How Did We Skip Her? Andrea Dworkin: RIP

[Makalakumu]

When it comes to describing the culture of hatred toward women that our culture instill in men, I think that Ms. Dworkin was right on. I remember reading her writing and really thinking that it was unfair, because I'd NEVER done violence like that...then I looked a little deeper and found a lot of small things in my language and in my actions that not only showed a disdain for women, but outright humiliating hatred. Think what you will, right or wrong, Dworkin's rhetoric changed the way alot of people think about women. It had an effect on me...

 

[Kenpodoc]

Actually Robert I was trying to say that the gay couples I know do display family values. In my experience people like Delay, P. Robertson, Swaggart etc. are the ones deficient in what I would call family values. Dworkin was not totally wrong but racism and sexism are bad regardless of your genetic make-up. In general I feel that her writing was counter productive.

I believe that Hillary Clinton has been unfairly vilified and speaks for family and personal values and growth more than the P. Robertsons or A Dworkins of the world do.

As to the

endless list of sexual violence against women.

Most sexual activity is not violent and most men care deeply for their female partners.

Jeff

 

[rmcrobertson]

Fair enough.

However, I'm a bit Freudian about "normalcy," being a compilation--a propping-together--of all sorts of competing impules and drives and desires. And I buy his basic take that in sex, we're ALL perverts...at least if we do it right. Why, I can remember....yes....uh, I'm back.

Going back to the violence/objectification issue, I have to say that at some point, what we see in our culture is a lot more than a few isolated incidents and a few "sick," minds. Think about the jokes men tell; the popularity of, "Girls Gone Wild," and the Swimsuit Issue; think about our films and their weirdness about women and sex; think about advertisement and fashion (my favorite style movement in this regard--sometime in the Eighties, the, "New Vulnerability," look for women); the fact that in Tokyo, you can go into a whorehouse and pay to harrass, smack around and have sex with what appears to be a secretary or fellow executive....

personally, I think Samuel R. delany had a point. personally, I think Dworkin did. Is their rhetoric sometimes extreme? Yes--but no more extreme than innumerable things we take for granted every day.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Let's not forget that many women never even had the opportunity to "kick through" the "glass ceiling" until "hand-wringers" started "moaning" about it.

Ideally, women shouldn't have to kick through the glass ceiling -- we should all rise based on our ability, yes? Until that ceiling is removed, it needs to be constantly decried.

Decried, yes. Of course. HOW is the issue here.

If women assert themselves, grand. I think they ought to. I question the rhetoric of some of them.

Case in point: When Feminists Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT) stood up to MacKinnon's anti-pornography efforts in 1987, she quipped "'The Black movement has Uncle Toms and Oreo cookies. The labor movement had scabs. The women's movement has FACT.''

This is divisive and stupid. She was lambasting the likes of Rita Mae Brown, Betty Friedan and others opposing her censorship efforts. She and Dworkin split the movement. Linda Williams, a feminist and UC Berkeley film studies professor, spoke for a number of women in the movement who didn't want such restrictions on their own fantasies: 'Really, who are they to tell us where our sexual imaginations should go?''

Thanks to MacKinnon and Dworkin's efforts at getting anti-porn legislation passed in Canada, Gay and Lesbian bookstores were targeted for preferred harrassment. Oddly, even two of Dworkin's books were seized because they "illegally eroticized pain and bondage."

As for handwringers...I'd say there are a number of feminists who are not of that ilk. Their power is through the press, largely, but they don't take a victim's stance nor alienate males. There are indeed some who have kicked through their own glass ceilings. This is to be respected.



Regards,



Steve

 

[heretic888]

Dunno about the late Ms. Dworkin here....

But, all's I know is that its not a particularly congenial idea to impose the values of a particular generation's culture (say, the postmodern West's feminist and pluralistic values --- which are solely a product of our time and our culture) onto all cultures throughout all of history.

Laterz.

