Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American
radical feministRadical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to
rapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and other forms of
violence against womenViolence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women...
.
An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist
anti-pornography movementThe term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to maintain healthy sexual...
, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in
Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) and
IntercourseIntercourse is a radical feminist analysis of sexual intercourse in literature and society, written by Andrea Dworkin. Intercourse is often said to argue that "all heterosexual sex is rape", based on the line from the book that says "violation is a synonym for intercourse." However, Dworkin has...
(1987), which remain her two most widely known books.
Early life and education
Dworkin was born in
Camden, New JerseyThe city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...
, to Harry Dworkin and Sylvia Spiegel. She had one younger brother, Mark. Her father was a schoolteacher and dedicated socialist, whom she credited with inspiring her passion for
social justiceSocial justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
. Her relationship with her mother was strained, but Dworkin later wrote about how her mother's belief in legal
birth controlBirth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
and legal
abortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, "long before these were respectable beliefs," inspired her later activism.
Though she described her Jewish household as being in many ways dominated by the memory of the Holocaust, it nonetheless provided a happy childhood until the age of nine when an unknown man
molestedChild sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
her in a movie theater. When Dworkin was 10, her family moved from the city to the suburbs of
Cherry Hill, New JerseyCherry Hill is a township in Camden County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township had a population of 71,045, representing an increase of 1,080 from the 69,965 residents enumerated during the 2000 Census...
(then known as Delaware Township), which she later wrote she "experienced as being
kidnappedIn criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
by aliens and taken to a penal colony". In sixth grade, the administration at her new school punished her for refusing to sing "
Silent Night"Silent Night" is a popular Christmas carol. The original lyrics of the song "Stille Nacht" were written in Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, by the priest Father Joseph Mohr and the melody was composed by the Austrian headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber...
" (as a Jew, she objected to being forced to sing
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
religious songs at school).
Dworkin began writing poetry and fiction in the sixth grade. Throughout high school, she read avidly, with encouragement from her parents. She was particularly influenced by
Arthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
,
Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
,
Henry MillerHenry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
,
Fyodor DostoevskyFyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
,
Che GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
, and the
Beat poetsThe Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
, especially
Allen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
.
She was married 1969–1972 to Cornelius (Iwan) Dirk de Bruin.
College and early activism
In 1965, while a student at
Bennington CollegeBennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, Dworkin was arrested during an anti-
Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
protest at the United States Mission to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and sent to the
New York Women's House of DetentionThe New York Women's House of Detention was a women's prison in New York City which existed from 1932 to 1974.Built on the site of the Jefferson Market Prison that had succeeded the Jefferson Market in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, the New York Women's House of Detention is believed to have been...
. Dworkin testified that the doctors in the House of Detention gave her an internal examination which was so rough that she bled for days afterwards. She spoke in public and testified before a
grand juryA grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
about her experience, and the media coverage of her testimony made national and international news. The grand jury declined to make an indictment in the case, but Dworkin's testimony contributed to public outrage over the mistreatment of inmates. The prison was closed seven years later.
Soon after testifying before the grand jury, Dworkin left Bennington to live in
GreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and to pursue her writing. She traveled from
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to
AthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
on the
Orient ExpressThe Orient Express is the name of a long-distance passenger train service originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. It ran from 1883 to 2009 and is not to be confused with the Venice-Simplon Orient Express train service, which continues to run.The route and rolling stock...
, and went to live and write in
CreteCrete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. While in Crete, she wrote a series of poems titled
(Vietnam) Variations, a collection of poems and
prose poemProse poetry is poetry written in prose instead of using verse but preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects.-Characteristics:Prose poetry can be considered either primarily poetry or prose, or a separate genre altogether...
s that she printed on the island in a book called
Child, and a novel in a style resembling magical realism called
Notes on Burning Boyfriend -- a reference to the pacifist
Norman MorrisonNorman Morrison , born in Erie, Pennsylvania, was a Baltimore Quaker best known for committing suicide at age 31 in an act of self-immolation to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War....
, who had
burned himself to deathSelf-immolation refers to setting oneself on fire, often as a form of protest or for the purposes of martyrdom or suicide. It has centuries-long traditions in some cultures, while in modern times it has become a type of radical political protest...
in protest of the Vietnam War. She also wrote several poems and dialogues which she hand-printed after returning to the United States in a book called
Morning Hair.
After living in Crete, Dworkin returned to Bennington for two years, where she continued to study literature and participated in campaigns against the college's student conduct code, for
contraceptionContraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
on campus, for the legalization of
abortionAbortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, and against the Vietnam War. She graduated with a degree in literature in 1968.
Life in the Netherlands
After graduation, she moved to
AmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
to interview Dutch
anarchistsAnarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
in the Provo countercultural movement. While there, she became involved with, then married, one of the anarchists she met. Soon after they were married, she said, he began to
abuse herDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
severely, punching and kicking her, burning her with cigarettes, beating her on her legs with a wooden beam, and banging her head against the floor until he knocked her unconscious.
After she left her husband late in 1971, Dworkin said, her ex-husband attacked, persecuted, and harassed her, beating her and threatening her whenever he found where she was hiding. She found herself desperate for money, often homeless, thousands of miles from her family, later remarking that, "I often lived the life of a fugitive, except that it was the more desperate life of a battered woman who had run away for the last time, whatever the outcome". For a while, she was a
prostituteProstitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. Ricki Abrams, a feminist and fellow
expatriateAn expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
, sheltered Dworkin in her home, and helped her find places to stay on houseboats, a communal farm, and deserted buildings. Dworkin tried to work up the money to return to the United States.
