Andrea Dworkin is Dead

[viscousmemories]

This is old news now (she died April 9th), but I just found out about it today.

I would like to go on at length about how much Andrea Dworkin pissed me off, but fortunately a writer at the Boston Globe has already done so for me.

To put it plainly: Dworkin was a preacher of hate. Her books are full of such declarations as, ''Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman." (''Patriarchy," of course, covers contemporary Western societies.) ''Male sexuality, drunk on its intrinsic contempt for all life, but especially for women's lives, can run wild." ''Hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right."

[...]

On some level, Dworkin deserved compassion as a troubled woman with a history of sexual and physical abuse. Unfortunately, she took her battle with her private demons into the public square, and ended up doing far more damage to feminism than any right-wing cabal. (Ironically, some right-wingers eagerly embraced not only Dworkin's antiporn zeal but her argument that sexual liberation has hurt women.) Men, too, have been casualties of a climate in which a Vassar College official could tell Time magazine that a false rape charge might be a beneficial consciousness-raising experience for male students.

[seebs]

*sigh* Poor thing. I sincerely hope there's an afterlife so she can maybe one day find some peace.

[livius drusus]

Salon has an interesting article (requires subscription, day pass or viewing some ads) about Dworkin and her approach.

from the article

She could inspire impromptu Take Back the Night marches and the instant formation of anti-violence groups, sincere efforts to do something to check the abuse that real women really do suffer every day, even if the response to it in this case was more ideological than practical.

But Dworkin was also a pioneer of a particular and pernicious type of rhetoric, one currently being used much more effectively by talk radio hosts and the extreme political right. Here's a classic example: During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Dworkin quarreled with feminists who did not consider Bill Clinton's sexual encounters with the White House intern to be sufficiently exploitative to merit impeachment. A principled, reasonable argument could be made that Clinton's behavior was unethical, but Dworkin was never about reason. "What needs to be asked," she told a British journalist, "is, was the cigar lit?"

The statement (it seems too sensationalistic to be called a quip) is pure Dworkin: a ghoulishly creative melodramatic flourish that has little bearing on the matter at hand. Clinton may have acted sleazily, with a callous disregard for the emotional consequences of his actions on a young woman who was too naive and eager-to-please to grasp them herself, but no one suspects or has accused him of sadistically torturing her. Yet Dworkin was never able to enter into a conversation about morality unless the stakes were escalated to the stratosphere. The everyday realm where most of us commit our minor sins against, and injuries to, each other didn't really interest her. She only cared for the Grand Guignol.

[Legs]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

(requires subscription, day pass or viewing some ads)

liv, do you every use http://www.bugmenot.com?

BugMeNot will give you a login & password for tons of sites (especially news) so you never have to register to read an article.

[livius drusus]

I do indeed use it, Legs, but I'm actually a Salon subscriber so I don't have to with them. I was just warning folks of what to expect before they clicked on the link.

[lisarea]

You know, I saw the news that she died that morning, and I briefly considered starting a thread somewhere, but dammit, I've always considered her a living, breathing strawman, and I've always kind of pitied and resented her at the same time, and I decided to ignore her in death as I ignored her in life.

But I just got this week's Nation, and as is so often the case, Katha Pollitt said a whole bunch of stuff that bears repeating, IMO:

Andrea Dworkin Obit

What she said.

[viscousmemories]

Thanks for the link, lisa. This is a great ending:

Andrea Dworkin was a living visual stereotype--the feminist as fat, hairy, makeup-scorning, unkempt lesbian. Perhaps that was one reason she was such a media icon--she "proved" that feminism was for women who couldn't get a man. Women have wrestled with that charge for decades, at considerable psychic cost. These days, feminism is all sexy uplift, a cross between a workout and a makeover. Go for it, girls--breast implants, botox, face-lifts, corsets, knitting, boxing, prostitution. Whatever floats your self-esteem! Meanwhile, the public face of organizational feminism is perched atop a power suit and frozen in a deferential smile. Perhaps some childcare? Insurance coverage for contraception? Legal abortion, tragic though it surely is? Or maybe not so much legal abortion--when I ran into Naomi Wolf the other day, she had just finished an article calling for the banning of abortion after the first trimester. Cream and sugar with that abortion ban, sir?

I never thought I would miss unfair, infuriating, over-the-top Andrea Dworkin. But I do. And even more I miss the movement that had room for her.

I should say that I have always had a tremendous amount of sympathy for Andrea Dworkin for her personal suffering, and a certain amount of respect for her feminist philosophy. But I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the late eighties and in accordance with my peer group I went through a bit of a Dworkin/MacKinnon (the University of Michigan Law professor--mentioned in that obit--who often worked closely with Dworkin) inspired man-hating feminist phase myself. And frankly as a man who had a dysfunctional family and unpleasant upbringing myself, adding self-loathing for my maleness on top of it sucked a lot. Especially since I was one of the few men I knew who sincerely sympathized with and adored the women in my life.

And anyway I'm just rambling and not sure where I'm going with it, so I'll just stop.

[lisarea]

What always bothered me most about Dworkin was that she created such a convenient strawman, like Pollitt says, a fat, hairy man-hating lesbian, and it worked. She served to reinforce the notion that feminism is a black and white issue--that it's everyone else vs. Andrea Fucking Dworkin. And in the process, she alienated the vast majority of people who fall somewhere in between man-hating and women-hating. I did not know about her refusing to debate other women, but that makes a lot of sense.

