demiurgent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
demiurgent) wrote2005-04-12 11:11 am
demiurgent) wrote2005-04-12 11:11 am
On death
Andrea Dworkin died, as friends of mine have mentioned. The news of it has more or less traveled by meme, at least in America. The news outlets gave it a bye. Andrea Dworkin was many things -- a pioneer, a radical, a feminist, arguably insane, arguably antifeminist, strongly antisex and antierotic, someone who couldn't be made iconic by any side of the sexual revolution -- but she was no Terry Schiavo.
Susie Bright eulogized her about as well as I've seen. She grasped the essential contradictions that defined this woman, far better than I ever could. I recommend the essay.
In a lot of ways, Dworkin served the conservative (and conservative fringe) movements better than the liberal, as all radicals do. She became someone the right could point to to repudiate feminism, even as they seized on (carefully selected) bits of her writings to justify their own agenda. There are ways in which she was the Liberal Ann Coulter, fixated on her beliefs to the exclusion of evidence and unyielding in the details even when it damages the whole. I'm kind of surprised more isn't being made of her death, but then even the most machiavellian of thinkers on both sides of the aisle probably want to steer clear. Opening the Dworkin box means examining things people most want to ignore.
In the end, I wasn't a Dworkin disciple. Arguably, as a man, I couldn't have been if I wanted to -- I by definition was part of the problem. And yet, I also can't dismiss her. Certainly, she helped shape feminist thought even as feminism fragmented around her. Bright compares her to Malcolm X, and I think the comparison is apt.
In the end, she remained absolutely true to herself, no matter how harried the fight got. She held to principles that many of her early disciples couldn't abide, even when it moved her from the center of the movement she helped define to the fringe of it. You have to respect that. You have to respect Andrea Dworkin.
And we should note her passing.
Susie Bright eulogized her about as well as I've seen. She grasped the essential contradictions that defined this woman, far better than I ever could. I recommend the essay.
In a lot of ways, Dworkin served the conservative (and conservative fringe) movements better than the liberal, as all radicals do. She became someone the right could point to to repudiate feminism, even as they seized on (carefully selected) bits of her writings to justify their own agenda. There are ways in which she was the Liberal Ann Coulter, fixated on her beliefs to the exclusion of evidence and unyielding in the details even when it damages the whole. I'm kind of surprised more isn't being made of her death, but then even the most machiavellian of thinkers on both sides of the aisle probably want to steer clear. Opening the Dworkin box means examining things people most want to ignore.
In the end, I wasn't a Dworkin disciple. Arguably, as a man, I couldn't have been if I wanted to -- I by definition was part of the problem. And yet, I also can't dismiss her. Certainly, she helped shape feminist thought even as feminism fragmented around her. Bright compares her to Malcolm X, and I think the comparison is apt.
In the end, she remained absolutely true to herself, no matter how harried the fight got. She held to principles that many of her early disciples couldn't abide, even when it moved her from the center of the movement she helped define to the fringe of it. You have to respect that. You have to respect Andrea Dworkin.
And we should note her passing.
no subject
Yeah.