Abrams introduced Dworkin to early radical feminist writing from the United States, and Dworkin was especially inspired by
Kate MillettKate Millett is an American lesbian feminist writer and activist. A seminal influence on second-wave feminism, Millet is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics.-Career:...
's
Sexual PoliticsSexual Politics is a classic feminist text written by Kate Millett, said to be "the first book of academic feminist literary criticism", and "one of the first feminist books of this decade to raise nationwide male ire"....
,
Shulamith FirestoneShulamith Firestone , is a Jewish, Canadian-born feminist. She was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism, having been a founding member of the New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists...
's
The Dialectic of Sex, and
Robin MorganRobin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
's
Sisterhood is PowerfulSisterhood Is Powerful , published in 1970, was one of the first widely available anthologies of early Second Wave radical feminist writings...
. She and Abrams began to work together on "early pieces and fragments" of a radical feminist text on the hatred of women in culture and history, including a completed draft of a chapter on the pornographic
countercultureCounterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
magazine
Suck, which was published by a group of fellow expatriates in the Netherlands.
Dworkin later wrote that she eventually agreed to help smuggle a briefcase of heroin through customs in return for $1,000 and an airplane ticket, thinking that if she was successful she could return home with the ticket and the money, and if caught she would at least escape her ex-husband's abuse by going to prison. The deal for the briefcase fell through, but the man who had promised Dworkin the money gave her the airline ticket anyway, and she returned to the United States in 1972.
Before she left Amsterdam, Dworkin spoke with Abrams about her experiences in the Netherlands, the emerging feminist movement, and the book they had begun to write together. Dworkin agreed to complete the book — which she eventually titled
Woman Hating — and publish it when she reached the United States. In her memoirs, Dworkin relates that during that conversation she vowed to dedicate her life to the feminist movement:
Return to New York and contact with the feminist movement
In
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Dworkin worked again as an anti-war organizer, participated in demonstrations for lesbian rights and against apartheid in South Africa. The feminist poet
Muriel RukeyserMuriel Rukeyser was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism...
hired her as an assistant (Dworkin later said "I was the worst assistant in the history of the world. But Muriel kept me on because she believed in me as a writer.") Dworkin also joined a feminist
consciousness raisingConsciousness raising is a form of political activism, pioneered by United States feminists in the late 1960s...
group, and soon became involved in radical feminist organizing, focusing on campaigns against violence against women. In addition to her writing and activism, Dworkin gained notoriety as a speaker, mostly for events organized by local feminist groups. She became well-known for passionate, uncompromising speeches that aroused strong feelings in both supporters and critics, and inspired her audience to action, such as her speech at the first
Take Back the NightTake Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual violence...
march in November 1978, and her 1983 speech at the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men (now the National Organization for Men Against Sexism) entitled "I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape."
Relationship with John Stoltenberg
In 1974, she met feminist writer and activist
John StoltenbergJohn Stoltenberg is an American radical feminist activist, scholar, author, and magazine editor. He is the managing editor of AARP The Magazine, a bimonthly publication of the United States-based advocacy group AARP , a position he has held since 2004.Stoltenberg was life partner to Andrea Dworkin...
when they both walked out on a poetry reading in
Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
over
misogynistMisogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
material. They became close friends and eventually came to live together. Stoltenberg wrote a series of radical feminist books and articles on
masculinityMasculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
. Although Dworkin publicly wrote "I love John with my heart and soul" and Stoltenberg described Dworkin as "the love of my life", she continued to publicly identify herself as
lesbianLesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, and he as
gayGay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
. Stoltenberg, recounting the perplexity that their relationship seemed to cause people in the press, summarized the relationship by saying "So I state only the simplest facts publicly: yes, Andrea and I live together and love each other and we are each other's
life partnerA life partner is a romantic or otherwise very close friend for life. The partners can be of the same or opposite sexes, married or unmarried, and monogamous or polyamorous....
, and yes we are both
outComing out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
."
Dworkin and Stoltenberg were married in 1998; after her death, Stoltenberg said "It's why we never told anybody really that we married, because people get confused about that. They think, Oh, she's yours. And we just did not want that nonsense."
Critique of pornography
Andrea Dworkin is most often remembered for her role as a speaker, writer, and activist in the feminist
anti-pornography movementThe term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to maintain healthy sexual...
.
In February 1976, Dworkin took a leading role in organizing public pickets of
SnuffSnuff is a 1976 splatter film, and is most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.-Production:...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and, during the fall, joined
Adrienne RichAdrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
,
Grace PaleyGrace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
,
Gloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
,
Shere HiteShere Hite is an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey...
,
Lois GouldLois Gould was an acclaimed American writer, known for her novels and other works about women's lives. She was born in Manhattan, the daughter of fashion designer Jo Copeland and Edward J. Regensburg, Jr., a cigar manufacturer...
,
Barbara DemingBarbara Deming was an American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change.- Early life :Barbara Deming was born in New York. She attended a Friends school up through her high school years....
,
Karla JayKarla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
,
Letty Cottin PogrebinLetty Cottin Pogrebin is an American writer and journalist. She graduated from Brandeis University and became a writer and feminist advocate in the early 1970s. In 1971, she was one of the founding editors of Ms...
,
Robin MorganRobin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
, and
Susan BrownmillerSusan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
in attempts to form a radical feminist antipornography group. Members of this group would go on to found
Women Against PornographyWomen Against Pornography was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City and an influential force in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s....
in 1979, but by then Dworkin had begun to distance herself from the group over differences in approach. Dworkin spoke at the first
Take Back the NightTake Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual violence...
march in November 1978, and joined 3,000 women in a march through the
red-light districtA red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
of San Francisco.
