NEWS: Feminist Icon Andrea Dworkin Dies

CULTURE: Feminist Icon Andrea Dworkin Dies

According to a release by her agent earlier today, feminist author and icon Andrea Dworkin is dead at 59.

A foundational radical feminist and author of the book Woman Hating, she began her life-long dedication to activism by protesting the Vietnam war. Later, attaching herself to the anti-pornography movement, she reached a peak of fame while involved in the famous court case of porn star Linda Lovelace.

While Dworkin will probably be remembered as an anti-sex man-hater by the general public, fellow feminists such as Susie Bright remember her fondly and applaud where her work has taken feminism.

I found Dworkin incredibly uninspiring. I often wondered if she was a vehicle created by the anti-feminists because she was such a turn-off. If you ever had sexual attention you never wanted nor deserve, people like Andrea Dworkin just reinforced that "Your a victim, Your a victim and you will never get over it. Infact you should go base your whole personality around it!'
Dworkin=Yuck.



I hope she found some kind of peace in her life before she passed on.

What did she die from?

Really? If the mainstream of porn has changed appreciably since Dworkin began her crusade, that is, if porn today has moved and is continuing to move away from the type of thing decried by Dworkin 30 years ago, then isn't it possible to say that in the end Dworkin achieved a partial victory at the very least?

Suicidegirls.com is a long way off what Dworkin had in mind when her excoriating criticisms of porn first gained mainstream attention three decades ago.

"In a lifetime of struggle pitting Andrea Dworkin vs. Porn, Porn won."

Genius

The only recognizable thing I got out of that was Linda Lovelace...don't hold it against me, I'm 23.

-TM

Being anti-porn = being anti-sex?

According to her, yes.

I'm not sure what exactly Dworkin decried 30 years ago, besides the crime of a penis entering a vagina. "Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice." And how exactly has porn changed, in your view, thanks to her?

Everything that's happened in porn, the good and bad, the ugly; from pro-female "tasteful" sites to Bukkake and Thai street whores caught on tape! Were in direct opposition to Dworkin and her ilk.

When Betty Friedan, Rita Mae Brown, Kate Millet and Adrienne Rich formed the Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT), Dworkin et al. said, ''The Black movement has Uncle Toms and Oreo cookies. The labor movement had scabs. The women's movement has FACT.''

The Boston Globe "What happened to the anti-porn feminists?"

Wow. Love her or hate her, Dworkin was thought-provoking.

Me too. Though I'm a huge feminist and a huge porn fan. Porn was instrumental during the women's liberation movement during the 60's and 70's, and that movement still goes on today!

Andrea Dworkin is one of the reasons why women (and men) who are raped, assaulted, sexually harrassed or otherwise the victim of a sex crime have any kind of recourse in the judiciary system. She and her contemporaries are responsible for the laws that make workplaces safer, less hostile and more equal for women.

She was also one of the first feminists to address the fact that BOTH genders are hurt by a system that teaches men to be emotionless machines of aggression and women to be helpless victims without political power. Largely misunderstood by both her feminist contemporaries and by feminism's opponents, Dworkin's work became a primary source for both men and women's reclaiming movements.

There are a lot of very hateful myths about this woman, for various reasons. One of those reasons is that Dworkin chose to address the problems of the real world and the people living in it, instead of some theoretical fantasy land where most academic philosophers dwell.

Sadly, she will probably be remembered as a man-hating, anti-sex feminazi who opposed any and all kinds of sexual expression and pornography. While of course none of this was true, it is not suprising. In a day and age when biting the hand that sacrifices its life to feed you is not only acceptable but trendy, doubtless her real words and the truth of her life will be lost. But her legacy will live on.

Go in peace, and finally rest.

Source?

Based on?

yay porn!

*Ouch*

I don't know if anyone can tell you for sure. Her writing reads like a cross between a female HP Lovecraft and Noam Chomsky's early linguistics papers.

"intercourse"

No you big sillies, I didn't mean sex is bad. I meant penetration!

Oh.

I think what she means is that nonreciprocal penetration/sex/pleasure/whatever is a symptom of the male's traditional dominion over the female - not that sex, per se, is a social evil.

[Edited on Apr 12, 2005 by dead_ringer]

So you've quoted a text that basically contradicts what you're saying. Brilliant.

She's not saying that intercourse is wrong or bad. She's saying that (THE FIRST SENTENCE OF YOUR QUOTE!!!! ) "intercourse occurs in a context of a power relation that is pervasive and incontrovertible." Not "is a context." OCCURS IN A CONTEXT. In other words, sex is happening in a society in which social constructs, including gender, are influenced by sexism - and that sex has the potential to be influenced by and express those constructs.

The point of the book itself is that a sexist society eroticizes sexism, and that if we expect to have a world in which sex is not used to express dominance, we must have a world in which all people are equal. It's as simple as that.

From the introduction of "Intercourse":

If only she had got laid at her senior prom by the captain of the football team. Or the head cheerleader. Her life would have been different and much happier.

Notice how it is usually the ugly people who are anti-porn?

Ding dong.

Sorry. I wish no bad upon her and her family.

comments like this really piss me off..the fact that she looks a certain way, or you perceive her sexual experience to be of a specific sort does not inform her politics. you may not agree with her stance on pornography....but if you are going to make a comment at least attempt to make it be on point. say something about what you do/do not agree with..and why....engage people..don't just contribute to the negativity that surrounds a woman everytime she contributes to a knowldge base you do not agree with....i may not agree with her, but her theories do deserve credit for making porn a topic of discussion.

So she say's she was raped maybe she was maybe she wasn't i still think her views on sex are in another realm to reality.
I'd never heard of hear till this post, so i read a few things the chick was a bit wacked but hey each to there own