Remembering Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin, the legendary (some would say infamous) feminist writer and activist has died at age 59.  Though she died Friday, word seems only to be spreading today. She is survived by her friend and partner of more than a quarter century, gay activist John Stoltenberg.  (He wrote the splendid Refusing to be a Man.)

Dworkin was a hell of a writer.  Her prose was combative, daring, frequently over-the-top.   Hers was an invariably lonely voice.  I know of no other feminist figure more frequently quoted out-of-context.  (The Men's Rights Advocates loved to pick out isolated sections of her work, though I doubt that many ever read most of her books cover-to-cover.)   Her savage, vigorously polemical style in books like Intercourse,  Letters from a War Zone, and above all, her brilliant Pornography: Men Possessing Women had a colossal impact on the feminist movement from the 1970s to the present day.

Rad Geek has a brief tribute to Dworkin, and happily, a list of links to some of her own posts about Dworkin that include extensive quotations.  This particular post, which clears up the tired old myth that Dworkin thought all heterosexual intercourse was rape, is very valuable.  The gulf between what she really said and what her critics heard was wider than it was for any other public figure of whom I can think.

In June 2000, in an article in the New Statesman, she came forward to say that the previous year, she had been raped in a European hotel room.  Virtually no one believed her.  Even erstwhile allies were troubled by Dworkin's vagueness with the facts.  As Catherine Bennett wrote in the Guardian:

Offered like this, as evidence, the article contains so many opacities, begs so many questions, that it reads almost as if Dworkin wants to be doubted.

Stoltenberg was among those who doubted her as well, apparently:

John looked for any other explanation than rape," Dworkin wrote. "He abandoned me emotionally. Now a year has passed and sometimes he's with me in his heart and sometimes not"

He was with her to the end, I am happy to say.  In today's obituary, rightly or wrongly, the Guardian describes Stoltenberg as "her husband."

She will be much missed.  Though one always says of the dead that they were unique, it is safe to say that there was truly only one Andrea Dworkin.  I didn't always agree with her, but cripes, I loved to read her stuff.  She challenged me and pushed me and made me a better pro-feminist, even when I rolled my eyes at her purple prose.  I'll give my students something of hers to read soon.

 

Comments

[Jimmy Ho]

Rad Geek has... a list of links to some of her own posts
(That was probably a typo, but, Rad Geek is really a man "known to the world as Charles Johnson".)

[Hugo]

It was a typo, the pronoun got confused as I was thinkin of "Dworkin" and "RG" at the same time. Sigh. He invited me on to feministblogs, so I am very grateful and very aware of his sex!

[Jimmy Ho]

No problem, that's what I thought (in a way, my clarification was more directed to readers who may assume RG is a woman, just like many still do with Ampersand/Barry Deutsch). Actually, I was about to mention that you are featured on Feminist Blogs, an admirable contribution to the diffusion of feminist ideas and of the (often ignored or denied) diversity of feminism.

[Sarah Dylan Breuer]

Thanks for sharing the news; it saddened but didn't surprise me. I met Andrea while I was living in Scotland, almost fifteen years (geez, time flies!) ago. In our meeting, she was extraordinarily generous as well as gentle, and movingly appreciative of the hospitality she received. She also struck me as the most tired person I had ever met, or ever would meet (and fifteen years later, that still holds true). She told the truth about her experience, which included indescribable pain (she tried to describe it in Mercy, and as a result, I sometimes say that the title might have come from what the reader feels like saying at the end of every page).

I valued that meeting, and learned a great deal from it for my own life and career. I decided that I wanted to be as generous and appreciative as she was, as interested as she was in hearing others' stories even when I'd come with an invitation to tell my own. I also decided that I never wanted to be that tired -- or at least, that if I started to feel that way, I wanted to take enough time to rest, to pray, to be loved, and to play to be refreshed. Meeting Andrea made me think long and hard and repeatedly over time about how there's no such thing as a "tireless" activist unless that activist takes time -- the more, the better -- to rest and enjoy life's blessings. It made me decide that my own activism was going to proceed from what I experienced as GOOD news, my conviction that God's love is redeeming the world's pain.

Peace and blessed rest to Andrea Dworkin, who shared her own pain in hope that others would find healing, hope, and safety.

[FEMINAZIHATEMARTYR]

Some observations and rebuttals from another board regarding Dworkins extremism;

"In everything men make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Men especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it. They embrace murder as if life without it would be devoid of passion, meaning, and action, as if murder were solace, still their sobs as they mourn the empitness and alienation of their lives." - Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Page 214.

