Andrea Dworkin

[andwhatev]

I've found it saddening to see the sometimes dismissive attitude with which Andrea Dworkin is treated these days, so I wrote this about why, as a 22-year-old Australian feminist, Andrea Dworkin is important to my life.

She died, on April 9th 2005. Which is around the time that I took my first Sexual Politics class, with Sheila Jeffreys, who is

Comments

[friend_of_tofu]

Liberal feminists again and again condemn her - and MacKinnon as well, but mostly Dworkin, because she's an easier target - for "doing more harm than good", for bringing too much "negativity" into the women's movement, for focussing on the bad instead of the good.

You're right on this point. I have always disliked MacKinnon far more than Dworkin, and felt that Dworkin unfairly got the blame for a lot of MacKinnon's terrible ideas and practices - like her influence on anti-porn legislation, soooooo smart!

I actually think that Susie Bright wrote one of the best assessments of Dworkin ever, after her death - see here - ironic really, as Susie was exactly the sort of feminist doing the sort of things that Dworkin, MacKinnon and Jeffries-influenced feminists decry. But she had plenty of good words for Andrea, nonetheless.

I don't think Andrea Dworkin's work was all useless, and I did admire her passion - but she was also responsible, directly and indirectly, for a lot of bad attitudes and ideas which have hurt people. I agree with you that she's often been misquoted and misunderstood, that much of this is not her fault - but she did very little to correct it, and in my opinion is therefore culpable on at least some levels.

I do, however, agree that the way her rape in Paris was treated - as the delusional ramblings of a crazy old
woman - was absolutely horrifying.

Sheila Jeffries, however, I have no such conflicts about - everything I've ever read of her writings convinces me that she is very wrong and very disturbing. MacKinnon, mostly the same (legal theory, my arse!)