Immortalizing a Radical Feminist (My Title - Interesting Site)

Discover the Network ^ | 15 April 2005

[Lando Lincoln]

National Organization for Women

Founded in 1966, the largest organization of feminist activists in America Advocates unfettered right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand Seeks to "eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia" from American society Attacks Christianity and traditional religious values and conservative ideas Regards men generally as oppressors of women Supports gender-based preferences for women Professes to be politically non-partisan, but in fact strongly favors leftwing Democrats over Republicans    On April 9 the National Organization for Women (NOW) paid tribute to its longtime member, the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin, who had died earlier that day at the age of 58. Dworkin authored the 1974 book Woman Hating, a polemic whose objective, she explained, was "to destroy patriarchal power at its source, the family, [and] in its most hideous form, the national state." The New York Times quoted her saying the folowing: "One of the differences between marriage and prostitution is that in marriage you only have to make a deal with one man"; "Marriage . . . is a legal license to rape"; "The hurting of women is . . . basic to the sexual pleasure of men." When Dworkin died, the NOW website posted the following eulogy in her memory: "Andrea Dworkin, internationally renowned radical feminist activist and author who helped break the silence around violence against women, died in her home on April 9 at the age of fifty-eight, after an illness. She was a longtime member of NOW. Dworkin was one of feminism's most rigorous minds and fiercest crusaders. In her determination to articulate the experiences of poor, lower-class, marginal, and prostituted women, Dworkin deepened public awareness of rape, battery, pornography, and prostitution. Called 'the eloquent feminist' by syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman, Dworkin's impassioned words always informed, provoked and inspired." What is the nature of an organization that would praise an individual for holding views such as Dworkin's? With some 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states, the National Oranization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in America. Founded in 1966 in Washington, D.C. by a group of 28 women attending the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women, NOW's principal stated concerns are: to preserve abortion rights; to end "discrimination and harassment" against women in the workplace and in schools; to win "economic equality" for women; to punish offenders who perpetrate violence against women; and to "eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia" from American society. NOW explains that it works to achieve these goals "through direct mass actions (including marches, rallies, pickets, counter-demonstrations, non-violent civil disobedience), intensive lobbying, and grassroots political organizing and litigation (including class-action lawsuits)." Though it defines itself as a "non-partisan organization," NOW is in fact at the far left of the political spectrum and actively supports candidates of similar persuasion. NOW's founders include author and activist Betty Friedan, who penned the book The Feminine Mystique, and Reverend Pauli Murray, the first African-American female Episcopal priest. In 1966 NOW introduced its "Statement of Purpose," co-authored by Friedan and Murray, detailing the group's feminist agenda and depicting women as oppressed victims of America's allegedly rampant sexism. This Statement read, in part, as follows: "With a life span lengthened to nearly 75 years, it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the greater part of their lives to child- rearing; yet childbearing and rearing which continues to be a most important part of most women's lives -- still is used to justify barring women from equal professional and economic participation and advance. . . . [W]omen can and must participate in old and new fields of society in full equality -- or become permanent outsiders. Despite all the talk about the status of American women in recent years, the actual position of women in the United States has declined, and is declining, to an alarming degree throughout the 1950s and 60s. . . . [F]ull-time women workers today earn on the average only 60% of what men earn, and that wage gap has been increasing over the past twenty-five years in every major industry group. . . . Further, with higher education increasingly essential in today's society, too few women are entering and finishing college or going on to graduate or professional school. Today, women earn only one in three of the B.A.s and M.A.s granted, and one in ten of the Ph.D.s. In all the professions considered of importance to society, and in the executive ranks of industry and government, women are losing ground. Where they are present it is only a token handful. . . . Official pronouncements of the advance in the status of women hide not only the reality of this dangerous decline, but the fact that nothing is being done to stop it. . . . There is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has been for Negroes and other victims of discrimination. The National Organization for Women must therefore begin to speak."

At its 1989 national conference, NOW's leadership adopted a Declaration of Women's Political Independence and proposed an Expanded Bill of Rights for the 21st Century, which further clarified the organization's ideology and objectives. The commission that produced these new initiatives was led by Eleanor Smeal, who joined NOW in 1970 and served as its president from 1977-1982. Smeal is the current president of the Feminist Majority Foundation; her fervent dedication to the movement for taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand has led her to liken abortion foes in the U.S. to the Taliban in Afghanistan, her point being that both groups are characterized by raging intolerance.

