9 Quotes by Susan Brownmiller

[Rape is] nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.

When New York City created a special Rape Analysis Squadcommanded by police- women, the female police officers foundthat only 2 percent of all rape complaints were false—aboutthe same false-report rate that is usual for other kinds offelonies.(a a talk given by Judge Lawrence H. Cooke before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York)

Pornography is the undiluted essence of anti-female propaganda.

Women are all female impersonators to some degree.

ALL men keep ALL women in a state of fear.

Who said that clothes make a statement? What an understatement that was. Clothes never shut up.

As Beauvoir remarked, “It is not easy to play the idol, the fairy, the faraway princess, when one feels a bloody cloth between one’s legs; and, more generally, when one is conscious of the primitive misery of being a body.

The tyranny of Venus is felt whenever a woman thinks – or whenever a man thinks and tells a woman – that her hips are too wide, her thighs are too large, her breasts are too small, her waist is too high, her legs are too short to meet the current erotic standard.

Since femininity in all respects is a matter of containment, a woman whose hair exceeds the esthetic limits of her culture probably will employ some depilatory procedure to bring her body into line.