How Did We Skip Her? Andrea Dworkin: RIP

[hardheadjarhead]

The arch-feminist died this last week, and somehow we here in the study missed it.

A damning write-up in "Reason":

http://www.reason.com/cy/cy041905.shtml


Any thoughts on her? Does anybody even remember her? Personally I think she did a great deal of damage to the left, giving far too much voice to a fringe feminism that wasn't reflective of the movement's ideals.



Regards,


Steve

 

[Makalakumu]

The arch-feminist died this last week, and somehow we here in the study missed it.

A damning write-up in "Reason":

http://www.reason.com/cy/cy041905.shtml


Any thoughts on her? Does anybody even remember her? Personally I think she did a great deal of damage to the left, giving far too much voice to a fringe feminism that wasn't reflective of the movement's ideals.



Regards,


Steve

I remember her, back in the day, she seemed to have some nutty ideas, but for the most part, I could see where she was coming from. I had a psychology professor that worshipped her, she we got Andrea stories all of the time...

She was a controversial figure and said things that pissed people off and made people think. I respect that.

 

[rmcrobertson]

First off, don't take, "Reason," magazine too seriously. Their motto is, "free minds and free markets," and they're another one of these ideological rags (they're libertarians) that tries to mask their ideology in a claim that they have no ideology, just common sense.

One good sign of this is that while they're tearing into the departed Ms. Dworkin, they also throw in some slaps against Martha Nussbaum--a pity, since a) Prof. Nussbaum is a scholar and writer at a level that the, "Reason," guys couldn't reach if they redid the famous experiment with the ape and the banana, put a ladder on a box, stood on the tippy-top of the ladder, and waved a long stick wildly, b) her discussion of feminism is anything but simple-minded and one-sided, as you can see if you look at the first of the articles linked below, c) Nussbaum offers some pretty good reasons to suspect that Dworkin had a point about men's fear and hatred of women, and fantasies of subjecting them. But take a look for yourself.

http://www.tnr.com/archive/0299/022299/nussbaum022299.html

http://www.countercurrents.org/guj-nussbaum290704.htm

All that said, she and Catherine MacKinnon shoulda been chased down the street with squirt-guns (yes, weird image in this context) for announcing loudly their political cooperation with Pat Robertson and his cronies about making porn illegal.

I can tell you for a fact that she wasn't all that influential in academic circles--except, she did help crystallize a lot of discussions about patriarchy back about twenty-five years ago. I flipped through a couple of her books of cultural criticism, and they weren't bad--at times kinda out there, but usually decent stuff.

I've avoided the word, "strident," because, well, I get tired of seeing women written off as strident because then say things men don't like. (You know--guy stands up, he's being a man; woman stands up she's a *****.) Dworkin certainly had some stupid moments--but was she really worse than the Promise Keepers, with their loud assertion that Jesus wants husbands to command their wives like children, or the TV preachers screaming about women and evil, or the makers of, "Hustler," or the director of movies like "Bad Boys," which around the edges had some truly ugly things to say about women, or writers like Joe Esterhaz?

There really isn't any such thing as an arch feminist. She was, though, the feminist men love to hate.

 

[PeachMonkey]

Andrea Dworkin was a sad example of what can happen to people due to the legacy of trauma, violence, and sexual abuse.

As she survived and overcame that past, she focused her powerful intellect on forms of revenge-based violence of her own that did as much to harm feminism and reconciliation between men and women as help.

As Gandhi-ji pointed out, verbal violence is just as damaging as any other kind, and Andrea Dworkin's wild fantasies, while explainable and maybe even understandable, were verbal violence. Her death serves as an excellent reminder to me to examine my own tendencies towards the same, and how it's not fitting a martial artist or a human being.

 

[rmcrobertson]

The fact that childhood trauma inspires one's field of study does not mean that one's field of study--on comments about it--is invalid because of childhood trauma.

Unfortunately, taking a good a look at events described in the second of the two links I posted--they date from 2002!--will tell you that Dworkin had a point. It isn't just a question of, "reconciliation," between men and women--it's also a question of getting men to stop their hatred, violence, pathetic fantasies, and desperate attempts to keep women under control no matter what.

Or did they just elect a liberal Pope who intends to fundamentally change the way that women are second-class citizens in the Church?

 

[PeachMonkey]

The fact that childhood trauma inspires one's field of study does not mean that one's field of study--on comments about it--is invalid because of childhood trauma.

