Welcome to another discussion post for Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females by Andrea Dworkin.
In this post, we are discussing Chapter 5 The Coming Gynocide.
Share your thoughts on this chapter and overal book section in the comments. (Feel free to also share thoughts and suggestions on the discussion post and bookclub structure itself.)
Anyone who hasn't read the book but wants to give input on the topics discussed are welcome to as well! (I recommend mentioning that you haven't read the chapter in your post, so people are aware of that when replying.)
Readers are welcome to join in at anytime. Find a free copy of the book at frauenkultur.co.uk.
See you Saturday July 6th for the sixth and final chapter!
Previous Discussion Posts
Really good as always. Right-Wing Women was the only book I read by AD. I followed every sentence she wrote like a thirsty rat that starts to smell water and just wants to dive. She connected so much. I liked that she didn't stay silent about how patriarchal therapy/psychology/pharma/psychiatry is.
Nothing really changed for good. The people who work there are guided by misogyny and lesbophobia and hold the patrix-view that women's behavior is crazy. Instead of changing/ stopping the environment and the bullies, the therapist targets the victim twice and creates functioning pharmapigs inbetween a abusive society that uses female bodies as resource for parasitical values.
Narcissists seek to control everything they feel challenged by, because they lack the self control to manage their own emotions.
Thanks for the link, I will be reading this...I can't seem to find it affordable in print.
Unfortunately, Dworkin's books have been out of print for a long time. Her husband owns them since she passed away, and I guess he doesn't bother to continue allowing them to be published? (Idk if that last part is correct or not, on why they are no longer being published.)
Edit: this reddit thread provides more information.
Thanks, that was a very educational thread...😥
Yes. It illustrates perfectly why gay men are also not friends to women.
He is actually LOSING MONEY, free passive income, in order to not let her brilliant feminist work be published.
Well shit. This was an intense chapter.
Dworkin's section on Nazi women reminds me of Project 2025's anti-woman agendas. Yeah, I know, comparing modern day politics to Nazis is overdone, but I mean, that's kind of how this chapter concludes, so...
Dworkin goes into the abuse in Medicare facilities and nursing homes, mainly affecting old women. Mainly alluding to how women are seen as "useless" once they can no longer produce children for the state.
The section on women being drugged and deemed hysterical by male doctors hit hard for me, as something I had recently experienced less than two years ago. It depresses me that despite the fact this book is fifty years old, in some ways, misogyny has stayed the same (or has even gotten worse).
Dworkin also goes into the sexism, and the intersection of sexism and racism, in the welfare system.
Dworkin then goes into the patriarchal society's two misogynistic views of women:
Commonly referred to in the popular phrase "the right views women as private property, the left views women as public property."
Poignant on the brothel model:
Dworkin then sadly predicts our current misogynistic state of society, in regards to surrogacy:
Fifty years later, here we are, it is happening.
I found it interesting that Dworkin equates surrogacy with prostitution, as I had thought much of the same, in that it is the sale of women as female organs. And I even made a post a while ago, asking about applying the Nordic Model towards surrogacy.
Dworkin then talks about how feminists use, what I guess we now call the Nordic Model, to dismantle the objectification of women via prostitution:
Shout-out to eco feminists:
Going to do a big quote from a beautiful section on what resonated with me in regards to feminism and women's liberation:
I thought this passage was beautiful. 💜
The chapter then ends on a more depressing note, as one might expect from a chapter titled "the coming gynocide". Dworkin's predictions are harrowing and worth considering, as cautionary text similar to The Handmaid's Tale.
AD explained in easy words that nazi = patrix imo. She predicted a bad outcome for female bodies, I think to activate readers to revolt against what males want us to be and then help other females like cows too (for example in the movie Cloud Atlas the scene in Seoul). Our paths are interwoven.