Follow Up Post 4/12

These two readings were very interesting in that they complemented each other in certain ways. Crenshaw seemed to me to be very wrapped up finding unique ways to treat each unique person but also in this is distancing herself from the white women who also need help because she does not give them much focus. Brownmiller does not mention race at all but she is also from an earlier time where perhaps there may not have been as much awareness of other racial groups. The message I took most from Crenshaw’s piece is that the ways in which women who are being abused are being helped are not available to all people as you might expect. Brownmiller’s ideas I think can be summed up in her last line where she says “my purpose in this book has been to give rape its history. Now we must deny it a future” (EFR, 317). In this I feel is where Crenshaw went wrong because she does not really suggest too many specific ways in which to help, only her feelings of the wrongness of the system. From Brownmiller’s writing it seems to me that there has been progress currently but Crenshaw shows that there are still issues with rape especially in regard to minorities. These readings make you think about your own life and if you have ever felt the way that these women are discussing. It is interesting to see that a lot of what they say about the general feelings of women rings true still today.