At no point did I suggest that her entire field of study was invalid. I do, however, find a great deal of Andrea Dworkin's work to be intellectually baseless, as you yourself seemed to imply above. If her response to trauma had been to avoid a violent counterresponse, I think we could very easily be discussing how well Dworkin bridged gaps between patriarchal society and the modern feminist movement.

It isn't just a question of, "reconciliation," between men and women--it's also a question of getting men to stop their hatred, violence, pathetic fantasies, and desperate attempts to keep women under control no matter what.

Those are absolutely laudable goals, that were mis-served by the levels of rhetorical extreme that Dworkin reached.

 

[raedyn]

It surprises me that no one is charging in here tearing apart everything they think she was trying to say. Everywhere else online I've seen her death mentioned, there have been people - left & right - getting all worked up about her controversial ideas. (especially the uh.. umm.. *tries to think of an appropriate word* less-than-feminists?)

My guess is that there are few people on here who know who she is and about all the controversy she whipped up. I think she had a greater impact when many of us (myself included) were too young to know what the heck was going on.

 

[raedyn]

Those are absolutely laudable goals, that were mis-served by the levels of rhetorical extreme that Dworkin reached.

I absolutely agree. Like if you try to make the point that some porn can be negative & exploitative, people on the "all porn is always okay" side of the debate will quote Dworkin out of context and imply you're saying things that you aren't. So arguements that do have validity get dismissed out of hand because the otherside hears the most extreme views she espoused, and won't listen to the actual point raised.

I apreciate learning about her ideas, because they spur me to questioning things, and attempting to see them from new perspectives. But I certainly don't agree with her extreme position.

 

[arnisador]

She was a controversial figure and said things that pissed people off and made people think. I respect that.

Yeah, I can get behind this.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Uh...did folks happen to read the articles I linked to?

Here's an excerpt, which concerns riots that took place in India during 2002:

"Particularly striking were the mass rapes and mutilations of women. The typical tactic was first to rape or gang-rape the woman, then to torture her, and then to set her on fire and kill her. Although the fact that most of the dead were incinerated makes a precise sex count of the bodies impossible, one mass grave that was discovered contained more than half female bodies. Many victims of rape and torture are also among the survivors who have testified. The historian Tanika Sarkar, who played a leading role in investigating the events and interviewing witnesses, has argued in an important article that the evident preoccupation with destroying women's sexual organs reveals "a dark sexual obsession about allegedly ultra-virile Muslim male bodies and overfertile Muslim female ones, that inspire and sustain the figures of paranoia and revenge."1 This sexual obsession is evident in the hate literature circulated during the carnage, of which the following "poem" is a typical example:

Narendra Modi [Chief Minister of Gujarat] you have ****ed the mother of [Muslims]
The volcano which was inactive for years has erupted
It has burnt the **** of [Muslims] and made them dance nude
We have untied the penises which were tied till now
Without castor oil in the **** we have made them cry. . .
Wake up Hindus, there are still [Muslims] alive around you
Learn from Panvad village where their mother was ****ed
She was ****ed standing while she kept shouting
She enjoyed the uncircumcised penis
With a Hindu government the Hindus have the power to annihilate [Muslims]
Kick them in the **** to drive them out of not only villages and cities but also the country.
[The word rendered "Muslims" ("miyas") is a word meaning "mister" that is standardly used to refer to Muslims.]

As Sarkar says, the incitement to violence is suffused with anxiety about male sexuality, and the treatment of women that resulted seems to enact a fantasy of sexual sadism far darker than mere revenge."

I agree that some of Dworkin's public statements were a bit out there, and that at times she was deeply unwise about politics. But not everybody has to win a popularity contest--and given the sort of thing just quoted, the sort of thing that we could all come up with lots of examples for around the world--was the "radical," claim really all that radical?

 

[PeachMonkey]

Uh...did folks happen to read the articles I linked to?

Yep.

And despite your excerpts, and the millions of examples of horrible sexual, physical, political, psychological, and moral treatment of women throughout history, I still refuse to get behind the extremist ravings of a radical.

The mass of wrongs by the patriarchy doesn't buy the feminist movement any passes. The mass of wrongs by the right doesn't buy the left any passes. If we don't demand the highest levels of rhetoric, thinking, and logic from our own, we'll never get past simply shouting at one another.

What's more, Dworkin's beliefs, while challenging and worth studying for many of the reasons listed above, consist of a psychologically unresolved desire for revenge and violence towards others that I also refuse to support. This by no means reflects on other feminists or the feminist movement as a whole; simply on Dworkin's specific statements.

 

[rmcrobertson]

In the first place, I wonder whether when, say, Pat Robertson dies, somebody will get on a foruman announce that the, "arch-patriarchist," died today.