NOW consistently attacks Christianity and traditional religious values, conservative ideas, and men (whom it largely regards as oppressors of women). Even groups whose chief objective is to protect women are condemned by NOW, if those organizations happen to be male-dominated, or happen to base their ideals on religious tenets. For instance, NOW has disparaged the Promise Keepers, a Christian men's movement that encourages men to take greater responsibility for the care and support of their families.

Prominently displayed at all NOW-sponsored rallies are placards bearing the slogan "Fight the Right." Launched in 1996, this NOW campaign drew the support of hundreds of leftwing groups intent on derailing California's ballot initiative to end racial and gender preferences in business and academia statewide. Today "Fight the Right" focuses its efforts on helping the Democratic Party regain control of Congress and derail the judicial nominations of President Bush.

Notwithstanding its pledge to "hold itself independent of any political party," NOW publicly exhorts voters to defeat Republican candidates at the polls. In 2000 NOW condemned Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy, fearing that it would siphon votes away from Democrat Al Gore.

NOW has been particularly critical of the Bush administration, and many of the group's actions and key "issue" initiatives serve the dual purpose of advancing NOW's agenda and castigating President Bush. For example, NOW has developed a "Progressive Feminist Agenda for Peace," whose stated mission is to "expose the Bush administration's exploitation of the tragedies of September 11, 2001 to advance a right-wing political agenda;" "expose the stifling of political dissent by the Bush administration through policies such as the USA Patriot Act;" and "call for an end to the U.S. campaign of militarism and corporate profit that has contributed to anti-American sentiment around the world."

In June 2002 NOW, which is a member organization of the Win Without War coalition, drafted a "Resolution to Oppose the War on Terror." This document stressed "the urgent need to re-examine the worldwide impact of U.S. foreign policy and global economic policy." Impugning the Bush administration's "enormous increases in defense spending that displace funds from domestic social services and the nation's health-care safety net," NOW characterized the "so-called 'war on terror' . . . [as] a war without end that extends U.S. military aggression into Iraq and throughout the Middle East." NOW's resolution warned that "further U.S. military aggression in the Middle East will only exacerbate the plight of women and children in these countries, where U.S. foreign policy has already contributed to their oppression and destitution," and will "surely lead to more senseless loss of innocent lives, and aggravate anti-American sentiment around the world." "Women," said NOW, "always bear additional personal costs in patriarchal wars that ruin their country's physical infrastructure, destabilize their economies, destroy their homes, and kill and maim their children and families." The NOW resolution concluded that the War on Terror constitutes a "disregard for international law, as well as [for] internationally accepted standards for human rights." 

A major NOW initiative during the 2004 elections was its defense of same-sex marriages, coupled with its criticism of the Bush administration's Federal Marriage Amendment. "The right wing immediately seized upon this [same-sex marriage] issue to rally its ultra-conservative supporters," said NOW. ". . . The Federal Marriage Amendment, introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and supported by President George W. Bush, is an attempt to write discrimination and bigotry into our Constitution, and to overrule any state action on behalf of equal marriage rights."

Another prominent item on NOW's agenda is its opposition to President Bush's proposal to partially privatize Social Security; in NOW's estimation, this plan poses a grave threat to women's financial future. "Private [Social Security] accounts," says NOW, "would saddle the next generation with trillions [of dollars] in debt. The Bush administration and their friends in Congress have depleted government coffers to pay for huge tax cuts to the rich, the build-up of the military and for a very costly war in Iraq. An estimated $2 trillion over the first ten years would need to be borrowed to pay for a transition to a retirement system based on private investment accounts."

