Susan Brownmiller, Author of "Against Our Will"

Susan Brownmiller is an author and feminist activist best known for her groundbreaking book "Against Her Will: Men, Women, and Rape," which helped modernize attitudes towards rape culture, placing it in the broader context of pervasive gender oppression. In 1995, the New York Public Library selected "Against Her Will" as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.

Brownmiller was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. She attended Cornell University for two years but did not graduate, instead moving back to New York City to become an actress. After appearing in a handful of plays she switched careers and became a journalist. Over the next two decades, she worked as a writer and editor at several of the country’s most prominent publications, including Newsweek.

By the mid-1970s she had also become a widely respected radical feminist. She organized the highly visible sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal. The publication of "Against Her Will" in 1978 catapulted her to the forefront of the movement and it became a widely-read classic. Today she is regarded as one of the most important American social thinkers of our time. In addition to "Against Her Will," Brownmiller has written several other books—fiction as well as non-fiction.