A Plain Brown Rapper

by Rita Mae Brown

“The title A Plain Brown Rapper [refers to] literature sent through the mail that is either illegal, subversive or inflammatory. The book is not illegal but it is both subversive and inflammatory, it incites revolution; Feminist revolution. It doesn’t just question the existing patriarchal society but attacks it; attacks it with calm reasoned fury…

Plain Brown Rapper is easy to read but it is not easy reading… The essays range from simple description to complicated analysis; covering sexuality to political tactics… The book stresses the need for women to organise, not just into groups, but themselves; their thinking into clear concise political arguments. It is not going to be easy and in the process something may be lost, but it must be done if feminism is to be validated.” (description excerpt from review by Victoria Quade)

INCLUSION CRITERIA

Author Rita Mae Brown has often been referred to as a lesbian because of her well-known earlier works Venus Envy and Rubyfruit Jungle as well as her involvement with the radical feminist movement (she co-founded The Furies Collective in the 1970s), but in interviews she frequently pushed back against being labeled a “lesbian writer” (and most other labels). In an interview with TIME, she said “I don’t believe in straight or gay. I really don’t. I think we’re all degrees of bisexual. There may be a few people on the extreme if it’s a bell curve who really truly are gay or really truly are straight. Because nobody had ever said these things and used their real name, I suddenly became the only lesbian in America. It was hysterical. It was a misnomer, but it’s okay. It was a fight worth fighting.”