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Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Susan Brownmiller, who reshaped views about rape, dies at 90
Among other considerations, it offered the first comprehensive history of rape across the centuries, starting with ancient Babylon, and examined its use as a wartime military tactic to further subjugate the losing side. Advertisement The book's publication -- along with real-time reports of mass rape in war-ravaged Bangladesh -- joined a tide of events that were reshaping society's attitude toward rape. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The ascendant women's movement was already opening the public's eyes about sexual violence. Anti-rape groups had started to form in the early 1970s. Groundbreaking works including 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' (1971) were empowering women to take control of their bodies and their sexuality. When 'Against Our Will' arrived, the country seemed ready to grapple with its implications. Numerous rape-crisis centers were opened, self-defense classes gained new popularity, and several states rewrote their laws to make it easier to prosecute rapists. Rape within marriage became a crime. Many jurisdictions abolished the 'corroborating witness rule,' which required the testimony of bystanders for a rape conviction. Advertisement But it was the personal feminist ideology suffusing 'Against Our Will' that catapulted the book to the top of bestseller lists and simultaneously infuriated critics, on the left as well as the right, who called it an anti-male polemic. As a young, liberal intellectual in New York, Ms. Brownmiller believed she knew all about rape -- that it happened to women who behaved badly and that the men accused of it, often Black, were usually framed. But after she talked with friends who had been raped, her perspective changed. She saw sexual violence through a feminist lens and understood it to be the ultimate tool of male oppression. Her book upended several male-generated myths. No, she wrote, women did not secretly wish to be sexually assaulted, and, yes, it was physically possible to be raped against one's will. 'Chilling and monumental,' lawyer Mary Ellen Gale wrote in The New York Times Book Review. Time magazine said, 'The most rigorous and provocative piece of scholarship that has yet emerged from the feminist movement.' While she had never been raped herself, Ms. Brownmiller realized that she had been profoundly affected by the threat of it simply by being a woman. That led her to some startling pronouncements. 'Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times,' she wrote, equating that revelation with the discovery of fire. The book's most famous -- and disputed -- assertion was this: Rape 'is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." (Italics hers.) Advertisement The early praise soon gave way to outrage over the book's feminist dogma. Even admirers squirmed at her assertion that 'all men' threatened 'all women' with sexual violence; the statement led to her being harassed on the lecture circuit for years. One of her harshest critics on the left was Angela Davis, a Black militant and avowed communist. In a scathing analysis, Davis said that Ms. Brownmiller had misinterpreted historic cases involving Black men and white women (especially the cases of the Scottsboro Nine and Emmett Till) and had concluded, wrongly, that the Black men were at fault. 'In choosing to take sides with white women, regardless of the circumstances,' Davis wrote, 'Brownmiller herself capitulates to racism.' On the right, Joseph Sobran, writing in National Review, mocked Brownmiller's premise. 'What she is engaged in, really,' he wrote, 'is not scholarship but henpecking -- that conscious process of intimidation by which all women keep all men in terror.' In 2015, on the 40th anniversary of the publication of 'Against Our Will,' the news media caught up with Ms. Brownmiller. Then 80, she stood by her book but was highly critical of contemporary young women who, she said, seemed to think they could drink as much alcohol as men and dress provocatively but not take responsibility if they were sexually assaulted. She expanded on that view in an interview with Al Jazeera, saying that women were 'in denial' about what they could and could not do. 'They don't want to feel that special restrictions apply to them,' she said. When her interviewer said women might be surprised to hear her say that, because they want to feel empowered and believe they can do what they want, she responded: 'Women have a false sense of empowerment because the truth is, they can't do everything men can do. Because there are predators out there.' Advertisement She was born Susan Warhaftig in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Feb. 15, 1935, to Samuel and Mae Warhaftig. Her mother was a secretary, her father a sales clerk at Macy's. She attended Hebrew school, and although she never emphasized her Jewish heritage in her writings, she acknowledged its influence. 'My chosen path -- to fight against physical harm, specifically the terror of violence against women -- had its origins in what I had learned in Hebrew school about the pogroms and the Holocaust,' she wrote. She attended Cornell University for two years and returned to New York City 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. Her auditions rarely led to roles and she found the rejections intolerable. She soon abandoned the theater for full-time magazine writing. Ms. Brownmiller's career included stints as a researcher at Newsweek, a staff writer for The Village Voice, and a news writer for ABC-TV. But at heart she was an activist; her passions were politics and civil rights. In sympathy with the sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters in the South, she organized a picket line at a Woolworth store in New York. She registered Black voters in Harlem and in Meridian, Miss. She spearheaded feminist gatherings and helped coordinate an infamous 1970 sit-in at Ladies' Home Journal to protest the magazine's focus on beauty and housework and the dearth of women on its editorial staff. Advertisement 'I have always considered myself a strong woman, although I understand that the strength I possess is a matter of style and, secretly, of theatrical