In 1979, Dworkin published
Pornography: Men Possessing Women, which analyzes (and extensively cites examples drawn from) contemporary and historical pornography as an industry of woman-hating dehumanization. Dworkin argues that it is implicated in violence against women, both in its production (through the abuse of the women used to star in it), and in the social consequences of its consumption by encouraging men to eroticize the domination, humiliation, and abuse of women.
Antipornography civil rights ordinance
In 1980, Linda Boreman (who had appeared in the pornographic film
Deep ThroatDeep Throat is a 1972 American pornographic film written and directed by Gerard Damiano and produced by Louis Peraino and starring Linda Lovelace ....
as "Linda Lovelace") made public statements that her ex-husband
Chuck TraynorCharles "Chuck" E. Traynor was an American entrepreneur and pornographer.Traynor was a minor figure in the early US East Coast pornographic film industry and appeared in a number of short "loops" in the early 1970s, usually with his then-wife Linda Lovelace...
had beaten and raped her, and violently
coercedCoercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
her into making that and other pornographic films. Boreman made her charges public for the press corps at a press conference, with Dworkin, feminist lawyer
Catharine MacKinnonCatharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
, and members of
Women Against PornographyWomen Against Pornography was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City and an influential force in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s....
. After the press conference, Dworkin, MacKinnon,
Gloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
, and Boreman began discussing the possibility of using federal
civil rightsCivil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
law to seek damages from Traynor and the makers of
Deep Throat. Boreman was interested, but backed off after Steinem discovered that the
statute of limitationsA statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
for a possible suit had passed.
Dworkin and MacKinnon, however, continued to discuss civil rights litigation as a possible approach to combating pornography. In the fall of 1983, MacKinnon secured a one-semester appointment for Dworkin at the
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, to teach a course in literature for the
Women's StudiesWomen's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
program and co-teach (with MacKinnon) an interdepartmental course on pornography, where they hashed out details of a civil rights approach. With encouragement from community activists in south Minneapolis, the Minneapolis city government hired Dworkin and MacKinnon to draft an antipornography civil rights ordinance as an amendment to the Minneapolis city civil rights ordinance. The amendment defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women, and allowed women who claimed harm from pornography to
sueA lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
the producers and distributors in
civil courtCivil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim...
for damages. The law was passed twice by the Minneapolis city council but vetoed by Mayor Don Fraser, who considered the wording of the ordinance to be too vague. Another version of the ordinance passed in
Indianapolis, IndianaIndianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
in 1984, but overturned as
unconstitutionalThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
by the
Seventh Circuit Court of AppealsThe United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:* Central District of Illinois* Northern District of Illinois...
in the case
American Booksellers v. HudnutAmerican Booksellers v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 , aff'd mem., 475 U.S. 1001 , was a 1985 court case that challenged the constitutionality of the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance, as enacted in Indianapolis, Indiana.- Background :...
. Dworkin continued to support the civil rights approach in her writing and activism, and supported anti-pornography feminists who organized later campaigns in
Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
(1985) and
Bellingham, WashingtonBellingham is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It is the twelfth-largest city in the state. Situated on Bellingham Bay, Bellingham is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia...
(1988) to pass versions of the ordinance by voter initiative.
Right-Wing Women
In 1983, Dworkin published
Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females, an examination of what she claimed were women's reasons for collaborating with men for the limitation of women's freedom. In the Preface to the British edition, Dworkin stated that the
New RightNew Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various policies or groups that are right-wing. It has also been used to describe the emergence of Eastern European parties after the collapse of communism.-Australia:...
in the United States focused especially on preserving male authority in the family, the promotion of
fundamentalistFundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
versions of orthodox religion, combating abortion, and undermining efforts to combat domestic violence, but that it also had, for the first time, "succeeded in getting
women as women (women who claim to be acting in the interests of women as a group) to act effectively on behalf of male authority over women, on behalf of a hierarchy in which women are subservient to men, on behalf of women as the rightful property of men, on behalf of religion as an expression of transcendent male supremacy". Taking this as her problem, Dworkin asked, "Why do right-wing women agitate for their own subordination? How does the Right, controlled by men, enlist their participation and loyalty? And why do right-wing women truly hate the feminist struggle for equality?"
Testimony before Attorney General's Commission on Pornography
On January 22, 1986, Dworkin testified for half an hour before the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (sometimes referred to as the "Meese Commission") in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and answered questions from commissioners after completing her testimony. Dworkin's testimony against pornography was praised and reprinted in the Commission's
final reportThe final report of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography is the result of a comprehensive investigation into pornography ordered by U.S. President Ronald Reagan...
, and Dworkin and MacKinnon marked its release by holding a joint press conference. Meese Commission subsequently successfully demanded that convenience store chains remove from shelves men's magazines such as
Playboy (Dworkin wrote that the magazine "in both text and pictures promotes both rape and child sexual abuse") and
PenthousePenthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
. The demands spread nationally and intimidated some retailers into withdrawing photography magazines, among others. The Meese Commission's campaign was eventually quashed with a
First AmendmentThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
admonishment against prior restraint by the D.C. Federal Court in Meese v. Playboy (639 F.Supp. 581).
In her testimony and replies to questions from the commissioners, Dworkin denounced the use of criminal obscenity prosecutions against pornographers, stating, "We are against obscenity laws. We do not want them. I want you to understand why, whether you end up agreeing or not." She argued that obscenity laws were largely ineffectual, that when they were effectual they only suppressed pornography from public view while allowing it to flourish out of sight, and that they suppressed the wrong material, or the right material for the wrong reasons, arguing that "Obscenity laws are also woman-hating in their very construction. Their basic presumption is that it's women's bodies that are dirty." Instead she offered five recommendations for the Commission, recommending (1) that "the Justice Department instruct law-enforcement agencies to keep records of the use of pornography in violent crimes", (2) a ban on the possession and distribution of pornography in prisons, (3) that prosecutors "enforce laws against pimping and pandering against pornographers", (4) that the administration "make it a Justice Department priority to enforce RICO (the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ActThe Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization...