 

[PeachMonkey]

First off--did anybody actually bother to read what I actually wrote? Which certainly wasn't anywhere near a set of statements that Dworkin was Right About Everything, and in which I repeatedly said stuff like, "I agree that some of Dworkin's public statements were a bit out there, and that at times she was deeply unwise about politics...?"

Given your seeming unwillingness to comprehend most of the statements I've made, there is a certain irony in the above quote. But, once again: can you find anyplace where anyone said "That Robert, he sure thinks Dworkin's writings were the cat's meow!"

Second off--how in the heck does anybody on this Forum actually know that Hillary Clinton, "has been deified by Democrats and by the left... a snide politician who never met a change of position she didn't like if it didn't increase her chance of increasing a poll standing or getting a chance to run for president?"

The only thing about that statement that I don't stand fully by is the word "snide", and only because I regret that you interpreted it as an assault on her due to her gender; it applies to *all* politicians rather than Hillary Clinton in particular.

Then there's the little matter that there's hardly anything unexpected about a politician watching the polls and adjusting positions--unless, I guess, they're a girl.

It's becoming clear to me that you and I are unable to communicate in a friendly and rational manner on this subject. I've made it clear not only in this thread that I support women but leftists; you respond with this sort of projective, attacking statement that, frankly, falls in with the kind of verbal violence that I disliked among some of Dworkin's work as well.

Looks to me as though the standards applied to the Clintons are pretty unique--not only is she a girl, she's a bit leftist.

What on earth about my writing history on this message board makes you think that I would criticize a member of the Clinton family for being leftist, Robert? On the contrary, I criticize the Clintons because they are not leftists, they are opportunists, and their political legacy has been to sell out leftist and progressive ideals at every turn.

But funnily enough, let Tom de Lay get up there and act like a petulant loon, and nobody says a word about his gender or his personality. Let Jerry Falwell get on TV and rant about 9/11 being God's Revenge for the ACLU and gay people--no psychopathology there at all!

You're right, Robert. We're now in bizarro-world, where I never criticise Tom deLay or Jerry Falwell's personality, where I'm constantly railing on female leftist political figures with sexist terminology.

Then there's the political fantasy that says in the end, the Left and the Right are the same.

The Left and the Right are not the same -- I never said otherwise. But if you think the Democratic party, represented by New Democrats like the Clintons, are leftists, then you're the one belaboring under political fantasy.

 

[PeachMonkey]

But, all's I know is that its not a particularly congenial idea to impose the values of a particular generation's culture (say, the postmodern West's feminist and pluralistic values --- which are solely a product of our time and our culture) onto all cultures throughout all of history.

Is it not the case, though, that some concepts should rise above multiculturalism for the sake of humanity?

For instance, one simply cannot support the forceable mutiliation of female genitalia, no matter what the cultural context.

 

[heretic888]

Is it not the case, though, that some concepts should rise above multiculturalism for the sake of humanity?

Sure. Of course, the question could then be leveled by the happy-go-lucky multiculturalist, "Who the hell determines what is for the 'sake of humanity'???" It can be a slippery slope, y'know.

The point I was making, rather, was our collective desire to impose a particular value system onto all of human history and culture --- a "privileged position" or "zero point", if you will. Y'know, as opposed to looking at things in a more evolutionary or developmental context.

I personally think it does no one any good to complain about the absence of feminist values in human history when they have only existed within the past 200 years or so. Its the same with "reason". T'was a long, long, long time until humans started evincing an ability to actually use reason and logic in their interactions with others (and we're still not getting it down right, anyway).

Y'can call it "progress" or "evolution" or "cultural growth" or "random accumulations of sociocultural epistemes" or "twinkle twinkle little star". It doesn't much matter to me. But, the point is things happen in a sequence of increasing of complexity and increasing holism. We didn't just pop out of great ape ancestors with a full knowledge of advanced calculus, y'know??

That's my take, anyway. :asian:

 

[hardheadjarhead]

I just love it when the liberals on this forum argue. It provides some of the best debating we've ever had.