bravura,' Ms. Brownmiller wrote in the introduction to 'Against Our Will.' Ms. Brownmiller leaves no immediate survivors. Over the years, she lived with three different men, but she never wanted children, she said, and never married. She once said that she believed in 'romance and partnership' and wanted to be 'in close association with a man whose work I respect,' but that she was 'not willing to compromise.' She devoted her life to writing and taught at Pace University in Manhattan into her 80s. She wrote scores of magazine articles and half a dozen books, starting in 1970 with a children's book about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Her 1984 book, 'Femininity,' deconstructed the meaning of that word. Ms. Brownmiller ventured into fiction with 'Waverly Place,' a poorly received 1989 novel that sprang from her obsession with the sensational 1987 domestic violence case of Joel Steinberg, a Manhattan lawyer who savagely pummeled his partner, Hedda Nussbaum, and killed their illegally adopted daughter. Her subsequent books included 'Seeing Vietnam: Encounters of the Road and Heart' (1994) and 'In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution' (1999), an insider account of the women's movement. This article originally appeared in Advertisement
Deccan Herald
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Deccan Herald
The dog-whistles and complicit silences of New India
As I sat down to pen my monthly column, I allowed my mind to take a brief wander. I pictured a dust-filled room with three cops huddled together staring at a screen, debating whether my use of 'articles' amounts to 'double meaning' and 'dog whistling', an egregious, unpatriotic act couched in Wren and Martin grammar. I have long argued with my copy editors over the grammatical choices of where to use an 'article'. Maybe the cops can finally resolve these tiny battles, I chuckled to myself, as I returned to reality and the task of meeting my editor's deadline. But this little diversion wasn't just an idle distraction. It is the chilling reality of New India. A consequence of the Supreme Court's failure to uphold citizens' right to free speech and set new standards for what is acceptable, as it has in Ali Khan Mahmudabad vs State of Haryana. The Court, while granting bail, has stripped Khan of his rights by issuing a gag order, confiscating his passport, and then, appointing a three-person SIT. The SIT will 'holistically understand the complexity of the phraseology employed and for proper appreciation of some of the expressions used' in the academic's online has been written in the last few days on challenging the constitutionality of these orders. These are critical interventions and central to the fight for protecting rights and our democracy. But we must also zoom out and take a hard, unvarnished, look at ourselves and ask what have we become as a polity, as a society. No dog-whistling, just plain entire episode around Khan's arrest is, sadly, an inevitable consequence of the path we have chosen. As a society, we have allowed jingoistic nationalism and bigotry in our polity to set the tone. Once any society becomes a blind participant in this game, it inevitably suspends all critical reasoning, essential to a pluralistic, democratic society. Fundamental rights become subservient to the demands of jingoistic nationalism. The consequences have been in full evidence in the last weeks. Any questions about the consequence of war, or challenging bigotry and violence against Muslims, all of which are legitimate acts in a democracy, were immediately labelled anti-national. Every State institution has played a shameful role in the events surrounding Khan's arrest and the broader undermining of rights. The court's reasoning or rather lack thereof should not be surprising – it is only a reflection of what we are as a are many reasons why we got here but the elite custodians of our key professions are among the prime culprits. From media to academia, rather than fight for the integrity of their professions and challenge the bully by upholding the principle, these custodians have been all too quick to scientists and authors of How democracies die, Levitsky and Ziblatt, point out that democracy's last bastion of defence is civil society. On the eve of Trump's re-election, they wrote in The New York Times: 'When the constitutional order is under threat, influential groups and societal leaders... must speak out, reminding citizens of the red lines that democratic societies must never cross. And when politicians cross these red lines, society's most prominent voices must publicly and forcefully repudiate them'. The only bulwark against a total authoritarian slide is societal leaders standing up to the bully. We are seeing this play out in Trumpland, most visibly in Harvard University's war with the federal government. The sad truth is that in India, elites left the battlefield. Indeed, they refused to leaders have been mostly silent and the mainstream media became a willing partner. Prominent anchors have been essential to the authoritarian project, routinely using their bully pulpit to rouse jingoistic fervour and unleash bigotry. This reached a crescendo in the days of Operation Sindoor. Academia has done no better. In the Khan case, 200 prominent vice-chancellors and former vice-chancellors of Indian universities signed a 'statement of objection' condemning Khan's post. They were well within their rights to do so. However, conspicuously absent were any statements from academic functionaries, think tank leaders, and Ashoka University leadership itself, speaking for the principle of academic freedom and Khan's right to free abdication of responsibility should worry us deeply. Once institutions stop fighting for the core principles that define their profession, they begin to lose their purpose. As a society, we must demand more of our institutions. Fear and narrow ambition are stripping institutions of their purpose and the costs to society are heavy. On the upside, we may end up with rather erudite police officers, as they pour over a good professor's writing. Perhaps they will learn and find the courage to defend the principle, where most others have failed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
5 years after George Floyd's murder: How the media narrative has changed around the killing and the protests that followed
