‘Feminism is hated because women are hated’Why do some women support right-wing movements, even though they curtail their freedoms? Andrea Dworkin’s timeless, visionary analysis goes to the heart of this contradiction, exploring the Right’s positions on abortion, sexuality, racism and antifeminism, and showing how it attempts both to exploit and to quiet women’s deepest fears of male violence. The right-wing woman, Dworkin contends, acquiesces to male authority for protection and some semblance of power: because ‘survival depends on it’.‘Groundbreaking’ Bella Abzug‘Her razor-sharp analysis of why so many women are attracted to a politics that despises their rights is more relevant today than ever’ Guardian
‘Pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women’s bodies and souls … it is war on women’Pornography, Andrea Dworkin argued in this landmark work, is about power: the power of owning, of money, of sex. It is not merely violence against women, but the essential DNA of male dominance. As images of women’s bodies continue to be manipulated and consumed, her searing, fearless critique of pornographic media is more urgent and discomfiting than ever.‘A major text for our time’ Adrienne Rich‘Dworkin writes with power, anger, daring – and from a great care and love of womankind’ Alice Walker‘The woman who showed us the dark core of pornography, the punishing hatred of women that pervades it’ Guardian
‘This book is an action, a political action where revolution is the goal’Andrea Dworkin’s blazing, prophetic debut argued that a deep-rooted hatred of women has been ingrained in society for centuries – and still governs us today. From fairy tales to erotic novels to witch-burnings, she uncovers the ways in which male violence and oppression have been normalized throughout history, and points the way to liberation.‘To see where we are going we must understand where we have been. Woman Hating is a much needed and long overdue addition toward that understanding’ Audre Lorde‘A singularly powerful voice … Dworkin [gave] definitive expression to the radical feminist tenet that sexual domination was the beating heart of patriarchy’ Amia Srinivasan, LRB
Andrea Dworkin, once called Feminism's Malcolm X," has been worshipped, reviled, criticized, and analyzed-but never ignored. The power of her writing, the passion of her ideals, and the ferocity of her intellect have spurred the arguments and activism of two generations of feminists. Now the book that she's best known for-in which she provoked the argument that ultimately split apart the feminist movement-is being reissued for the young women and men of the twenty-first century. Intercourse enraged as many readers as it inspired when it was first published in 1987. In it, Dworkin argues that in a male supremacist society, sex between men and women constitutes a central part of women's subordination to men. (This argument was quickly-and falsely-simplified to all sex is rape" in the public arena, adding fire to Dworkin's already radical persona.) In her introduction to this twentieth-anniversary edition of Intercourse , Ariel Levy, the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs , discusses the circumstances of Dworkin's untimely death in the spring of 2005, and the enormous impact of her life and work. Dworkin's argument, she points out, is the stickiest question of feminism: Can a woman fight the power when he shares her bed?
Always innovative, often provocative, and frequently polarizing, Andrea Dworkin has carved out a unique position as one of the women's movement's most influential figures, from the early days of consciousness-raising to the "post-feminist" present. Heartbreak reveals for the first time the personal side of Dworkin's lifelong journey as an activist and a writer. By turns wry, spirited, and poignant, Dworkin tells the story of how she evolved from a childhood lover of music and books into a college activist, embraced her role as an international advocate for women, and emerged as a maverick thinker at odds with both the liberal left and the mainstream women's movement. Throughout, Dworkin displays a writer's genius for expressing emotional truth and an intellectual's gift for conveying the excitement of ideas and words. Beautifully written and surprisingly intimate, Heartbreak is a portrait of a soul, and a mind, in the making.