) against the pornography industry", and (5) that Congress adopt federal anti-pornography civil rights legislation which would provide for civil damages for harm inflicted on women. She suggested that the Commission consider "creating a criminal conspiracy provision under the civil rights law, such that conspiring to deprive a person of their civil rights by coercing them into pornography is a crime, and that conspiring to traffic in pornography is conspiring to deprive women of our civil rights". Dworkin compared her proposal to the
Southern Poverty Law CenterThe Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
's use of civil rights litigation against the
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
.
Dworkin also submitted into evidence a copy of Boreman's book
Ordeal, as an example of the abuses that she hoped to remedy, saying "The only thing atypical about Linda is that she has had the courage to make a public fight against what has happened to her. And whatever you come up with, it has to help her or it's not going to help anyone." Boreman had testified in person before the Commission, but the Commissioners had not yet seen her book.
Intercourse
In 1987, Dworkin published
IntercourseIntercourse is a radical feminist analysis of sexual intercourse in literature and society, written by Andrea Dworkin. Intercourse is often said to argue that "all heterosexual sex is rape", based on the line from the book that says "violation is a synonym for intercourse." However, Dworkin has...
, in which she extended her analysis from pornography to
sexual intercourseSexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
itself, and argued that the sort of sexual subordination depicted in pornography was central to men's and women's experiences of heterosexual intercourse in a male supremacist society. In the book, she argues that all heterosexual sex in our patriarchal society is coercive and degrading to women, and sexual penetration may by its very nature doom women to inferiority and submission, and "may be immune to reform."
Citing from both pornography and literature—including
The Kreutzer SonataThe Kreutzer Sonata is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1889 and promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The work is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage...
,
Madame BovaryMadame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
, and
DraculaDracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
—Dworkin argued that depictions of intercourse in mainstream art and culture consistently emphasized heterosexual intercourse as the only kind of "real" sex, portrayed intercourse in violent or invasive terms, portrayed the violence or invasiveness as central to its eroticism, and often united it with male contempt for, revulsion towards, or even murder of, the "carnal" woman. She argued that this kind of depiction enforced a male-centric and coercive view of sexuality, and that, when the cultural attitudes combine with the material conditions of women's lives in a sexist society, the experience of heterosexual intercourse itself becomes a central part of men's subordination of women, experienced as a form of "occupation" that is nevertheless expected to be pleasurable for women and to define their very status
as women.
Such descriptions are often cited by Dworkin's critics, interpreting the book as claiming "all" heterosexual intercourse is rape, or more generally that the anatomical machinations of sexual intercourse make it intrinsically harmful to women's equality. For instance,
Cathy YoungCathy Young is a Russian American journalist and writer whose books and articles, as well as columns which appear in the libertarian monthly Reason, and also weekly in The Boston Globe, primarily espouse equality feminism and libertarianism.-Life and Career:Born in Moscow, the capital of what was...
says that statements such as, "Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women," are reasonably summarized as "All sex is rape."
Dworkin rejected that interpretation of her argument, stating in a later interview that "I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality" and suggesting that the misunderstanding came about because of the very sexual ideology she was criticizing: "Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I do not think they need it."
Butler decision in Canada
In 1992, the
Supreme Court of CanadaThe Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
made a ruling in
R. v. ButlerR. v. Butler, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on pornography and state censorship. In this case, the Court had to balance the right to freedom of expression under section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with women's rights; the outcome has been...
which incorporated some elements of Dworkin and MacKinnon's legal work on pornography into the existing Canadian obscenity law. In
Butler the Court held that Canadian obscenity law violated Canadian citizens' rights to free speech under the
Canadian Charter of Rights and FreedomsThe Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982...
if enforced on grounds of morality or community standards of decency; but that obscenity law could be enforced constitutionally against some pornography on the basis of the Charter's guarantees of sex equality. The Court's decision cited extensively from briefs prepared by the
Women's Legal Education and Action FundWomen's Legal Education and Action Fund, referred to by the acronym LEAF, is a Canadian legal organization that performs legal research and intervenes in appellate and Supreme Court of Canada cases on women's issues...
(LEAF), with the support and participation of Catharine MacKinnon. Andrea Dworkin opposed LEAF's position, arguing that feminists should not support or attempt to reform criminal obscenity law. In 1993, copies of Dworkin's book
Pornography were held for inspection by Canada Customs agents, fostering an urban legend that Dworkin's own books had been banned from Canada under a law that she herself had promoted. However, the
Butler decision did not adopt Dworkin and MacKinnon's ordinance; Dworkin did not support the decision; and her books (which were released shortly after they were inspected) were held temporarily as part of a standard procedural measure, unrelated to the
Butler decision.
Fiction
Dworkin published three fictional works after achieving notability as a feminist author and activist. She published a collection of short stories,
The New Woman's Broken Heart in 1980. Her first published novel,
Ice and Fire, was published in the United Kingdom in 1986. It is a
first-person narrativeFirst-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
, rife with violence and abuse;
Susie BrightSusannah "Susie" Bright is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality....
has claimed that it amounts to a modern feminist rewriting of one of the
Marquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
's most famous works,
JulietteJuliette is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published 1797–1801, accompanying Sade's Nouvelle Justine. While Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtuous woman who consequently encountered nothing but despair and abuse, Juliette is an amoral nymphomaniac who ends up successful and...