On the evening of May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by police outside a grocery store in Minneapolis. From the outset, the incident became a battle of narratives. The local police initially reported Floyd was experiencing 'distress' and died from a medical incident. A day later, bystander Darnella Frazier uploaded a video that showed the graphic details, including the police's excessive use of force leading up to Floyd's death. Floyd's murder, and Frazier's documentation of it, spawned what by some measures was the largest protest movement in American history. And that, too, became a contest of narratives, this time in the media. A focus on the aftermath of the events in Minneapolis, and elsewhere, were quickly supplanted by stories of lawlessness and violence by protesters. For almost a decade, I've researched the media's coverage of protests, focusing extensively on the reporting of modern-day uprisings against police brutality. Time and time again, colleagues and I have found that the bulk of news coverage of protests against police brutality tends to focus on protesters' violence, disruption or sensational actions. Yet in reading some of the coverage ahead of the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death, I have observed a different media trend. With the benefit of time, what was once a news media frenzy focusing on the violence after Floyd's killing has yielded space for reflection and coverage that legitimizes those who took to the streets. In so doing, these narrative changes provide essential opportunities to understand the complexity of journalism and social movements seen from different moments in time. Quickly after Floyd's murder in 2020, it became clear that subjects such as the role of state violence, the sophistication of demands for change and community grief were less likely to make headlines than things such as rioting and lawlessness. This pattern is part of what scholars call a 'protest paradigm' that explores the relationship between protests, media and the public. The paradigm holds that journalism often works against protest movements hoping to change the status quo. The news media's tendency to emphasize the frivolous, violent or annoying actions of protests rather than the depth of protesters' demands, grievances and agendas negatively shapes public opinion and affects the public's willingness to support the movements behind them. After Floyd's death, those closely following the coverage of conservative media were more likely to be exposed to stories that depicted protests as 'criminal mobs.' But it wasn't just conservative media. On May 31, 2020, the local paper, the Star Tribune, described the governor's 'show of strength' – a term used to describe the massive deployment of the Minnesota National Guard to help quell the 'days of lawless rampage.' Most coverage at the time fit a familiar pattern of delegitimizing the protest movement. Five years later, some delegitimizing news coverage continues to headline. The New York Post, for example, recently published a 13-minute documentary that suggests Minneapolis is still on fire. But a good portion of today's news also presents a different framing. In one five-year anniversary piece, The New York Times described George Floyd Square, the murder-site-turned-place-of-reverance for many activists and local residents, as a 'site of protest, art, grief and remembrance.' Another article in The Minnesota Star Tribune describes preservation efforts of street art and murals made by activists after the murder. Other coverage described the complicated process of demanding change and the path that remains ahead. Of course, these are selective snapshots of the coverage. And some media may shy away from covering the anniversary at all. But from my standpoint as a media scholar, the coverage that does exist has gone from being dominated by an initial focus on the violent aspects of protest to, in the main, a more reflective look at the meaning — rather than the spectacle — of the unrest. That legitimizing trend over time isn't an isolated phenomenon. My colleagues Rachel Mourão and George Sylvie and I found something similar in previous research looking at the protests that followed the killings of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. In our analysis of the protests following Brown's death, we observed that the first weeks of coverage focused more on protesters, delegitimizing frames and episodic news – that is, the disruption, destruction and arrests. But we saw a dramatic change by the third and fourth weeks of coverage. With the passing of time, more legitimizing frames emerged, describing the protest's substance and demands, and more thematic and in-depth reporting became apparent. We observed a similar trend when we looked out even further from the triggering events. After the trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch leader charged and then acquitted over the deaths of Martin, and the grand jury verdict not to indict police officer Darren Wilson over the death of Brown, news coverage of protests was more contextual and thematic. The coverage provided more space and voice to 'nonofficial' sources such as protesters and family members. The protest paradigm's persistence may be a function of journalistic bias − the adage of 'if it bleeds, it leads' talks to the immediate reporting imperative of prioritizing violence and spectacle over issues and meaning. But it can also be a consequence of how journalism operates to inform the public. When uprisings against police brutality first begin, everything is new to the journalist and the public. The initial coverage tends to reflect this newsness and emphasizes breaking news and official narratives − which are often easier to obtain than the statements of protest groups. Police departments, for example, have well-established media relations departments with preexisting relationships with journalists. These initial reports also tend to feature information that would have the biggest impact on wider communities − such as blocked highways and potential property destruction − than just the aggrieved community. This translates to more coverage generally in the aftermath of a big event − and that reporting is more likely to delegitimize protests. These are the first drafts of history, and they are typically incomplete. But five years later in the case of George Floyd and protests of his death, coverage looks more complete and complex. That complexity brings more balance, from my perspective. What journalists write years later are no longer the first drafts of history reported with limited perspectives. In these subsequent drafts, journalists have a little more time to think, learn and breathe. Immediacy takes a back burner, and journalists have had more time to collect information. And it is in these collections of subsequent drafts that the protesters and social movements get a fairer shake. