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I've started reading Dworkin for the first time and oh my god
Posted August 14, 2021 by [Deleted] in FeministBooks

I'm reading a collection of her writings and I can't put it down. My highlighter is running dry because there's something on every page I want to come back to again and again and again. She's laying everything so bare and plain and true that I feel like screaming in rage and vindication. I'm not a spiritual person but if such a thing as a soul exists, she's set mine on fire. I cannot imagine how deeply her writing would affect a woman from the 70s, who wouldn't even have the language to articulate her own oppression.

This woman was a visionary. I want to live in the world she wanted. It is a foul, horrific injustice that she's been disavowed, mocked, caricatured, and buried by third wave feminists for the sake of appeasing men. I wish I could've met her just to thank her.

My favorite quote so far: "Men who want to support women in our struggle for freedom and justice should understand that it is not terrifically important to us that they learn to cry; it is important to us that they stop the crimes of violence against us."

29 comments

HyacinthAugust 14, 2021(Edited August 14, 2021)

Indeed Dworkin is caricatured as a feminist bogeyman, a all fire and brimstone bully because of that when I watched a video of her I was shocked at the kind, intelligent, harmonious spoken woman before me. Her qoutes have always been my favourite.

[Deleted]August 14, 2021

She was indeed a prophetess and her predictions about what porn would do to women have already come true.... it's heartbreaking.

MirrenAugust 14, 2021

She was amazing.

I wish I could've met her just to thank her

Yes, me too!

Sun_bearAugust 14, 2021

She was a genius!

ZamielAugust 14, 2021

Is that from Our Blood? I've been meaning to read Dworkin, an essay/speech collection sounds like a good place to start.

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

Yeah, specifically her transcribed speech in the book "The Rape Atrocity and the Boy Next Door." The collection I'm reading is called "Last Days at Hot Slit."

womenopausalAugust 14, 2021

She is a brilliant prose writer on top of everything else.

[Deleted]August 14, 2021
viscerallyAugust 14, 2021

Which book? I’m first in the library queue for “Last Days at Hot Slit” and should get it any day now!

thebaronessAugust 14, 2021

I just read that last week and wow, I was not disappointed. Some of it gave me goosebumps it was so prescient and dead-on.

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

That's the one!

viscerallyAugust 15, 2021

Yay!!!

[Deleted]August 14, 2021
sonic_fiXXationAugust 14, 2021

What collection are you reading? I've not read anything hers yet but I keep browsing books trying to pick something of hers. A collection seems like a good place to start!

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

"Last Days at Hot Slit"

sonic_fiXXationAugust 15, 2021

Thanks!

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

2014 I experienced the same thing. I was blind, and then I saw.

DaughtersOfLilithAugust 14, 2021

YEEESSS. I discovered Dworkin about 15 years ago when I was in the cauldron of an abusive relationship. I would read him quotes about the nuanced ways in which men hate women, and he would agree that yes, that's how he felt. It was strange. In any case, it was so real and so spot on, I actually couldn't handle it for a while, and only returned to her when I was ready to deal with my trauma. It's eye opening, and energizing to have someone name what you have just been living in your whole life but didn't know how to talk about.

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

That's so chilling. He went completely mask off and just admitted it. I'm glad you got out and I hope you're doing well.

DaughtersOfLilithAugust 15, 2021

It was so weird. I think it made him feel ‘seen’.

FeminineMistakeAugust 14, 2021

What book, if I may ask?

Appreciate your posting this, I’m trying to find the mental bandwidth to do similar.

[Deleted]August 15, 2021

"Last Days at Hot Slit" is the title of the collection, though the quote is from her speech "The Rape Atrocity and the Boy Next Door" which was published in her 1976 book "Our Blood"

chrysthefeministAugust 14, 2021

That quote is my favorite too!

WatcherattheGatesAugust 14, 2021

The first time I read her work I felt like my brain was exploding with the brightest light imaginable . . .