Posted on 04/11/2005 2:48:17 PM PDT by billorites
The American feminist icon, writer and campaigner Andrea Dworkin, who linked pornography to rape and violence, died at the weekend, her agent said today. She was 59 years old. Her radical-feminist critique of pornography began with her first book, Woman Hating, published when she was 27. She campaigned frequently on the subject, helping to draft a law in 1983 that defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women.
The law, later overturned by an appeal court as unconstitutional, was inspired by the case of Linda Marchiano, who as Linda Lovelace said she had had been violently coerced into pornography, including the film Deep Throat, but had no recourse to the courts.
The drive of Ms Dworkin's writing and activism was to break the silence around violence against women, but her wider career saw her become a figure of adulation and loathing in equal measure. 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". 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.
As well as political works, Ms Dworkin was also the author of two novels and a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers, including the Guardian.
Ms Dworkin's agent, Elaine Markson, said the cause of death was not known, but she had become increasingly frail as her knees had weakened and she suffered a series of falls. She died at the home in Washington DC she shared with John Stoltenberg, her partner of 30 years and husband since 1998.
... speciously ...
her first book, Woman Hating, published when she was 27 ...
... led to her second book, Man Hating, Volumes I through XXXVIII.
She campaigned frequently on the subject, helping to draft a law in 1983 that defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women.
A law that violated every precept of western law and made the very thought of heterosexual sex a crime. But only if the thoughts originated in the skulls of men.
The law, later overturned by an appeal court as unconstitutional,
Imagine!
was inspired by the case of Linda Marchiano, who as Linda Lovelace said she had had been violently coerced into pornography,
Yeah, they drug a c-note through the trailer park ...
Somehow I don't think those two ever consummated their marriage.
Ha - you're not familiar with Stoltenberg, I see. He was a pansy little lapdog to her great leviathan self - Stoltenberg popped his sausage on the chopping block for Dworkin years ago. Witness: Refusing to be a Man and The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience
ROFLMAO! As SOON as I saw her photo I had the same exact thought ... and then I saw your post!
I am sure that whatever killed her only accentuated the stress that she must have felt upon the realization that if women who got involved in pornography were ever "exploited," that's not true today. Thanks to the internet (or, blame the net), there are untold millions of women worldwide who freely post homemade porn without being forced by an abusive boyfriend or a pimp.
You really, really nailed it. Or if they are going to be promiscuous, it had better be the Playboy or Vivid brand of sex, where men are all juvenile p--sy slaves. (Sex and the City is another sad example.)
Don't ever forget-- if you're going to sin (and adults have a right to) you are doing her the favor. Not the other way around.
But uhh... don't act like that. It's not very nice.
I, for one, pray for her soul. At least some part of her, at some time, thought that some part of what she was doing was trying to help women who were abused and exploited. However ill-concieved, wrong-headed, and warped her political views were... no matter what ulterior motives or other political agendas she may have had... no matter what sins and transgressions she might have committed while on this earth... she was still a person, a creation of God, and therefore deserving of respect in her passing.
I agree - these people were full of contradictions. Of course, now they call prostitution "sex work" and most of their Hollywood faves seem to be longing to do a little porn, so I guess they've come full circle. Or gone back to biting their tails, or something.
| She was anti porn, so she wasn't all bad.
|
I can't get that worked up about her life's work since a) it was far from successful in impacting American society, and b) it wasn't focused as much on pre-cuteness infanticide, like, say, that of Kate Michelman or Sarah Weddington.
I'm going to get flamed here, but Dworkin had it right in this instance. I don't know what prompted some of her more off-the-edge beliefs but we do know that she was a hurting woman.May God grant her the peace in death that she never had here on earth.
Hands down, you win for the most BRILLIANT freep post ever! This one will crack me up forever. By the way, you owe me a new keyboard and bottle of diet Coke with Lime.
I never knew about this 1983 law outlawing porn. Does anyone know if this was a federal law? I wonder what language was used to define this entity.
She's had to have been pissed at Algore for inventing the Internet.
"she had become increasingly frail as her knees weakened and she suffered a series of falls."
So this is the fate of weak-kneed liberals, I always knew it was fatal, only hoped it would involve much more suffering than this.
It was a local law that got passed in a friendly jurisdiction. She wrote the law, but she basically knew it would not pass constitutional scrutiny. I'll try to dig it up in my old constiutional law books when I get home from work.
She was probably jealous that she couldn't get into porn.
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Hah. Right after she got an anti-porn law passed in Canada, her own books were banned under it. She of course described her books as "erotica," but under her own law they were 'porn.'