I know you all love to argue that her man-hating quotes are "out of context", but can any of you actually concieve of contexts in which her statements are appropriate, (as in, NOT offensive extreme anti-male bigotry)?

"This is really sad; if anyone was brave enough to CALL MEN ON THIER SHIT" - (emphasis mine), "Brave" enough to hate huh? Notice Trish's bigotry anyone? Of course you won't. What would be truly brave is to notice her sexism and stand up against it, (like you all pretend to be doing), in spite of the obvious social repercussions. Expressing popular sentiment isn't brave in the least.

"I have rarely if ever heard anti-male statements from feminists" - Hugo Schwyzer. I'm sure that idiot won't consider either statement quoted above to be man-hating either.

Now if you will all excuse me, I'm off to celebrate the death of one of the most evil, bigotted, phallophobic hate-mongering destructive influences of the century. Meanwhile, I expect you to never waver in your opinions that just because something looks like anti-male bigotry, acts like anti-male bigotry, would obviously be recognized by you as bigotry if the genders were reversed, doesn't mean that it is, especially since there could never possibly be such a thing. There's always some excuse or rationalization, just focus on a subgroup of men like violent criminals or the super wealthy, and ignore the reality that they represent only a small percentage of all men and voila, the bigotry dissappears. Toodooloo dumbfucks.

[stanton]

I mourn the death of Andrea Dworkin, as I would that of any human. She lived her life as best she was able, as do we all. And I grant that she was articulate, influential, and colorful. But when I look inside myself, I am embarrassed to note that what I will miss the most about her is her clear delineation of the anti-male mindset of intellectual feminism. She bridged the gap between the angry man-hating rhetoric of 70s feminism and whatever wave of feminism we are purportedly in today. The very fact that her opinions are widely defended, rather than denounced, by modern feminists, speaks for itself.

I recently read Intercourse (yes - cover to cover), and I have to say that misandry saturates every page. In this book, she demonstrates the base nature of men and the intrinsic evil of heterosexual male sexuality in modern society by in-depth analysis of characters and events from selected NOVELS! (But she declined to use the most obvious choice of Bram Stoker, who would have fit her agenda perfectly, but I guess she realized that this would have been too trite.) This is a fresh and new method of extracting heretofore undiscovered truths about society and an entire gender, I will admit, but I'm afraid I am not convinced of its validity. I would be pleased to quote her in as much context as anyone would like - even entire chapters, or the the whole book - but Hugo does not like such language in his blog, and I don't blame him for it.

It is no accident that the "out of context" defense must be invoked in behalf of Ms. Dworkin more than for any other individual, in or out of the field of feminism. For some reason that is not totally clear to me, feminist apologists seem to feel that it is important to close ranks and defend even the most extreme of those whom they identify as "their own". This, in turn, makes it easy for extremists on the other side to call into question the intentions and the very integrity of the movement as a whole. Yes, of course there are many different flavors of feminism, and they disagree among themselves, often quite bitterly. But as long as the feminists involved refrain from taking the unthinkable step of asking the wrong questions about the degree of female victimhood vis-a-vis that of males, they remain honored and protected members of the fold. Ms. Dworkin was the embodiment of this fundamental flaw in modern feminism. As such, I found her very existence to be convenient, and I thank her for her contribution.

[stanton]

Correction: Dworkin actually does include "Dracula" near the end of the book - I had forgotten. So she had no problem being trite!

[mythago]

But as long as the feminists involved refrain from taking the unthinkable step of asking the wrong questions about the degree of female victimhood vis-a-vis that of males

Lots of feminists ask these questions. We've long since learned that all it does is get us ignored by mainstream and MRA types, who then insist that if we don't agree that men are just as much or worse harmed by sexism, we're all bad, bad people.

If you really think all feminists admired--much less agreed with--Dworkin, you're on crack.

[stanton]

Mythago: I always try to be be open to learn more, and I stand ready to be corrected. Please direct me to the published works of any prominent feminist thinker/writer who denounces Dworkin. Of course, many have quibbled with points here and there. I am looking for anyone who acknowledges the misandry in her her works and distances feminism from her, as they have attempted to distance Daphne Patai, Cathy Young, Wendy MacElroy, and other feminists who ask the wrong questions.

