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NWSA Journal 14.1 (2002) 207-212



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Book Review

In Our Time:
Memoir of a Revolution

Life So Far:
A Memoir

One of the Boys:
Living Life as a Feminist


In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution by Susan Brownmiller. New York: Dial Press, 1999, 368 pp., $24.95 hardcover, $14.95 paper.
Life So Far: A Memoir by Betty Friedan. New York: Touchstone, 2000, 399 pp., $26.00 hardcover, $16.00 paper.
One of the Boys: Living Life as a Feminist by Brenda Feigen. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000, 335 pp., $26.00 hardcover.

If feminist activists in the 1970s perpetuated the idea that "the personal is political," then their autobiographies and memoirs remind us that the political is also personal. By moving beyond a linear historical narrative of the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Susan Brownmiller, Betty Friedan, and Brenda Feigen tell engaging stories of success and defeat, harmony and discord, from their personal vantage points and provide insight into one of the most far-reaching social movements of the twentieth century. It is obvious, of course, that not everyone experienced the women's movement and feminist activism from these perspectives. However, these stories are valuable not only because they introduce other activists to the historical record, but also because they provide historical insight into the formation of a social movement by linking the rise of individual feminist consciousness to the growth of a mass movement. 1

Susan Brownmiller's In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution allows a glimpse into the women's movement from the perspective of one of its most recognizable figures. Author of the 1975 book, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller enlivens and nuances our historical understandings of the women's liberation movement—which she distinguishes from the more liberal women's movement for equality within existing society. Writing passionately about the nascence of this movement, she suggests that some women were unaware of their potential to launch such transformative social action. Movements, she writes, "start small and curiously, an unexpected flutter that is not without precedence, a barely observable ripple that heralds a return to the unfinished business [End Page 207] of prior generations. If conditions are right, if the anger of enough people has reached the boiling point, the exploding passion can ignite a societal transformation" (1).

As she tells it, women in New York City and across the nation (she shares stories of women around the country, but hones in on her network of activists in New York) developed feminist consciousness as they fought for African American civil rights and leftist politics. These women formed the women's liberation coalition. Because each woman had an individual perspective of what women's goals should be, conflict and controversy ensued. Brownmiller weaves tales of fascinating, but short-lived, groups with overlapping membership, such as WITCH, New York Radical Feminists, Radicalesbians, Redstockings, and more. She also shares insights into the personal traits of the women involved. For example, Anne Koedt, author of "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm"—one of the most powerful treatises on women's bodies and male sexual dominance—is revealed to have been a quiet, unassuming woman who feared speaking in public. She also talks about the difficulties of having a leaderless movement in a media-driven society that looks for social movement leaders to provide sound bites. She recounts her personal conflict with becoming a star among friends and comrades who despised stardom when she published Against Our Will. However, women in the media also confronted her. For example, Barbara Walters, then anchor for the Today morning show, confided to Brownmiller that "she'd worn a black dress with low décolletage that morning [on the show] so one of us, at least, wouldn't appear anti-male" (245).

While many feminists in Brownmiller's circle decried the media's fixation with a few leaders (and often took those women to task for basking in the limelight...

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