NEWS: Feminist Icon Andrea Dworkin Dies

No freakin way. I got to get a catalogue.

Seconding that schwing.

Though it should be noted that Gloria Steinem only posed as a Bunny to write an expose on the injustices of it for Esquire magazine. She worked as a bunny cocktail waitress at one of the Playboy clubs in NYC in order to gain a first hand perspective on the lives of the bunny girls for a subsequent article. She was an undercover bunny.

(Ahem. I'd get a black mark from Andrea for saying this but I so covet those original Playboy bunny outfits...)

Never seems to amaze me on this site if your a man and you question any I

question any what? females that have been raped and molested and tortured?
im still mad at you.
you should just hold your tongue.

[Edited on Apr 13, 2005 by MistressMissy]

As far as I can tell, there is no gender bias on this site w/r/t landing on offensive bullshit with two feet.

Why don't you just quit while you're ahead.

It's an unfortunate myth that McKinnon and Dworkin had anything directly to do with the Canada ruling - in fact, Dworkin spoke out against it publically and McKinnon served as legal counsel for the case, only to advise against the law. You can find more information here:

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/OrdinanceCanada.html

I don't doubt that a misreading of some of Dworkin's work was used to market the law. However, that certainly doesn't implicate her personally.

Gloria was taken seriously for a while, but now it seems like the self-appointed 'femenist' leadership is kinda like the self-appointed black leadership: Same people, only 30 years older giving same speeches to the same audiences.

At least that's all that I see of them on TV and in the USA Today newspaper. And I listen to alot of public radio and I literally NEVER hear mention of the 'femenist movement'. In fact, I just searched for 'dworkin' on the NPR.ORG site and got 3 results, the most recent of which was from November '03! That's how irrelevant she and the movement have become to the even relatively well-educated masses.

Sadly for feminism, I'm just representin' the mainstream.

Feminism, if it is different from the caustic rhetoric and extremist views espoused by Andrea D needs better PR if it wants to be understood by the reasonable middle. (Red staters = lost cause for this generation at least, imho)

As I see it, one of the main problems is the perceived inconsistencies. For example, how can you support Andrea's views on fashion and then dress fashionably? Again, I'm not picking a fight but representing the conventional wisdom as I experience it.

Now, my idealized 'femenist' is Ani DiFranco. Love her albums, love her in concert, think she's hot. She is about real empowerment. Do your own thing and don't get boxed in by either side. She refuses to be owned by male-dominated corporate recording interests or by feminists who want her as their poster child. Ani speaks/sings her truth and doesn't care about opinions.

And as Forrest Gump liked to say "That's all I have to say about that".


p.s. RIP, Andrea. You chose a tough path out of even tougher circumstances, as I have been so informed by this board. You spoke your truth, and probably to the extreme so as to garner attention and make something, anything happen for your cause. I would not have wanted your life.

Please oh please show me where I said that attractive people couldn’t be feminists! I said that Andrea would not have been taken as seriously by her core constituency if she was gorgeous. And I stand by that particular statement: You cannot be the standard-bearer for radical feminism and be a babe at the same time any more than a short thin balding weenie could be the face of ‘Promise-Keepers’ or Skinheads of America.

And yes, I still believe that most (not all, mind you) anti-porn people, both male and female are of less than average attractiveness. Kinda like how it was an impotent Pope that first instituted celibacy for Catholic Priests! It’s the ‘If I can’t get none, then no one can’ mentality.


[Edited on Apr 13, 2005 by bgrrrr]

even if most anti-porners were ugly, like, what is your point? that their opinions are less valid?

on another note, it seems like feminists (especially radicals) are often seen as either too pretty or too ugly to be taken seriously; you kind of can't win.

Psssh. Feh. Naked women can't be femmynasts! DUH.

They didn't support that particular law, but the type of anti-pornography statute they authored and supported painted with such a broad brush that any porn, no matter how pro-woman, could be cause for fines and confiscation, depending on who's doing the interpreting.

To the extent that Andrea Dworkin's career spotlighted the injustice of sexual abuse and a culture of systematic sexual oppression, I salute her. But I'd be hard-pressed to think of a single social good that's worth the price of outright coercive censorship.

[edited to change "statue" to "statute"... yeesh]

[Edited on Apr 21, 2005 by jonasgrumby]