NOW also supports Title IX, a piece of legislation originally designed to guarantee female college students equal access to academic and athletic resources, but which has now been corrupted into a quota system akin to feminist pork-barreling. In practice, this 1972 law stipulates that in all federally funded schools, the funding given to female sports teams must proportionally match the funding given to male sports teams. (For example, consider a college with 90 female athletes and 115 male athletes and a scholarship budget of $100,000. An equitable distribution of funds would award $44,000 in scholarship aid to female athletes and $56,000 to males.) This rigid formula applies even in the myriad cases where female teams attract far fewer spectators, generate far less public and campus interest, and bring a school far less revenue than the male teams. Title IX has forced many schools to purge some of their male squads, with football and certain Olympic category sports often the first to be eliminated. UCLA, for example, was forced to eliminate its men's swim team, which had produced a number of U.S. Olympic medal-winning swimmers.

On the issue of what it euphemistally calls "family planning," NOW's position is that women should be granted unfettered access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand at ant stage of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever. A member of the National Council of Women's Organizations, NOW was an Organizer of the April 25, 2004 "March for Women's Lives" held in Washington, D.C. - a rally that drew more than a million demonstrators agitating for the acceptance of NOW's position. NOW also supports the widespread distribution of Mifepristone (the "abortion pill" also known as RU-486). "Concerns over safety about Mifepristone are nonsense," says NOW, which describes the drug as a "safe and private abortion option." According to The New York Times, however, the FDA has received hundreds of reports of problems with Mifepristone, including serious infections, ectopic pregnancies, cases of blood loss that required transfusions, and even three deaths.

In 2002, NOW launched "The Truth About George.com" campaign and website, which it describes as a source that documents "the misdeeds of [President] Bush and his cronies since 2002, revealing the cold hard facts about an administration bent on rewarding big corporations and the rich, turning back the clock on women's rights and civil rights, and promoting a U.S. empire abroad. Bush's second term promises to be even worse — with an escalation of attacks on reproductive rights, the Constitution, the courts, civil rights, the economy, Social Security and global relations." According to NOW's current president, Kim Gandy, "TheTruthAboutGeorge.com, is an effort by the nation's largest women's rights group to keep the public eye focused on what the Bush Administration is doing on a variety of issues that the mainstream media is not covering."

Gandy was elected president of NOW in 2001, after having spent a decade as the organization's executive vice president. She has also held prominent positions with the Lesbian and Gay Political Action Caucus; the Association of Democratic Women; the Association of Women Attorneys; the Business and Professional Women; and WomenFocus. In addition to her duties as NOW president, today Gandy also serves as chair of the NOW Foundation, a 501(c) (3) organization which is "devoted to furthering women's rights through education and litigation." In addition, she chairs the NOW Political Action Committees, which in 1997 launched the "Victory 2000 - The Feminization of Politics" campaign with the aim of "electing 2,000 feminist candidates at all levels of political office by the year 2000."

Under Gandy's leadership, NOW has supported the activities and agendas of numerous other organizations with similarly radical, politicized agendas. For example, NOW endorsed the Million Mom March, a May 2000 anti-gun rally in Washington, DC that drew some 750,000 participants and has since evolved into a national organization with the same name. Today, Million Mom March is a member group of America Votes, a national coalition of 33 grassroots, get-out-the-vote organizations. America Votes is one of the seven groups forming the administrative core of the Democrat Shadow Party.

Viewing the United States as a nation rife with discrimination against minorities and women, in 2000 NOW, along with the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women and the International Wages for Housework Campaign, jointly issued Pay Equity Now! - a petition that sought to "expose and oppose U.S. opposition to pay equity" for women. The petition charged that "the U.S. government opposes pay equity - equal pay for work of equal value - in national policy and international agreements;" "in the U.S. . . . women's average pay has dropped from 76% in 1992 to 73% of men's wages, 62.6% for Black women, 53.1% for Latina women"; "women are often segregated in caring and service work for low pay, much like the housework they are expected to do for no pay at home"; "underpaying women is a massive subsidy to employers that is both sexist and racist"; and "all women, particularly mothers, who do the vital but unpaid job of caring for children and/or other dependents, are penalized by getting the lowest pay when they go out to work and are discriminated against in such areas as pensions, health care, and social security credits, among others."

NOW was also a signatory - along with more than 120 other leftwing organizations - to a 2000 campaign to increase the minimum wage.

NOW has received funding from the American Express Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and George Soros'Open Society Institute.