'This final, short book, is the unfolding development of a life and a mind. It reminds us that she was never primarily a political activist, but a writer and, to herself, a scholar ...Since she died last year, a victim of her enormous size, I have come to think that Andrea Dworkin was more important than I thought at the time.' - Linda Grant, "The Jewish Quarterly". '"Heartbreak" confirms that every bolshy, out-spoken freedom fighter who is the anti-type of standard Western glamour, fast becomes a scapegoat for the hatred of unpopular and hard-to-sell ideas; such as feminism.' - "The Crack Magazine". '...explosive ...uncompromising courage ...you could not get a voice more intensely alive - in its analysis of inequities which bind and divide women across race and class, its incisive accounts of oppression and the costs of resistance, its eloquent love of creativity, and its take-no-prisoners truth-telling.' - "Times Literary Supplement". '"Heartbreak" is not the memoir of a victim. Dworkin's tone is dry and humorous. Her personality is warm and likeable and, shockingly, she has a wicked sense of humour. If Dworkin had not come into prominence, first as a victim of rape and later as a campaigner against it, she might even be taking her place alongside Fay Weldon and Margaret Atwood'. - "The Times". 'pleasingly bathetic - her persecutors are finally reduced to their proper size.' - Charlotte Raven, "New Statesman". Always innovative, often provocative, and frequently polarizing, Andrea Dworkin carved out a unique position as one of the women's movement's most influential figures, from the early days of consciousness-raising to the "post-feminist" present. She wrote thirteen books, ranging across feminist theory, fiction and poetry. Andrea Dworkin died in April 2005.
Andrea Dworkin wrote Right-Wing Women in 1983 - a crucial and deeply illuminating analysis of the right's position on abortion, homosexuality, antisemitism, female poverty, and antifeminism. Forty years later, the book feels more vibrant, clear-eyed, and visionary than ever, especially as these issues get relitigated in both legal and public forums. In addition to her revelatory and nuanced portraits of figures like Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly, and an examination of the roots of a distinctly woman-led brand of American conservatism, Right-Wing Women will give readers the thrill of rediscovering the force and elegance of Dworkin's arguments and her skill as one of our most adept and prophetic feminist thinkers.
Andrea Dworkin's seminal 1981 work on the issue of pornography argues that the industry serves only to harm and oppress women. Her discussion of pornography as an outgrowth of the power that men exert over women - the power of owning, the power of money, and the power of sex, among others - still blazes with its clarity and immediacy, and illustrates how these inequities, while displayed in raw form in pornography, are endemic in all media. With a lively and deeply compelling voice, Andrea Dworkin succinctly outlines her anti-pornography stance. Though the media environment may have changed, this passionately and powerfully argued classic remains a relevant and crucial contribution to the area of feminist studies.
A classic work in the canon of radical feminist thinking, Andrea Dworkin's 1974 debut Woman Hating is a stunning exploration of how women, and the idea of women, have been treated through the centuries. From fairy tales to erotic novels to medieval witch burnings, Dworkin uncovers the ways in which a rhetoric of hate and violence against women has been historically normalised, leading to a history of degradation, mutilation, and even killing.
Selections from the work of radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin, famous for her antipornography stance and role in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s.Radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin was a caricature of misandrist extremism in the popular imagination and a polarizing figure within the women's movement, infamous for her antipornography stance and her role in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s. She still looms large in feminist demands for sexual freedom, evoked as a censorial demagogue, more than a decade after her death. Among the very first writers to use her own experiences of rape and battery in a revolutionary analysis of male supremacy, Dworkin was a philosopher outside and against the academy who wrote with a singular, apocalyptic urgency. Last Days at Hot Slit brings together selections from Dworkin's work, both fiction and nonfiction, with the aim of putting the contentious positions she's best known for in dialogue with her literary oeuvre. The collection charts her path from the militant primer Woman Hating (1974), to the formally complex polemics of Pornography (1979) and Intercourse (1987) and the raw experimentalism of her final novel Mercy (1990). It also includes “Goodbye to All This” (1983), a scathing chapter from an unpublished manuscript that calls out her feminist adversaries, and “My Suicide” (1999), a despairing long-form essay found on her hard drive after her death in 2005.