. However, Dworkin aimed to depict men's harm to women as normalized political harm, not as eccentric eroticism. Dworkin's second novel,
Mercy, was published in the United Kingdom in 1990.
Dworkin's short fiction and novels often incorporated elements from her life and themes from her nonfiction writing, sometimes related by a first-person narrator. Critics have sometimes quoted passages spoken by characters in
Ice and Fire as representations of Dworkin's own views. cf. Dworkin, however, wrote "My fiction is not autobiography. I am not an exhibitionist. I do not show myself. I am not asking for forgiveness. I do not want to confess. But I have used everything I know – my life – to show what I believe must be shown so that it can be faced. The imperative at the heart of my writing – what must be done – comes directly from my life. But I do not show my life directly, in full view; nor even look at it while others watch."
Life and Death
In 1997, Dworkin published a collection of her speeches and articles from the 1990s in
Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War on Women, including a long autobiographical essay on her life as a writer, and articles on violence against women, pornography, prostitution,
Nicole Brown SimpsonNicole Brown Simpson was a former wife of professional football player O. J. Simpson.- Relationship with O. J. Simpson :...
, the use of rape during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
Montreal massacreThe École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained...
,
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and the gender politics of the
United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
.
Reviewing
Life and Death in
The New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, philosopher
Martha NussbaumMartha Nussbaum , is an American philosopher with a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
criticizes voices in contemporary feminism for denouncing
Catharine MacKinnonCatharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
and Dworkin as "man-haters," and argues that
First AmendmentThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
critiques of Dworkin's civil ordinance proposal against pornography "are not saying anything intellectually respectable," for the First Amendment "has never covered all speech: bribery, threats, extortionate offers, misleading advertising, perjury, and unlicensed medical advice are all unprotected." Nussbaum adds that Dworkin has focused attention on the proper moral target by making harm associated with subordination, not obscenity, civilly actionable. Nevertheless, Nussbaum opposes the adoption of Dworkin's pornography ordinance because it (1) fails to distinguish between moral and legal violations, (2) fails to demonstrate a causal relationship between pornography and specific harm, (3) holds author of printed images or words responsible for others' behavior, (4) grants censorial power to the judiciary (which may be directed against feminist scholarship), and (5) erases the contextual considerations within which sex takes place. More broadly, Nussbaum faults for Dworkin for (1) occluding economic injustice through an "obsessive focus on sexual subordination," (2) reproducing
objectificationObjectification is the process by which an abstract concept is made as objective as possible in the purest sense of the term. It is also treated as if it is a concrete thing or physical object...
in reducing her interlocutors to their abuse, and (3) refusing reconciliation in favor of "violent extralegal resistance against male violence."
Later life
In the same year, the
New York Times Book Review published a lengthy letter of hers in which she describes the origins of her deeply felt hatred of prostitution and pornography ("mass-produced, technologized prostitution") as her history of being violently inspected by prison doctors, battered by her first husband and numerous other men.
Unlike most feminist leaders , Dworkin was a strong opponent of President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
during the
Lewinsky scandalThe Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging in 1998 from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 25-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of...
. She also expressed support for
Paula JonesPaula Corbin Jones is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. The lawsuit was dismissed before trial on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate any damages...
and
Juanita BroaddrickJuanita Broaddrick is an American former nursing home administrator from Arkansas. She alleged in 1998 that United States President Bill Clinton had raped her two decades earlier...
.
In 2000, she published
Scapegoat: The Jews, IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and Women's Liberation, in which she compared the oppression of women to the persecution of Jews, discussed the sexual politics of Jewish identity and
anti-SemitismAntisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, and called for the establishment of a women's homeland as a response to the oppression of women.
In June 2000, Dworkin published controversial articles in the
New Statesman and in the
Guardian, stating that one or more men had raped her in her hotel room in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
the previous year, putting
GHBγ-Hydroxybutyric acid , also known as 4-hydroxybutanoic acid and sodium oxybate when used for medicinal purposes, is a naturally occurring substance found in the central nervous system, wine, beef, small citrus fruits, and almost all animals in small amounts. It is also categorized as an illegal...
in her drink to disable her. Her articles ignited public controversy when writers such as Catherine Bennett and Julia Gracen published doubts about her account, polarizing opinion between skeptics and supporters such as
Catharine MacKinnonCatharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
, Katharine Viner, and
Gloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
. Her reference to the incident was later described by
Charlotte RavenCharlotte Raven is a British author and journalist.She studied English at Manchester University. As a Labour Club activist there in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was part of a successful campaign to oust then student union communications officer Derek Draper, though she subsequently had a...
as a "widely disbelieved claim," better seen as "a kind of artistic housekeeping." Emotionally fragile and in failing health, Dworkin mostly withdrew from public life for two years following the articles.
In 2002, Dworkin published her autobiography,
Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant. She soon began to speak and write again, and in interview with
Julie BindelJulie Bindel is an English writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice For Women, which opposes violence against women from a feminist viewpoint....
in 2004 said, "I thought I was finished, but I feel a new vitality. I want to continue to help women." She published three more articles in the
Guardian and began work on a new book,
Writing America: How Novelists Invented and Gendered a Nation, on the role of novelists such as
Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and
William FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
in the development of American political and cultural identity, which was left unfinished when she died.