And let me state, on the record, that feminists are NOT "bad, bad people". Even Ms. Dworkin was not a "bad, bad person" even though her writings certainly declared that she considered ME to be such.

Why does it have to boil down to a game of "more victimized than thou"? Can't we just agree to identify injustices where they exist and address them, regardless of which group is the sufferer?

And I am not on crack. Honest.

[mythago]

Please direct me to the published works of any prominent feminist thinker/writer who denounces Dworkin.

"Denounces"? Is it OK that we didn't have her burned at the stake? I assume you've read Nadine Strossen, Susie Bright and Pat Califia, so I don't need to point you to those folks...yes?

Why does it have to boil down to a game of "more victimized than thou"?

I wonder that myself. I also wonder why this question is always raised whenever somebody tries to discuss the ways in which prejudice and entrenched social stratification benefits some groups more than, and at the expense of others. YOu can't truly "identify injustices where they exist and address them" if you're pretending that everybody suffers the same injustice and has no interest in perpetuating it.

[stanton]

I admit to not having read Strossen, Bright, and Califia. As I have stated before, I know that I am not as well read as many who post here. I don't have time to read anywhere near as much as I would like. I will go to these sources forthwith. Any suggestions as to which would make a good first read? Better yet, can you direct me to a title wherein Dworkin is addressed at length, by any of the above?

Perhaps "denounces" was too strong a word. I see some feminists declaring that other feminists are "not of our sort," such as the examples above. I was looking for the same "shunning" of Dworkin, and I have not seen it. Perhaps I am about to see it. I look forward to reading the sources you have cited.

[Hugo]

Try here, Stanton:

http://mk26.home.comcast.net/id25.htm

[mythago]

Dworkin was profoundly influential for a long time. I have mixed feelings in that I disagree with so much of what she said (let's not even get into the whole I'm-a-lesbian-but-have-a-male-lifepartner thing), but the depth of her commitment to ending sexism and her intelligence was really beyond questioned.

Nadine Strossen's Defending Pornography and Pat Califia's Public Sex are a couple of books that probably made Dworkin breathe fire; Susie Bright has a bunch of essay books and I can't recall the titles off the top of my head. I would guess that there are many other feminist books I'm just not bringing to mind right now.

[Amos]

Thanks for your post about Andrea Dworkin. I lived in Minneapolis in the 80's when she and Catherine McKinnon tried to pass laws for setting community standards on pornography. She opened a lot people's minds about what exactly is violence against women. It's good to know you will be passing on some of her work to your students.

[stanton]

Oh - and I do not pretend that everyone suffers the same injustices. That would be silly. For every injustice, there is a sufferer and a beneficiary, and often several of each. It is the nature of beneficiaries to wish to preserve their advantages, and it is the job of the more enlightened of those beneficiaries to hear the cries of the sufferers and respond. The problem I have is with those who claim the exclusive ownership of sufferer status - even if they agree to share that status to some extent with others who will agree with them on the common enemy.

[Lucy Stone]

Stoltenberg believed in her, that's why he was with her till the end.__He is still emotionally tied to her, but he is a man of principles, and reading something is one thing, but seeing it is another. Reality sinks in when you are faced with facts. I think he felt like an outsider, an intruder in her life although he was a part of it. He also doesn't want to interfere with her former life, doesn't want to be the catalyst. Doesn't want to interfere with a good thing, doesn't want to uncover anything that might harm her reputation. He loved her enough to want the best for her, in life, and in death.

Yes, they read the same language, but what language is it?...It's obvious he had a very strong bond with Dworkin, but I think he wishes that he had been able to know her better.

[mythago]

The problem I have is with those who claim the exclusive ownership of sufferer status

And as I'm sure you know, you'll find that mentality on the MRA side of the spectrum as well. But there does seem to be a lot of conflation--if feminists point out that women are more disadvantaged and less benefitted by sexism than men are, they're portrayed as saying that men are not disadvantaged and women have no benefits from sexism. I mean, look at some of the comments Hugo gets.

(Oh, forgot to recommend The Handmaid's Tale, which has the central theme of women's contribution to and maintenance of their own oppression.)

[Lucy Stone]

Mythago,
Women are the the cause and contribution of their own oppression, and they know it.__

[stanton]

Mythago: "you'll find that mentality on the MRA side of the spectrum as well. But there does seem to be a lot of conflation--if feminists point out that women are more disadvantaged and less benefitted by sexism than men are, they're portrayed as saying that men are not disadvantaged and women have no benefits from sexism."

