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."
She was indeed a prophetess and her predictions about what porn would do to women have already come true.... it's heartbreaking.
Is that from Our Blood? I've been meaning to read Dworkin, an essay/speech collection sounds like a good place to start.
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."
Which book? I’m first in the library queue for “Last Days at Hot Slit” and should get it any day now!
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.
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!
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.
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.
What book, if I may ask?
Appreciate your posting this, I’m trying to find the mental bandwidth to do similar.
"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"
The first time I read her work I felt like my brain was exploding with the brightest light imaginable . . .
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.