Illness and death
During her final years, Dworkin suffered fragile health, and she revealed in her last column for the
Guardian that she had been weakened and nearly crippled for the past several years by severe
osteoarthritisOsteoarthritis also known as degenerative arthritis or degenerative joint disease, is a group of mechanical abnormalities involving degradation of joints, including articular cartilage and subchondral bone. Symptoms may include joint pain, tenderness, stiffness, locking, and sometimes an effusion...
in the knees. Shortly after returning from Paris in 1999, she had been hospitalized with a high fever and blood clots in her legs. A few months after being released from the hospital, she became increasingly unable to bend her knees, and underwent surgery to replace her knees with
titaniumTitanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
and plastic prosthetics. She wrote, "The doctor who knows me best says that osteoarthritis begins long before it cripples—in my case, possibly from homelessness, or sexual abuse, or beatings on my legs, or my weight. John, my partner, blames
Scapegoat, a study of Jewish identity and women's liberation that took me nine years to write; it is, he says, the book that stole my health. I blame the drug-rape that I experienced in 1999 in Paris."
When a newspaper interviewer asked her how she would like to be remembered, she said "In a museum, when male supremacy is dead. I'd like my work to be an anthropological artifact from an extinct, primitive society." She died in her sleep on the morning of April 9, 2005, at her home in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The cause of death was later determined to be acute
myocarditisMyocarditis is inflammation of heart muscle . It resembles a heart attack but coronary arteries are not blocked.Myocarditis is most often due to infection by common viruses, such as parvovirus B19, less commonly non-viral pathogens such as Borrelia burgdorferi or Trypanosoma cruzi, or as a...
. She was 58 years old.
Legacy and controversy
Dworkin authored ten books of radical feminist theory and numerous speeches and articles, each designed to assert the presence of and denounce institutionalized and normalized harm against women. She became one of the most influential writers and spokeswomen of American
radical feminismRadical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
during the late 1970s and the 1980s. She characterized pornography as an industry of damaging objectification and abuse, not merely a
fantasyFantasy in a psychological sense is broadly used to cover two different senses, conscious and unconscious. In the unconscious sense, it is sometimes spelled "phantasy".-Conscious fantasy:...
realm. She discussed prostitution as a system of exploitation, and intercourse as a key site of subordination in
patriarchyPatriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
. Her analysis and writing influenced and inspired the work of contemporary feminists, such as
Catharine MacKinnonCatharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
,
Gloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
,
John StoltenbergJohn Stoltenberg is an American radical feminist activist, scholar, author, and magazine editor. He is the managing editor of AARP The Magazine, a bimonthly publication of the United States-based advocacy group AARP , a position he has held since 2004.Stoltenberg was life partner to Andrea Dworkin...
,
Nikki CraftNikki Craft is an American political activist, radical feminist, artist and writer.-Activism:In 1975, she presented the Rockwell International Board of Directors with "...naked doll[s] splashed with blood-colored paint" to protest their B-1 bomber called "The Peacemaker".The same year, Craft...
, Susan Cole, and Amy Elman.
Dworkin's uncompromising positions and forceful style of writing and speaking, described by Robert Campbell as "apocalyptic," earned her frequent comparisons to other speakers such as
Malcolm XMalcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
(by
Robin MorganRobin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
,
Susie BrightSusannah "Susie" Bright is an American writer, speaker, teacher, audio-show host, and performer, all on the subject of sexuality....
, and others).
Gloria SteinemGloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
repeatedly compared her style to that of the
Old TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
prophets;
Susan BrownmillerSusan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
recalls her
Take Back the NightTake Back the Night is an internationally held march and rally intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual violence...
speech in 1978:
Many of Dworkin's early speeches are reprinted in her second book,
Our Blood (1976). Later selections of speeches were reprinted ten and twenty years later, in
Letters from a War Zone (1988) and
Life and Death (1997).
She maintained some political communication with the
political right wingIn politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
. She authored the book
Right-Wing Women, reviewed as premised on agreement between feminists and right-wing women on the existence of domination by men in sex and class and disagreement on strategy. She testified at a Meese Commission hearing on pornography, while
Attorney GeneralThe United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
Edwin MeeseEdwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...
was serving
sociallySocial Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
conservative
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. She had a political discourse with
National ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
writer
David FrumDavid J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
and their spouses arranged by
Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
; the
National Review is a
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
conservative political movement
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
.
Her attitude and language often sharply polarized debate, and made Dworkin herself a figure of intense controversy. After her death, the conservative gay writer
Andrew SullivanAndrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
claimed that "Many on the social right liked Andrea Dworkin. Like Dworkin, their essential impulse when they see human beings living freely is to try and control or stop them — for their own good. Like Dworkin, they are horrified by male sexuality, and see men as such as a problem to be tamed. Like Dworkin, they believe in the power of the state to censor and coerce sexual freedoms. Like Dworkin, they view the enormous new freedom that women and gay people have acquired since the 1960s as a terrible development for human culture." Libertarian/conservative journalist
Cathy YoungCathy Young is a Russian American journalist and writer whose books and articles, as well as columns which appear in the libertarian monthly Reason, and also weekly in The Boston Globe, primarily espouse equality feminism and libertarianism.-Life and Career:Born in Moscow, the capital of what was...
complained of a "whitewash" in feminist obituaries for Dworkin, argued that Dworkin's positions were manifestly
misandristMisandry is the hatred or dislike of men or boys.Misandry comes from Greek misos and anēr, andros . Misandry is the antonym of philandry, the fondness towards men, love, or admiration of them...
, stated that Dworkin was in fact insane, criticized what she called Dworkin's "destructive legacy", and described Dworkin as a "sad ghost" that feminism needs to exorcise.
Other feminists, however, published sympathetic or celebratory memorials online and in print.