Of course you are correct. I find the attitude just as repulsive among MRAs as I do among feminists. And yes, feminist often claim the victimized title and I, for one, would be pleased to hand feminists that title if it is important to them to own it. The trouble is, I often hear that claim brought out in order to make it okay to ignore any disadvantages on the other side: "So what if women get 85% of the gender-specific medical research dollars - men have been victimizing women for centuries!"

I just did some googling on the authors you mentioned. Strossen sounded familiar, and now I see that's because she is president of the ACLU - I didn't connect her name with feminism. Apparently, these three disagree with Dworkin on the issue of pornography. Do they question her claim to feminism, as MacKinnon and others do with feminists that disagree with them in certain areas?

I read a columnist once who claimed that no one can question Dworkin's commitment to end sexism. This is astounding to me. If society were to be reconstructed according to the principles elucidated in "Intercourse", then the oppression would be far more extreme than even the Taliban would countenance - but in the other direction, of course. A longing to implement female-dominant sexism is not a commitment to end sexism.

[stanton]

Lucy: "Women are the the cause and contribution of their own oppression, and they know it."

I'm not sure if this is tongue-in-cheek or not, but this is not quite how I read Dworkin. I read her as saying that women are "complicit in their own oppression," but not the entire cause. I thought she considred men to be the root cause, and the fiendish genius of the male mind intentionally brought about the unconscious female complicity. After all, if women were the cause, then the only thing feminists need do is to educate women to stop causing their oppression - there would be no need to address the behavior of males, or society, or anyone else at all.

[mythago]

"So what if women get 85% of the gender-specific medical research dollars - men have been victimizing women for centuries!"

I hope that's not an actual quote. (A better reply would be to consider which medical research dollars are really 'gender-specific' and how they have been spent over time, IMO.) I have no idea whether any of the authors I recommended have actually done the "We decide who gets to be a feminist and you aren't it" game.

[FEMINAZIHATEMARTYR]

Feminism is tyranny. Dworkin was merely another despotic Stalin within the Party of Stalinists. I wont have a chance to rejoice over her departing since there are so many Urukhai to take her place. The war goes on.

[Amanda]

The problem with even addressing MRAs and whatnot when they complain that feminists don't denounce Dworkin is that there's not really a point where we can denounce her thoroughly enough to satisfy. It's not enough to say that I don't agree with some stuff she says, is it? It's not enough to say that she was wrong about men, though granted not at all wrong about men who sniffle about the meanie feminists and join reactionary groups, is it? The only thing that will suffice is giving up feminism because we don't think in lockstep with one another.

Granted, Dworkin's feminist critics generally express admiration for her--good, she was an admirable person. She charmed people, inspired them. Intellectual dishonesty and kow-towing to men who demand flattery because they personally have refrained from rape isn't gonna happen. Sorry.

[TeeHee]

Stanton- you are truly a compassionate person, but you don't get the point: Dworkin's critics are always taking her out of context and there's little legitimate grounds on which to NOT love her.

And the fact that you fail to acknowledge that a couple of feminists here and there have been occasionally willing to suggest that Dworkin has possibly stepped over the line on a few occasions is enough to really make Amanda lose her temper.

(Well-- virtually ANYthing is enough to make Amanda lose her temper... it's kind of hard to NOT make her mad, in fact.)

Why, the simple act of acknowledging that there might be a few men out there who don't rape is the exact same thing as flattering them and kissing their asses! Don't you know anything, stanton?

[Feminisn is hatred]

Hugo, in the name of equality and peace between the genders, has paid tribute to someone who symbolizes much of his philosophy. Indeed someone typical of feminism- for Dworking must be credited for not camoflaging her HATRED in good intentions. Let's play with a quote of hers:

In everything Jews make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Jews especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it. Jews embrace murder as if life without it would be devoid of passion, meaning, and action, as if murder were solace, still their sobs as they mourn the empitness and alienation of their lives." - Andrea Dworkin, Letters From a War Zone, Page 214.

Oh my. Is it starting to sink in yet, you silly zealots? You are part of the world's largest group of fantatical hatemongers. Ever ask yourself how Nazism succeeded and led to mass murder? It wasn't because it was "Right Wing". It was because it was SO VERY CONVINCING and BELIEVABLE.

Do think about that, would you?