[Lando Lincoln]

Lando

[randog]

Please, I beg of you all--no pictures of Andrea Dworkin....FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

[EagleUSA]

The liberal media just loves these freaks and radicals.
Please, I beg also, DO NOT POST A PICTURE!!!

[Old Sarge]

I'd like to echo my fellow FReepers comments, and request the Post-a-Pic Rule be suspended for this occasion.

[T'wit]

I was going to suggest a photo, for the same reason you are cringing at the thought :-) Here was a woman who could give Helen Thomas a five-zit handicap.

[swilhelm73]

I saw Dworkin once in person. Now I don't normally harp on unpleasant looks, but one thing I will always remember about her was this massive boil on her face.

Of course, in fairness, her words were more disgusting then her visage.

[Tax-chick]

I had no idea Andrea Dworkin had died. How sad for her.

[randog]

What were the unhappy circumstances that led to you being in the same room with......that boil?

[kingattax]

"Andrea"

[VietVet]

IIRC, I crossed words with Dworkin back in the 70's, in Science Fiction Fandom. "Eloquent" is not a word I would use to describe her writing style. Shrill and polemic is more like it.

As far as I am concerned, another half-crazed ideologe has gone to their just reward. I should care?

VietVet

[swilhelm73]

A long story, my FRiend...

[Max in Utah]

Andrea Dworkin: "Marriage...is a legal license to rape."

I'm surprised that someone so full of poison could live for so long. I made the mistake of reading some of her crap and boy, did I regret it... I felt contaminated by her thoughts. She obviously had intelligence but it did no one any good.

Bye bye b*tch-- we won't be missing ya!

[Alia]

I've got some great pics of the "Fight the Right" March in San Francisco of back then. Lots of Teacher's unions, and the usual cabal of cranially limited, closed minded socialist bot-types.

Andrea Dworkin wrote some hefty laws for Canada, outlawing pornography. These laws passed. And Andrea's own books were yanked from the shelves, as these were deemed "pornographic".

Andrea Dworkin was a miserable, unhappy woman who seemed to write as a means of release through writing as a narcotic substitute, in order that others might be inspired to feel just as angry and hateful as herself. Her writing style resembled someone who'd never gotten over being rejected by a man she had loved. While her prose carried academic (modern day) " feminese" (that special code brand of linguistic belonging normatively to those considering themselves "academic lightning rods") it unfortunately came across as mostly a private journal by which education syllogisms were interspersed but only to masquerade the personal invective and self-loathing, and by extension the loathing Dworkin felt towards men. When women write this meanly about 1/2 of the population, it's indicative of loathing for everyone, but that she'd found a market niche, ergo, Dworkin's special brand of "feminism".

Somewhere along the line, Andrea Dworkin, stopped trying to better herself, challenge herself. She limited herself to tirades of intellectual fancy catering to a market niche (feminism). Some of her writings were so puerile and angry; one could only hope it was purgative for her, and that this would be that last time she'd spew for public viewing. And that possibly, her own "self as therapy" style of writing and "thinking" would act as a cathartic. It just never happened. I hope her tortured soul has found peace.

But when I consider how many lives and household have been ill-effected as a consequence of her own influence over academia and legislations, I can't see many people wishing her to "rest in peace" including her own followers and fans.

I would find it entirely possible that the feminists will raise Andrea Dworkin in movies and books and curriculum, as a "feminist saint". I smell it coming. They aren't going to let her rest in peace. They are going to attempt to ressurrect Dworkin's words and anger and loathing. It's about that marketing niche...money and power. The fonthead of the left. Gertrude Stein is still alive and well; and American feminists need a newer, modern saint to keep their "cause" fueled.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Please, I beg also, DO NOT POST A PICTURE!!!

But why not? ;)

[goldstategop]

NOW = an organization of embittered, radical, aging lesbos and has been femi-nazis. Andrea Dworkin's passing is a sign of feminism's decline. Good riddance.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

I guess when you make love to a woman, you've already acquired that "legal license." shudder> I didn't know it was the equivalent of rape. The comparison for what its worth, is both tasteless and morally obscene.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[taxed2death]

I guess by that logic, the flipside to her comment "Marriage...is a legal license to rape"...for a man marriage is a license for a woman to plunder a mans' finances.

:)