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April 12, 2005

Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin - whose name in the past twenty years surpassed "Catherine McKinnon" as a code word for "dogmatic, unthinking identity feminism", passed away over the weekend:

To opponents she was an archetypal man-hater, killjoy and proponent of censorship, but supporters rallied to her impassioned lectures and books. Gloria Steinem, a fellow feminist, said she was one of a handful of writers each century "who help the human race to evolve".
I gotta confess, I lean toward the killjoy wing.

Unreasoning rage seemed to waft from her like a bitter haze. I never understood why - it almost seemed like there had to be something else to it, deep in the background.

Ms Dworkin's life as a political activist began early. In 1965, when she was 18, she was arrested at the US mission to the United Nations, protesting against the Vietnam war. She was sent to the New York City Women's House of Detention, where she was given a brutal internal examination.

Her testimony about the experience was reported worldwide and helped to bring public pressure to bear to close the prison. An unmarked community garden now grows where it once stood.

Yeah, that'd do it.

Posted by Mitch at April 12, 2005 07:01 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Good God, did you see the picture they stuck on the Strib's website with that article? Was there no better picture taken of her over her decades of punditry?

Posted by: Steve Gigl at April 12, 2005 09:33 AM

Good God, did you see the picture they stuck on the Strib's website with that article? Was there no better picture taken of her over her decades of punditry?

Posted by: Steve Gigl at April 12, 2005 09:33 AM

From pics I've seen over the years, they had no choice in "better".

Posted by: Colleen at April 12, 2005 12:31 PM

Ah, Dworkin. Wrong on--well, everything, as far as I could tell.

Actually, the most positive thoughts I've seen toward her today came from David Frum, who said:

[S]he shared a deep and true perception with the political and cultural right: She understood that the sexual revolution had inflicted serious harm on the interests of women and children – and (ultimately) of men as well. She understood that all-pervasive pornography is not a harmless amusement, but a powerful teaching device that changed the way men thought about women. She rejected the idea that sex is just another commodity to be exchanged in a marketplace, that strippers and prostitutes should be thought of as just another form of service worker: She recognized and dared to name the reality of brutality and exploitation where many liberals insist on perceiving personal liberation.
Dworkin existed in that place where the hard left and the hard right meet for coffee. Others may miss her; for my money, I think the world's better off without her.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at April 12, 2005 02:24 PM
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