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Danielle K. Brown, Michigan State University Read more: Riot or resistance? How media frames unrest in Minneapolis will shape public's view of protest Media coverage of campus protests tends to focus on the spectacle, rather than the substance Corroboree 2000, 25 years on: the march for Indigenous reconciliation has left a complicated legacy Danielle K. Brown receives funding from Lumina Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The Happiness Myth We're All Buying Into, According to One Expert
If you ask most people what they want out of life, the answer usually includes something like 'I just want to be happy.' But after nearly a century of studying what really makes life fulfilling, Dr. Robert Waldinger, psychiatrist and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, says we're aiming at the wrong target. Despite what social media, corporate culture, and hustle culture tell us, happiness isn't about achievements or metrics. More money, more followers, more accolades, these so-called 'badges of achievement,' don't add up to lasting satisfaction. During a recent panel at The New York Times Well Festival. Waldinger said this pursuit is misguided, and it may be keeping us from what truly matters. So if happiness doesn't come from external success, where does it come from? According to Waldinger—and nearly 80 years of research—the answer is simple, if not easy. During the panel, he explained that relationships and purpose are at the core of fulfillment. Whether it's with family, friends, romantic partners, or even colleagues, real happiness stems from connection. And not just casual contact, but meaningful engagement and checking in with people, showing up, listening, and caring. Waldinger says it's about building a 'bedrock of social well-being.' Through years of personal exploration and research, Dr. Waldinger came to a realization that echoes ancient wisdom: true fulfillment lies in being fully present and connected to something greater than oneself, a core teaching of Zen Buddhism. This understanding took on deeper meaning when, at 47, he found himself confronting the classic midlife question: 'Is this all there is?' Rather than sinking into despair, the happiness expert found clarity and direction through Zen. 'Zen practice brought me back to the truth of just this moment,' he shared. Around 47, Waldinger hit a wall many people know well. It was a questioning phase, where success didn't feel as satisfactory as it used to. In search of answers, he reached a turning point when he stopped running from life's basic truths and started facing them head-on. Waldinger found clarity in a Zen chant that became his personal mantra: 'I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.' While that might sound grim at first, Waldinger found it freeing. 'Somebody is finally telling the truth,' he said. His takeaway was for people to stop sweating the small stuff and ask themselves a powerful question: 'Does this really matter?' Most of the time, it doesn't. During the panel, he shared a few simple steps for resetting your priorities when it comes to finding true meaning. Stop chasing happiness: Instead, invest in relationships and engage in what's meaningful to you. Try small, intentional acts of connection: It turns out a quick 10-minute call or even a text to someone you care about can go a long way. Research shows these simple moves help you stay connected and build what experts call a 'bedrock of social well-being.' Basically, the more you check in, the stronger your network, and your wellbeing. Explore mindfulness or meditation: These practices can help you connect with yourself, stay grounded, and appreciate the present moment. Don't ignore discomfort. Questioning your life's direction isn't a crisis, see it as an opportunity to find what is meaningful to you. Waldinger encourages asking yourself 'how would you like to spend your waking hours of the day?' As Waldinger sees it, the biggest myth is that happiness is a destination. According to him, it's not something you get by accumulating more; it's something that comes when you live with connection and purpose. 'You won't be happy all the time,' he says, 'but happiness is likely to find you more often.' So, the next time you feel like you're falling behind in the race for success, pause. Call a friend. Reflect on what truly matters. Because a life well lived might not be as quantifiable as we want it to be. Both research and human experience show it's built through moments of presence, purpose, and meaningful connections.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Today's Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 28, #1409
Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today's Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Today's Wordle puzzle is tricky. There's another double letter, and it's a slangy word that might not come to mind right away, even though it has numerous meanings. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on. Before we show you today's Wordle answer, we'll give you some hints. If you don't want a spoiler, look away now. Today's Wordle answer has one repeated letter. There is one sometimes vowel and one standard vowel in today's Wordle answer. Today's Wordle answer begins with the letter D. Today's Wordle answer may refer to a ventriloquist's prop. Today's Wordle answer can refer to an insult meaning a person is not intelligent. Today's Wordle answer is DUMMY. Yesterday's Wordle answer, April 27, No. 1408 was WEEDY. April 23, No. 1404: OZONE April 24, No. 1405: GENIE April 25, No. 1406: KNOWN April 26, No. 1407: CLASH
