Susan Brownmiller (February 15, 1935 – May 24, 2025) was an American feminist, journalist and activist. She was best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975). The book argued that rape was a crime of power and violence, not passion. Her book also helped create laws that made it easier to prosecute rapists.
Brownmiller was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Mae and Samuel Warhaftig, a lower-middle-class Jewish couple. She was raised in Brooklyn and was the only child of her parents. She later took the pen name Brownmiller, legally changing her name in 1961.
Brownmiller studied at Cornell University for two years, but did not graduate. She later studied acting in New York City. She appeared in two off-Broadway productions.
Brownmiller also participated in civil rights activism. She joined CORE during the sit-in movement and volunteered for Freedom Summer in 1964. She first became involved in the Women's Liberation Movement in New York City in 1968. There she joined a consciousness-raising group in the newly formed New York Radical Women organization.
Brownmiller went on to co-ordinate a sit-in against Ladies' Home Journal in 1970, began work on Against Our Will after a New York Radical Feminists speak-out on rape in 1971, and co-founded Women Against Pornography in 1979.
She continued to write and speak on feminist issues, including a recent memoir and history of Second Wave radical feminism. She wrote a memoir called In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution in 1999.
Brownmiller said that rape has been defined by men rather than women before she released her book. In her book, she said that men use rape as a means of continuing male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear. All men benefit from this.
She was an Adjunct Professor of Women's & Gender Studies at Pace University in New York City.
She called herself as "a single woman", even though "I was always a great believer in romance and partnership." She never married.
Brownmiller died on May 24, 2025 at a hospital in New York City from a long-illness at the age of 90.