I want to clarify something for Peach...when I used the phrases "handwringing" and "moaning" I was attempting to convey the spirit of Naomi Wolf's book "Fire With Fire." I will still take responsibility for the phrases and acknowledge that they might at first blush seem insensitive to the Feminist movement...I, however, am not. At least I don't think myself so.

My thoughts on Feminism have been colored by Wolf, by Nadine Strossen's "Defending Pornography" (a feminist work which has less to do with porn than it has to do with 1st Amendment rights) and Warren Farrell's "The Myth of Male Power."

Feminism, to be effective, needs to have a dialogue with men. In 1837 abolitionists Sara and Angelina Grimske delivered seventeen lectures to eight thousand men and women in Massachussetts. One man who attended wrote he would "never forget the wonderful manifestation of this power..the audience so quiet and intensely absorbed....The effective agent in this phemomenon was Angelina's ...wonderful gift, which enchained attention, disarmed prejudice, and carried her hearers with her."

This was in a time when women were not seriously considered for suffrage and still weren't allowed to speak in most churches throughout New England. Yet the sisters, particularly Angelina, were so effective that they engaged the men of the area and helped plant the seeds of the women's movement. They were censured, of course, for their political and social impetuosity for scandalously speaking before mixed audiences...but they carried the day with the force of their character and words.

Andrea Dworkin failed to do this. Was she a man-hater? Some say no, but reading her essays I find it difficult to believe otherwise. Did she equate sexual intercourse with rape? She devotes a whole piece to this proposal. Did she project her own tragic experience on all women? It would seem so. Did she inspire a dialogue with men? Not hardly.

Feminism of this nature, that stereotypes and lumps all men into one basket, is the exact mirror reflection of that which it demonizes. Men are objectified and labeled--all are oppressors and perpetrators. Maleness is to be ridiculed. Our accident of birth is something we're supposed to be ashamed of and for which we assume culpability.


Regards,


Steve

 

[heretic888]

The point I was making, rather, was our collective desire to impose a particular value system onto all of human history and culture --- a "privileged position" or "zero point", if you will. Y'know, as opposed to looking at things in a more evolutionary or developmental context.

Continuing with what I stated in my previous post, the following e-book --- WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS: The Holarchy of Life, by Andrew P. Smith --- is an excellent summary towards how I myself view "evolution".

Of particular interest is Chapter 9: Darwinism Evolving, which is a critique of the neo-Darwinian model that has become dogma in many academic circles.

Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

First off, my point is that while of course there's criticism of De Lay et al, what we DON'T see is the sort of claim against Dworkin (and in passing against Clinton): that her ideas are driven entirely by psychosexual trauma, that her good points are hidden by her stridency. If it's a guy, it's a question of his action and his politics; if it's a girl, she's sexually twisted. For example, why (given the context) wasn't there something like, "Well, maybe what Dworking shows us is that good analysis can come out of sexual trauma, whether real or imagined--just as Gandhi's embrace of absolute poverty (like his interest in having women given him regular enemas), which undoubtedly had roots in his early childhood, helped him both understand what was wrong in India and provide an example to millions?

I agree that there's a prob with rational communication--it's just not mine.

Second off, I was quite specific about the Clintons being mildly leftist, which they are--especially by opresent standards. More to the point, I'm still waiting for any sort of explanation of the endless list (and it is an endless list) of not only crimes, but day-to-day assaults of every kind upon women: if Dworkin doesn't have anything to say, then what's the explanation for where this stuff comes from?

 

[heretic888]

Feminism of this nature, that stereotypes and lumps all men into one basket, is the exact mirror reflection of that which it demonizes. Men are objectified and labeled--all are oppressors and perpetrators. Maleness is to be ridiculed. Our accident of birth is something we're supposed to be ashamed of and for which we assume culpability.