In the second, well, as much as I think Freud had it right about discussing the roles that both fantasy and trauma play in the construction of the psyche, Dworkin wasn't making this stuff up. Nor was it an isolated creep here, an isolated maniac there--she described modes of thought, and actual actions, that are epidemic in our society. Or did the Green River Killer not exist? Did all those women who've been murdered around Juarez just go on vacation? Do we not see things like, "dowry murders," and the rise of the Taliban in the Third World? How about the woman teacher in Algeria who was decapitated and her head left on the desk in front of her grade school students, who were forced to sit there for a couple hours so they'd get the message that women are not supposed to teach or be seen in public?

How would you interpret this stuff? Or did it not even happen?

Fact is, whatever Dworkin's pathology--and I wonder why somebody so ordinarily sensible would suddenly be so willing to diagnose ("a psychologically unresolved desire for revenge and violence")--much of what she says is, regrettably, true. Even if she were nuts--and again, what's your basis for that claim, exactly?--it wouldn't make her altogether wrong.

And again: it always amazes me that in our culture, men can say all sorts of crazy things about women, build their religion around keeping women corralled, proliferate magazines and writing that go way beyond porn in their attacks on women, but boy, let some chic say something about it, and...cowabunga, there's a problem.

It's Hillary Clinton syndrome. I note that guys like Tom de Lay are by any rational measure far more strident and bitchy, far more corrupt, far more power-wacky, but nobody's calling them lesbians.

And, guys like De Lay do a helluva lot more than write books and lecture. They act--and often, they act out of what a blind dog can see is pathology. So Dworkin--and I'm not arguing that she didn't often talk like a jerk--seems pretty civilized and sane, by comparasion. Seems to me like the standard of normalcy in this culture is pretty seriously warped.

Gandhi, too, had a few little personal kinks and twists. He too got called a lunatic, a radical, etc. etc. Did that make his life's work wrong?

 

[Kenpodoc]

It's Hillary Clinton syndrome. I note that guys like Tom de Lay are by any rational measure far more strident and bitchy, far more corrupt, far more power-wacky, but nobody's calling them lesbians.

That's because he's a closet ****. Robertson's the lesbian.

Jeff

 

[PeachMonkey]

Nor was it an isolated creep here, an isolated maniac there--she described modes of thought, and actual actions, that are epidemic in our society.

I never suggested otherwise; in fact, I've used words in this very thread like "millions". Women are tortured, raped, abused, discriminated against, mutilated, thrown on funeral pyres, all simply because they're women every single day all around the world.

This is really, really, *really* bad. As bad as it gets. Even though it slowly gets better in some places, it's still rotten. Intellectuals like Andrea Dworkin served important roles in kickstarting the feminist movement in the 20th century and highlighting these abuses for a partriarchal society, but there's a long, long, *long* way to go, everywhere from Hindu villages where suttee is still practiced to American stadiums where Promise Keepers take solemn vows to keep Christian women in their place.

But despite these massive crimes against women everywhere, we still gain nothing if we overreact, and lash out too far.

Dworkin did that, alienated many, and played precisely into the hands of the patriarchy... now, any attempt to reasonably discuss feminism in this country rapidly gets poo-pooed by some knuckle-dragger with "You mean one'a dem man-haters like Andrea Dworkin? She said all sex is rape!"

Even if she were nuts--and again, what's your basis for that claim, exactly

Dworkin's claims about the inherent violence in intercourse, pornography, and gender relations project, IMHO, her own traumatic past into the relationships between all people. It's a violent form of discourse that is counterproductive.

And again: it always amazes me that in our culture, men can say all sorts of crazy things about women, build their religion around keeping women corralled, proliferate magazines and writing that go way beyond porn in their attacks on women, but boy, let some chic say something about it, and...cowabunga, there's a problem.

I think that sucks too, but I refuse to be counter-corralled into a world where you cannot criticize women or feminists or leftists or environmentalists when they say stupid things or go too far simply because "the other side" has such a long, drawn-out history of being complete bastards. Come on, Robert... do you honestly think *I'm* cool with the 700 Club, the Promise Keepers, the Taliban, and the like?

Your mention of Hillary Clinton is a perfect example. She has been deified by Democrats and by the left; Tom de Lay is certainly far more criminally corrupt, but Clinton is 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. That doesn't make it acceptable to call her daughter ugly or call her a lesbian or "Billary"; I also, however, refuse to declare her politics off-limits while railing on male politicians left and right. You see, Hillary does more that write books and lecture too -- she voted for cute things like the War in Iraq.

