couldn't find the monor obits thread we have and anyway she probably deserved her own thread anyway

Andrea Dworkin, embattled feminist, dies at 58

Mark Honigsbaum
Tuesday April 12, 2005

Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist activist and writer best known for her campaigns against pornography and her love of outsized dungarees, has died at her home in Washington DC.

The author of more than 13 works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, Dworkin died peacefully in her sleep early on Saturday morning after a long battle with illness, said her partner and collaborator, John Stoltenberg. She was 58.

Famous for her outspoken positions on a range of issues from male-on-female violence, to rape and sexual intercourse, Dworkin's uncompromising stance brought fierce criticism not only from liberals, concerned at her attempts to pass laws against pornography, but from feminists.

Dworkin was particularly upset by the disbelief that greeted her claims in 2000 that she'd been raped and drugged by two men in a Paris hotel room in 1999. Seizing upon inconsistencies in her two essays about the incident, which were published in the Guardian and the New Statesman, and her failure to contact hotel security or police, many feminist critics suggested the rape did not happen.

"Andrea was deeply hurt by the comments, as all women are," said her friend and colleague Catharine MacKinnon, professor of law at the University of Michigan. "But she had an indomitable spirit and deserves to be remembered as a woman with a rage for resistance and struggle."

"Andrea was like an old testament prophet," agreed Gloria Steinhem, the feminist writer and co-founder of Ms magazine who has been a close friend of Dworkin's for more than 30 years.

"She was always warning about what was about to happen and because of that she was frequently misunderstood. But she also had a breadth and depth of intelligence that was refreshing.'

Steinhem said that it was untrue, as Dworkin's critics frequently claimed, that she wished to ban pornography outright or that she considered sexual intercourse rape.

"She was talking about relationships not sex per se," said Steinhem. "But she did call attention in an uncompromising way to the unequal power between men and women and what that meant in the lives of both."

She added that although Dworkin was a self-confessed lesbian who eschewed sexual intercourse, her relationship with John Stoltenberg, who she first met at poetry reading in Greenwich Village in 1974, was proof that she was no "man-hating" stereotype.

Born to a Jewish family in Camden, New Jersey, Dworkin was embroiled in controversy from an early age. Arrested during an anti-Vietnam protest as a student, she was sent to a women's detention centre where she was subjected to a body cavity search. She later became a prostitute in New York and Greece.

Michael Moorcock, the novelist, said that in person Dworkin was not the firebrand she was portrayed as in public but a shy woman with an "incredibly sharp mind".

Awwww, I am saddened to read this. What a young age too. Rest in peace, Andrea

She campaigned against porn? The cheek of her. If it wasn't for porn some people wouldn't be able to feed their expensive drug habit

I'm not quite sure about this, but didn't she also raise issues about women on men violence? I have the impression our good friend K. Myers mentioned this once or twice?

Wasn't Anrdrea Dworkin the person who set the stereoype image for radical feminist lesbians as shaved headed, dungaree wearing firebrands? I think the Viz comic had a character based on her: Millie Tant.

Andrea RIP

Yeah, Millie Tant There was also "Tank Girl" from some other publication in the 80s - she was kinda cool & tough, though.

Private Eye also used to have a really funny corner in the 70's/80's where they encouraged readers to send in the more outre stuff from feminist publications. It was headed "all looney feminist nonsense welcome" and boy, did they get some hummers

"Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us."

- Andrea Dworkin

I admired the work she did with McKinnon on the Indianapolis ordinance against pornography.

As for her tirades on sexuality, I think that she was at best a polemicist striving to shock; at worst, a bitter and mentally unstable bullshitter. She spouted some remarkably hate-filled and paranoid misandrist rubbish.

Rest in peace, nonetheless, Ms Dworkin. Let us hope that God doesn't turn out to be a man when you arrive at the pearly gates, or heaven will be in uproar tonight

One of the big problems with moves against porn (apart of course from the obviouse one of keeping such fun and filth away from us consenting adults) is that you haven't changed the power structures in society at all you have just given them a new power. So what happens after the anti-porn bandwaggon roles out of town after getting the law changed? Well the old straight men who sit as judges use the law against LGBT bookshop and organisations far quicker then they do against anyone else.

That was the expierence in some of the cities that passed laws against porn in a response to activism lead by some sections femists movement. The actual books and bookshops that found themselves in the fireing line where books designed by women for other women about their sexuality.

Makes me think have we really looked into how we will feel if we get the partnership rights we want and then have to face the prospect of the average Irish judge persiding over gay divorces

Andrea Dworkin said
"Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us."


That seems to have been typical of Dworkin's spiel. What he didnt seem to realise that it may only have been men who learned to cry that would have gained the insight and awareness to move against violence against women.

Her main practical efforts at activism where in trying to get city councils in the USA to pass ordinances against pornography (defined as "violence against women") that had no chance of passing muster when appealed under the the First Amendment clause (about free speech) of the US Constitution.

It was also a bit cheeky of her to claim to be a lesbian when she had male partners in her life.


But i hope she finds peace wherever she goes.

Andrea Dworkin seemed to be an apparent man-hater who shook up thinking on feminism but her extreme views found little favour among more moderate liberal circles.

If she was so concerned that pornography was evil to women, I wonder what she thought of gay pornography. She sounds like a Victorian prohibitionist and backward "moralist" dressed up as a late 20th century radical.

If you are looking at some of her stuff now for the first time, she must look like she was a total loon - but in her day she was amazingly brave and refreshing. She certainly got my generation of feminists thinking and debating. While I certainly didn't and don't agree with a number of her stances, I still have the world of respect for her bravery and tenacity.

Many gay women have had relationships with men. The opposite is true for many gay men. A number of us took many years to become fully comfortable in, and happy to be identified as, the gay people that we are. In my mind, it makes us no less gay than those who embraced their gayness from a young age.