like Chelsea, Notting Hill, and Paddington were already underway, bringing a previously neutral, overlooked practice newly under moral evaluation (Glass, 1964); “sexual harassment” was coined when the members of a women's collective at Cornell University, in the course of discussing their shared experiences, decided to make it a political issue (Brownmiller, 1999). These terms, in turn, can figure into new maxims: redescribing my intention from “poorly contained rage” to “fighting back against my sexual harasser” can transform my sense of the moral valence of my behavior, and thus my behavior itself.…”