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The death of feminist activist Andrea Dworkin was announced today. While all of her eulogizers mention her "love of dungarees," that's about all they can agree upon. Here's the range of responses we've encountered this morning:
1) She was a mystic (per her official website)! An "Old Testament prophet" (per Gloria Steinem)! There is something "quasi-religious about the divide between devoted followers and those who would brand her a heretic" (per Louise Armstrong). She was a Cassandra (per Naomi Wolf), whose predictions about the pornographizing of the culture have all come true. And from that cloud, she's got her sainted eye on you, Ms. Jenna Jameson!
2) She was deeply misunderstood! All that crazy stuff you heard about her saying all sex being rape was made up by Larry Flynt! Really, she was very reasonable! And married — gay, but married, which just proves how rational and willing to embrace contradictions she was!
3) She was "pachydermlike," the "uncrowned queen of Segregationist Feminism." (per equally loony propagandist Adam Parfrey).
4) She was "unabashedly polemical" (per more tactful sources, like this New York Times obit).
Obviously, we don't agree that pornography is evil or that marriage is a contract to rape or any of the other extremist stuff that's been, rightly or wrongly, attributed to Dworkin. We also don't believe that the "pornographizing of the culture" everyone's so smugly asserting has really happened. A few books on the bestseller list and the advent of streaming video does not a Culture of Death — er, Porn — make. But we also know that trying to commentate on Dworkin is like wading into quicksand. And maybe that's her legacy — that Act III moment of an argument where you and the other person have each taken things a few steps past their logical conclusion, where you're tired and confused and the whole world has become abstract. And then you just keep talking. — Ada Calhoun |
Commentarium (2 Comments)
You are so wrong on Dworkin. She was smarter and more perceptive than you will ever be.
Ok, the whole thing in your headline about Jane Fonda being Canonized was not even funny. Sorry. But if anything, she should be imprisoned for the rest of her life in Solitary confinement for treason and cruelty to the human race.
Who really wants to hear about some seventy year old womans exploration of her own body? 'Scuse me, but wasn't she around in the sixties during the whole free love movement? Didn't she explore her body then? Maybe not, maybe she let the Vietnamese do it for her.
Anyhooter, Doesn't this tired old windbag ever get enough of blowing her own horn?
Besides, it is not like we all want to really hear about how her front door is like a vagina. I guess her mouth would be like and arse with diarrhea.
Just thought I would share my views of the national traitor who seems to still be loved by someone.
Now you say something