Catharine MacKinnonCatharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
, Dworkin's longtime friend and collaborator, published a column in the
New York Times, celebrating what she described as Dworkin's "incandescent literary and political career," suggested that Dworkin deserved a nomination for the
Nobel Prize in LiteratureSince 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, and complained that "Lies about her views on sexuality (that she believed intercourse was rape) and her political alliances (that she was in bed with the right) were published and republished without attempts at verification, corrective letters almost always refused. Where the physical appearance of male writers is regarded as irrelevant or cherished as a charming eccentricity, Andrea's was reviled and mocked and turned into pornography. When she sued for libel, courts trivialized the pornographic lies as fantasy and dignified them as
satireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
."
Dworkin's reports of violence suffered at the hands of men sometimes aroused skepticism, the most famous example being the public controversy over her allegations of being drugged and raped in Paris. In 1989, Dworkin wrote an article about her life as a battered wife in the Netherlands, "What Battery Really Is," in response to fellow radical feminist
Susan BrownmillerSusan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
, who had argued that
Hedda NussbaumHedda Nussbaum is an American woman who was the caretaker for a six-year old girl who died of physical abuse in 1987. The death of the girl, known as Lisa Steinberg, sparked a lengthy and controversial trial and media frenzy...
, a battered woman, should have been indicted for her failure to stop
Joel SteinbergJoel Steinberg , a former New York criminal defense attorney, attracted international media attention when he was accused of murder and convicted of manslaughter in the November 1, 1987, death of a six-year-old girl, Elizabeth , whom he and his live-in partner Hedda Nussbaum had illegally adopted...
from murdering their adoptive daughter.
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
initially accepted "What Battery Really Is" for publication, but then declined to publish the account at the request of their attorney, according to Dworkin, arguing that she needed either to publish anonymously "to protect the identity of the batterer" and remove references to specific injuries, or to provide "medical records, police records, a written statement from a doctor who had seen the injuries." Instead, Dworkin submitted the article to the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, which published it on March 12, 1989.
Some critics, such as
Larry FlyntLarry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....
's magazine
HustlerHustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
and Gene Healy, allege that Dworkin endorsed
incestIncest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
. In the closing chapter of
Woman Hating (1974), Dworkin wrote that "The parent-child relationship is primarily erotic because all human relationships are primarily erotic," and that "The incest taboo, because it denies us essential fulfillment with the parents whom we love with our primary energy, forces us to internalize those parents and constantly seek them. The incest taboo does the worst work of the culture ... The destruction of the incest taboo is essential to the development of cooperative human community based on the free-flow of natural androgynous eroticism." Dworkin, however, does not explain if "fulfillment" is supposed to involve actual sexual intimacy, and one page earlier characterized what she meant by "erotic relationships" as relationships whose "substance is nonverbal communication and touch," which she explicitly distinguished from what she referred to as "fucking."
Dworkin's work from the early 1980s onward contained frequent condemnations of incest and
pedophiliaAs a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
as one of the chief forms of violence against women, arguing that "Incest is terrifically important in understanding the condition of women. It is a crime committed against someone, a crime from which many victims never recover." In the early 1980s she had a public row with her former friend
Allen GinsbergIrwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
over his support for
child pornographyChild pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
and pedophilia, in which Ginsberg said "The right wants to put me in jail," and Dworkin responded "Yes, they're very sentimental; I'd kill you." When
Hustler published the claim that Dworkin advocated incest in 1985, Dworkin sued them for defamatory libel; the court dismissed Dworkin's complaint on the grounds that whether the allegations were true or false, a faulty interpretation of a work placed into the "
marketplace of ideasThe "marketplace of ideas" is a rationale for freedom of expression based on an analogy to the economic concept of a free market. The "marketplace of ideas" belief holds that the truth or the best policy arises out of the competition of widely various ideas in free, transparent public discourse, an...
" did not amount to defamation in the legal sense.
Other critics, especially women who identify as feminists but sharply differ with Dworkin's style or positions, have offered nuanced views, suggesting that Dworkin called attention to real and important problems, but that her legacy as a whole had been destructive to the women's movement. Her work and activism on pornography—especially in the form of the
Antipornography Civil Rights OrdinanceThe Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance is a name for several proposed local ordinances, closely associated with the anti-pornography radical feminists Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, that proposed to treat pornography as a violation of women's civil rights,...
—drew heavy criticism from groups such as the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force (FACT). Dworkin also attracted criticism from
sex-positive feministsSex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism is a movement that began in the early 1980s...
, who emerged largely in opposition to the feminist
anti-pornography movementThe term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to maintain healthy sexual...
during the 1980s, as Dworkin was becoming prominent on the national stage. Sex-positive feminist critics criticized her legal activism as censorious, and argued that her work on pornography and sexuality promoted an essentialist, conservative, or repressive view of sexuality, which they often characterized as "anti-sex" or "sex-negative." Her criticisms of common heterosexual sexual expression, pornography, prostitution, and sexual
sadismSadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
were frequently claimed to disregard women's own agency in sex or to deny women's sexual choices. Dworkin countered that her critics often misrepresented her views, and that under the heading of "choice" and "sex-positivity" her feminist critics were failing to question the often violent political structures that confined women's choices and shaped the meaning of sex acts.
Publications
In addition to books, articles, and speeches listed here, she wrote for anthologies and wrote additional articles, and some of her works were translated into other languages.
Nonfiction
- Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant (2002) ISBN 0-465-01754-1
- Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000) ISBN 0-684-83612-2
- Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women (1997) ISBN 0-684-83512-6
- In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (with Catharine MacKinnon, 1997) ISBN 0-674-44579-1
- Letters from a War Zone: Writings (1988) ISBN 1-55652-185-5 ISBN 0-525-24824-2 ISBN 0-436-13962-6
- Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality (1988) ISBN 0-9621849-0-X
- Intercourse
Intercourse is a radical feminist analysis of sexual intercourse in literature and society, written by Andrea Dworkin. Intercourse is often said to argue that "all heterosexual sex is rape", based on the line from the book that says "violation is a synonym for intercourse." However, Dworkin has...