Well said, Steve. :asian:

 

[heretic888]

First off, my point is that while of course there's criticism of De Lay et al, what we DON'T see is the sort of claim against Dworkin (and in passing against Clinton): that her ideas are driven entirely by psychosexual trauma, that her good points are hidden by her stridency. If it's a guy, it's a question of his action and his politics; if it's a girl, she's sexually twisted. For example, why (given the context) wasn't there something like, "Well, maybe what Dworking shows us is that good analysis can come out of sexual trauma, whether real or imagined [...]

I agree that there's a prob with rational communication--it's just not mine.

If I may, Robert, I believe what Steve is basically trying to say is...

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring
Logical Fallacy: Special Pleading
Logical Fallacy: Straw Man
Logical Fallacy: Two Wrongs Make A Right

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, Steve.

More to the point, I'm still waiting for any sort of explanation of the endless list (and it is an endless list) of not only crimes, but day-to-day assaults of every kind upon women: if Dworkin doesn't have anything to say, then what's the explanation for where this stuff comes from?

Personally, I believe the only viable way to look at these sorts of things is within a developmental context --- not imposing an Absolute Truth (feminist or otherwise) on all people throughout all history. An Absolute Truth which, by the way, only a handful of us (coincidentally, all feminist extremists in the Western democracies) have been clever enough to figure out in the past +100,000 years of human evolution and development.

Just my take, anyway. Laterz.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Yup, fair enough--reaction formation, kinda like the Nation of Islam in this country.

However--what seems to be getting swept under the carpet is that even paranoids have enemies; from my point of view, men and women have created--and continue to profit by--a set of economic and familial systems that largely depend on the objectification and exploitation of women.

Or are men and women really equals in this society--paid equally, treated equally in professional matters, etc.?

 

[raedyn]

Or are men and women really equals in this society--paid equally, treated equally in professional matters, etc.?

To some of us, clearly not. But how have so many people been convinced that it really is this way, we've gotten over our sexism and now we're a free equal feel-good society? Where did anyone get that idea?

The first waves of feminism bought us a lot. I live a much more free and equal life than my grandmother did. I have more opportunities, less overt controlling, etc. And yet, there are still many sexist influences, everywhere. My daughter is growing up in a world that still has a double standard when it comes to boys vs girls. It's just more subtle and underhanded than it was in generations past. We still have rigidly defined male/female roles: the deifinitions have changed over the years, but they're still there.

She's praised for being "pretty" and "nice". Her male playmates are praised for being "strong" and "tough". For all the way we've come... we still haven't come that far. We are still denying both genders the wonder and struggle and beauty and challenge of the full range of human experience.

 

[PeachMonkey]

First off, my point is that while of course there's criticism of De Lay et al, what we DON'T see is the sort of claim against Dworkin (and in passing against Clinton): that her ideas are driven entirely by psychosexual trauma, that her good points are hidden by her stridency.

I don't recall saying that her ideas are driven entirely by psychosexual trauma; she clearly has a vast body of work and thought that several commenters, including myself in passing, have pointed out as being of benefit and forwarding the feminist cause.

The sorts of claims we see instead of guys like De Lay et al are, if anything, less positive; on the left, we refer to them as "wingnuts", "loons", "psychopaths", "monsters". But I guess that's somehow better than occasionally analyzing the past of a particular feminist and how it applies to her violent tone, at least in your book.

"Well, maybe what Dworking shows us is that good analysis can come out of sexual trauma, whether real or imagined--just as Gandhi's embrace of absolute poverty (like his interest in having women given him regular enemas), which undoubtedly had roots in his early childhood, helped him both understand what was wrong in India and provide an example to millions?

The reason I didn't say that was because Dworkin's primary contribution was not her good analysis, but her revenge fantasies that set back feminism, damaged male-female relationships, armed the likes of Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson for decades.

I agree that there's a prob with rational communication--it's just not mine.

Given your proclivity to simply not read large portions of my previous posts in this thread, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Second off, I was quite specific about the Clintons being mildly leftist, which they are--especially by opresent standards.

