Susan Brownmiller

Susan Brownmiller, the feminist author, journalist and activist whose book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” helped define the modern view of rape, debunking it as an act of passion and reframing it as a crime of power and violence, died on Saturday May 24 2025 in New York. She was 90. Brownmiller was born Susan Warhaftig in Brooklyn on Feb. 15, 1935. She attended Cornell for two years and returned to New York to pursue what was then her passion, stage acting. Brownmiller became her stage name in the mid-1950s while she was taking acting lessons. She started writing under the name Brownmiller and adopted it legally in 1961. Brownmiller’s career included stints as a researcher at Newsweek, a staff writer for The Village Voice and a news writer for ABC-TV. She taught at Pace University into her 80s. Brownmiller leaves no immediate survivors.