(1987) ISBN 0-684-83239-9
- Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females (1983) ISBN 0-399-50671-3
- Pornography—Men Possessing Women (1981) ISBN 0-399-50532-6 — Online summary, excerpts
- Our Blood: Prophesies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (1976) ISBN 0-399-50575-X ISBN 0-06-011116-X
- Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality (Dutton, 1974) ISBN 0-452-26827-3 ISBN 0-525-48397-7
Fiction and poetry
- Mercy (1990, ISBN 0-941423-88-3)
- Ice and Fire (1986, ISBN 0-436-13960-X)
- The New Woman's Broken Heart: Short Stories (1980, ISBN 0-9603628-0-0)
- Morning Hair (self-published, 1968)
- Child (1966) (Heraklion, Crete, 1966)
Articles
- Marx and Gandhi were liberals: Feminism and the "radical" left (1977 (ASIN B0006XEJCG))
- Why so-called radical men love and need pornography (1978 (ASIN B0006XX57G))
- Against the male flood: Censorship, pornography and equality (1985 (ASIN B00073AVJA))
- The reasons why: Essays on the new civil rights law recognizing pornography as sex discrimination (1985 (ASIN B000711OSO))
- Pornography is a civil rights issue for women (1986 (ASIN B00071HFYG))
- A good rape. (1996 (ASIN B0008DT8DE)) (Book Review)
- Out of the closet.(Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Cross-Dressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitude) (1996 (ASIN B0008E679Q)) (Book Review)
- The day I was drugged and raped (1996 (ASIN B0008IYNJS))
- Are you listening, Hillary? President Rape is who he is (1999) (excerpt)
Speeches and interviews
Some were digitalized.
- Why Men Like Pornography & Prostitution So Much Andrea Dworkin Keynote Speech at International Trafficking Conference, 1989. (Audio File: 22 min, 128 kbit/s, mp3)
- Andrea Dworkin's Attorney General's Commission Testimony on Pornography and Prostitution
- Violence, Abuse & Women's Citizenship Brighton, UK November 10, 1996
- "Freedom Now: Ending Violence Against Women"
- "Speech from Duke University, January, 1985"
- Taped Phone Interview Andrea Dworkin interviewed by Nikki Craft on Allen Ginsberg, May 9, 1990. (Audio File, 20 min, 128 kbit/s, mp3)
- Dworkin on Dworkin, ca. 1980
Reviews of Dworkin's works
- Ice and Fire, by Andrea Dworkin; Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin. "Male and Female, Men and Women". Reviewed by Carol Sternhell for the New York Times (May 3, 1987).
- Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin; Feminism Unmodified, by Catharine MacKinnon. "Porn in the U.S.A., Part I". Reviewed by Maureen Mullarkey for The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
(May 30, 1987):
- Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin (Tenth Anniversary Edition 1997). Reviewed by Giney Villar for Women in Action (3:1998).
- Pornography: Men Possessing Women. "Unburning a Witch: Re-Reading Andrea Dworkin". Reviewed by Jed Brandt
Jed Brandt is an American communist. His writing, photography, design and artistic work has appeared in the Indypendent and other publications. Brandt is a member of the Kasama Project, and advocates for the formation of a new communist movement....
for the NYC Indypendent (February 7, 2005).
Further reading
- Brownmiller, Susan
Susan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
(1999). In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (ISBN 0-385-31486-8).
- Robinson, Jeremy Mark (2008). Andrea Dworkin (ISBN 978-1-86171-126-7). Crescent Moon.
- Strossen, Nadine
Nadine Strossen was president of the American Civil Liberties Union from February 1991 to October 2008. She was the first woman and the youngest person to ever lead the ACLU. A professor at New York Law School, Professor Strossen sits on the Council on Foreign Relations...
, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (ISBN 0-8147-8149-7). New York University Press, 2000. (First edition New York: Scribner, 1995).
External links
- Andrea Dworkin - Daily Telegraph obituary
- Portal for Andrea Dworkin's Websites maintained by Nikki Craft
Nikki Craft is an American political activist, radical feminist, artist and writer.-Activism:In 1975, she presented the Rockwell International Board of Directors with "...naked doll[s] splashed with blood-colored paint" to protest their B-1 bomber called "The Peacemaker".The same year, Craft...
- Official Andrea Dworkin Online Library maintained by Nikki Craft
Nikki Craft is an American political activist, radical feminist, artist and writer.-Activism:In 1975, she presented the Rockwell International Board of Directors with "...naked doll[s] splashed with blood-colored paint" to protest their B-1 bomber called "The Peacemaker".The same year, Craft...
- Andrea Dworkin Memorial Page maintained by Nikki Craft
Nikki Craft is an American political activist, radical feminist, artist and writer.-Activism:In 1975, she presented the Rockwell International Board of Directors with "...naked doll[s] splashed with blood-colored paint" to protest their B-1 bomber called "The Peacemaker".The same year, Craft...
- Andrea Dworkin Quotes
- Encyclopaedia Britannica's 300 Women who changed the world – Andrea Dworkin entry
- Andrea Dworkin Papers. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- Alice Shalvi
Professor Alice Hildegard Shalvi is a leading figure in progressive Jewish education for girls.- Biography :Shalvi was born in Essen, Germany, to a Zionist Orthodox Jewish family, the youngest of three children...
, Biography of Andrea Dworkin, Jewish Women Encyclopedia
- Andrea Dworkin Media praxis video tribute.