Nixon was mildly leftist by present standards -- that doesn't make him a leftist. As a brief review, the Clintons (I sweep them up in a category unfairly to cover the acts of both President and NY Senator):

-- Supported sanctions that killed millions of Iraqis without harming the dictator
-- Began the process of shipping prisoners overseas to countries where torture was legal to "improve interrogation" (bet you thought that was a Bush innovation)
-- Began the depradations of civil liberties found in the Patriot Act (bet you thought that was a Bush innovation)
-- Gave us the Welfare Reform Act
-- Initiated and supported Social Security Privitization (bet you thought that was a Bush innovation)
-- Let's not forget, constantly lied, dissembled, purjured, and evaded to cover an affair with an intern
-- Taking stands against really critical issues like videogame violence
-- And supported, voted for, and continue to support the War in Iraq

Wow, they sound like stand-up progressives to me.

And when you ask how I can dare say people "deify" the Clintons, maybe it's because I constantly hear leftists say "I wish we could just have Clinton back" or "I can't wait until Hillary runs for president!" These are people who either have no idea what Bill Clinton actually accomplished as president, what Hillary intends to "stand for" as a candidate, or who don't care what really happens to the country as long as the "other team" isn't in power.

More to the point, I'm still waiting for any sort of explanation of the endless list (and it is an endless list) of not only crimes, but day-to-day assaults of every kind upon women: if Dworkin doesn't have anything to say, then what's the explanation for where this stuff comes from?

As evidenced by your continued inability to find evidence to the contrary, no one ever said Dworkin had nothing to say; EVERYONE on this thread has said she had something to contribute.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Or are men and women really equals in this society--paid equally, treated equally in professional matters, etc.?

Nope. Has anyone in this thread suggested that they are? In fact, can you find a poster in this thread who has suggested anything other than the fact that there continue to be massive depradations against women all over the world?

Your logical fallacies have been pointed out time and again, both implicitly and explicitly -- I'm honestly not sure what it is you think you're arguing against anymore.

 

[PeachMonkey]

II will still take responsibility for the phrases and acknowledge that they might at first blush seem insensitive to the Feminist movement...I, however, am not. At least I don't think myself so.

I apologize if I was too harsh above, Steve -- I know you're not insensitive to the feminist movement, I just felt that was something that needed clarifying and defending, post-haste.

 

[rmcrobertson]

OK, fine...I wouldn't recognize a logical fallacy if it bit me in a well-lit room, though I've been teaching this stuff for two decades and more, fine if you say so--so AGAIN and for the fourth time: how do you explain those differences, and how do you explain the commonplace nature of the objectification of women and violence against them in our, "advanced," society?

Just offer an explanation that's better than Dworkin's.

 

[heretic888]

OK, fine...I wouldn't recognize a logical fallacy if it bit me in a well-lit room, though I've been teaching this stuff for two decades and more, fine if you say so [...]

Ummm....

Logical Fallacy: Appeal To Authority

[...] so AGAIN and for the fourth time: how do you explain those differences, and how do you explain the commonplace nature of the objectification of women and violence against them in our, "advanced," society?

Just offer an explanation that's better than Dworkin's.

Well, personally, my view is that it does no one any good to present historical illusions about some masculinist Fall From Grace in the Far-Off Past in which "the men" collectively decided to oppress, malign, and otherwise abuse "the women". And, furthermore, that "the men" somehow all agreed to do this on pretty much a worldwide scale. And that, even furthermore, "the women" all collectively agreed to submit, acquiesce, and otherwise cower under the collective might of "the men". And then, yet even furthermore, "the women" also agreed to this acquiesence on a pretty much worldwide scale, as well.

Because, as we all know, there is no historical proof of some worldwide Great Gender War in which "the men" and "the women" slapped the hell out of each other for dominance. Meaning, that the only way "the women" would have submitted to all this domination was if they were markedly dumber and/or more cowardly than "the men".

I personally don't buy this sort of reconstructive history crap, but it is a view that is implicitly present (albeit not explicitly so) in the work of theorists like Dworkin. In fact, its the only way that the idea of women being the Universal Victim and men being the Universal Victimizer can be supported.

Laterz.