What pisses me off is that it worked. Dworkin was able to pretty effectively coopt everyone who falls anywhere left of pure legislative misogyny, and she pushed everyone over a little further right. Try, even in a fairly socially liberal forum like II FOR EXAMPLE, to argue that the playing field is still not level between men and women, and you immediately get Dworkin's words put in your mouth, assumptions made that you must be fat, old, ugly, nasty, whiny, stupid, and histrionic--that somehow every argument even remotely addressing gender inequality is somehow rooted in extremism. But moreso than Dworkin and her ilk, I blame people who have more nuanced understandings of inequality for not speaking up more consistently to counter those perceptions. Reasonable people sit back and silently let people paint all women as superficial, incompetent, silly bints. Bring it up and see what happens. See how many intelligent, competent women step in not to counter the assumptions, but simply to exempt themselves, reinforcing them in the process. It's almost as though they're afraid to be demonized, to be painted as a Dworkinesque, man-hating bitch.

But how many Dworkins are there really? I mean, there's McKinnon, yeah. A couple of others, I guess. But how many do you know in real life? Pretty much none for me. I have known a couple of separationist type lesbians by political choice, like in COLLEGE and stuff. I also knew more teenaged anarchists and Randian type libertarians and stuff then, too. Young people heart extremism in almost any form. I assume most of them have gotten over it, though. I don't meet grownups like that much.

And yeah, I hate Dworkin for creating this ridiculous dichotomy. Not for her views necessarily. There are always going to be people on either ends of the bell curves. That's to be expected. What I really hated about her was the sheer volume of attention people paid to her views, and her ability to coopt such a large and vital movement with such absurdist extremism. But I dunno. Maybe that wasn't her fault. I mean, every crackpot would probably like to coopt a major philosophy like that, I guess.

And yeah, I still felt sorry for her. She really was way fucked up.

It's everyone else that I'm mad at.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by lisarea

What pisses me off is that it worked. Dworkin was able to pretty effectively coopt everyone who falls anywhere left of pure legislative misogyny, and she pushed everyone over a little further right. Try, even in a fairly socially liberal forum like II FOR EXAMPLE, to argue that the playing field is still not level between men and women, and you immediately get Dworkin's words put in your mouth, assumptions made that you must be fat, old, ugly, nasty, whiny, stupid, and histrionic--that somehow every argument even remotely addressing gender inequality is somehow rooted in extremism. But moreso than Dworkin and her ilk, I blame people who have more nuanced understandings of inequality for not speaking up more consistently to counter those perceptions. Reasonable people sit back and silently let people paint all women as superficial, incompetent, silly bints. Bring it up and see what happens. See how many intelligent, competent women step in not to counter the assumptions, but simply to exempt themselves, reinforcing them in the process. It's almost as though they're afraid to be demonized, to be painted as a Dworkinesque, man-hating bitch.

Yeah, I've gotta say I've noticed that dynamic at II and based on my experience talking to people in life I doubt very highly that it's exclusive to there.

I haven't bought into that stereotype since I was a young teen, but still I also haven't really argued in defense of feminist theory since my early 20's. I blame that on having been alienated by the Dworkinites. Which of course isn't to say that I've been anti-feminist at all, just not so inspired to throw my full weight into debates.

Most of my female friends when I was in my early 20's (who were by and large college students) embraced Dworkin's philosophy. I once had dinner at the all-woman co-op next door with my roomate/lover of the time, and while sitting at a table eating dinner with about 20 women they were having a casual conversation about whether it was scientifically feasible for women to procreate without the need for men, so men could be done away with. And they were serious.

I was the only feminist (and I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek at this point, since at the time even my closest female friends violently opposed any man calling himself a feminist) I knew who had read Susan Faludi's Backlash, but they would nevertheless rail against Faludi as a traitor to women since she favored a more reasonable and scholarly presentation of the issues than the Dworkinites. And I thought she made one of the strongest (and most amenable to other men, I suspect) cases for feminism I had ever read.

[lisarea]

Yeah, the reason I single out II is that it's more politically liberal than most places, online or real life. But it suffers the same problems as most forums do, particularly large ones. People skim and oversimplify, not just in terms of discourse itself, but it terms of applying convenient labels and stereotypes. Black and white. Pro and con. Shit like that.

I guess it kind of did surprise me, though, how people capable of discussing such normally divisive issues as religion and economics and such aren't even capable of recognizing even the slightest nuance in the subject of male female equality. It seems a particularly egregious blind spot.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I have known a couple of separationist type lesbians by political choice, like in COLLEGE and stuff. I also knew more teenaged anarchists and Randian type libertarians and stuff then, too. Young people heart extremism in almost any form. I assume most of them have gotten over it, though. I don't meet grownups like that much.

Neither do I. I didn't meet any of them in college either, truth be told, and that was the same time vm was getting the evil eye from the hairy-legged harpies at UofM. A lesbian friend of mine was occasionally known as "that psycho feminist bitch from hell", but that was just because she was really loud and outspoken.

(Amusing sidebar moment. She once saw someone she thought was me standing in line at the registrar's office, went up to her, slapped her on the back and said in her stentorian everyone in a mile radius can hear her voice: "HEY LIV, YOU FLAPPING TWAT!" The woman who turned out to not be me was less than amused, apparently. Humorless cunt.)

So hey, have you read any Mary Daley? I read Gyn/Ecology freshman year in college and I've never seen a bunch of granola liberal pussy guys get so violently irate.