Gandhi, too, had a few little personal kinks and twists. He too got called a lunatic, a radical, etc. etc. Did that make his life's work wrong?

Being a radical or even a lunatic doesn't make your life's work wrong, and again, you're projecting, Robert... I can't think of a single person in this thread who said Dworkin's life's work was wrong. If you find the quote, I'd appreciate if you'd highlight it for me.

The strongest criticism I've had for her was that her verbal violence was counter-productive. You've responded that various conservative clerics and Senators seem equally, if not more, insane, which I can't dispute, but I still stand by my assertions around Dworkin's work, pro and con.

 

[Kenpodoc]

That's because he's a closet ****. Robertson's the lesbian.

Jeff

OOps. Pat Robertson that is.

Jeff

 

[hardheadjarhead]

First off, don't take, "Reason," magazine too seriously. Their motto is, "free minds and free markets," and they're another one of these ideological rags (they're libertarians) that tries to mask their ideology in a claim that they have no ideology, just common sense.

I was well aware of their libertarian stance. That alone doesn't invalidate any of the article's observations. Others, centrist and left of center, hold similar critical views of Dworkin.

Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU, has lambasted Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon for their anti-first amendment stances. Put simply, Dworkin and MacKinnon's form of feminism is anti-liberal, pro-censorship, misandric, and hyperbolic to the point of silliness.

Their writing has caused a bit of a backlash within the movement. Other feminists have rejected this fringe feminism and have stated that it is okay to wear make-up; men are not rapists by default; the penis is not a weapon; and its okay for women to go out on heterosexual dates. This more centrist (if that's what it is) stance is held by most feminists who reject the fringe and their almost hysterical posturing...it rejects feminism as a position of hand-wringing, finger-pointing victimhood and embraces a form of feminism that is empowering. Glass ceiling? Don't moan about it...kick through the damned thing. This latter type of woman has a true will to power. Those buying into the Dworkin/MacKinnon paradigm do not.



Regards,


Steve

 

[PeachMonkey]

Glass ceiling? Don't moan about it...kick through the damned thing.

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.

 

[shesulsa]

MOD. NOTE:

Two posts on this thread have been edited due to the use of a slur. In the interest of all member, please review the hate speech policy:

Hate Speech:
Hate speech is not allowed. Posts that contain material that is racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, or otherwise offensive, are not allowed. While discussion of certain social and political issues may require the use of sensitive or potentially offensive terms, outside of those limited contexts the use of such terms is not allowed on this board.

Georgia Ketchmark
Sr. Moderator

 

[Kenpodoc]

Oddly enough I have similar problems with both Pat Robertson and Andrea Dworkin. The tendancy to stereotype others and apply arbitrary harmful motivation to others. Thus I feel that Family values are important but fail to see why gay couples do not display "family values." Likewise while recognizing that predjudice and Male bias have shaped Americaqn culture, most Men I know do not intentionally "rape" actually or symbolically the women in their lives.

Jeff

 

[rmcrobertson]

Well, this is becoming a truly symptomatic conversation.

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...?"

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?" "Snide," referes to personal character--and none of us have ever met the woman, I suspect. 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. 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. So, her personality is bad. So, she's this. So, she's that. 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!

Then there's the political fantasy that says in the end, the Left and the Right are the same. Nope--at present, the Left is a lot more ineffectual, for one thing. And it's ineffectual because of decades of wacko bombardment: you're a lefty, so you're nuts, you're strident, you hate America, you Must Be Gay, whatever....see Freud. See "defense mechanisms of the ego." See, "projection."

Then there's this stuff: "I feel that Family values are important but fail to see why gay couples do not display "family values." OK, fine. a) can you define family values for me? b) how do you know gay couples don't exhibit them? research? personal experience with a bunch? I know--TV. c) wwhat seems to be the track record of "family values," among Bible thumpers and family values mavens in this country? Let's see--Jimmy Swaggert; caught twice in motels with hookers. Tom de Lay--paid wife and daughter with campaign funds. Henry Hyde: drove girlfriend to clinic for abortion. Strom Thurmond: illegitimate daughter with black woman, lied about it his whole career. Or all the closet gay right-wing Republican politicians, from Hoover and Roy Cohn through Terry what's-is-name? Sheesh, you don't even have to look very far. At least if the dems are sleazy, they usually haven't been incredibly sanctimonious right up to when they got caught.

But OK. Everything Dworkin wrote was wrong. She was sick and twisted. Whatever. So how do YOU explain the endless list of sexual violence against women?