35
Recommendation RequestWhere to start with Andrea Dworkin?
So much of Andrea Dworkin's work appears not to be in print at the moment. I keep reading quotes from amazing essays and articles that she wrote, which are available online in random (?) places but don't appear to be in print as collections or whatever. Or have I just not found them?
I can't read properly on screen, i like to have real paper books.
A year ago i could barely find anything by Dworkin in print. At least now some of her major works are on Amazon.
Where shall I start? Not necessarily at the beginning, but with something accessible that is representative of her ideas.
Thank you.
Don't start at the beginning (Woman Hating). She was still sorting out her thoughts. You might try Intercourse, or Right-Wing Women, or Pornography. If you don't want to buy, a university library might have hard copies of her main titles. That's if you have access to one, either directly or through interlibrary loan via a public library.
Thank you. Intercourse is in print and for the others I do have access to a University library.
Right Wing Women blew me away. I read Intercourse first and I liked it but Right Wing Women rearranged my synapses.
oh wow I just wrote this about Right-Wing Women "I think that was the first one I read, and it felt like I had been living in a fog and suddenly my brain was crystal clear or something"
lmao Dworkin is literally our drug, literally out here clearing fogs and crystallising brains and rearranging synapses. I didn't know we all felt so passionately about Right-Wing Women, especially. gods her love for women and empathy for women shines through every word. witty, funny, original, brilliant, there will never be anyone quite like her in this world again.
Right? I’ve always said that I loved her clarity and compassion. What chaps my hide is that women are actively discouraged from reading her. I think because there’s no way that her brilliance doesn’t make some kind of impression. Compare Dworkin with the word salad of someone like Butler and think how different academic thinking would be if students were reading the former rather than the latter. I was actually told back in my twenties that Dworkin was a dangerous fanatic and that I shouldn’t read her. It was difficult to find her books at that point. Twenty five years later when I finally broke the prohibition, she blew the doors off my mind.
If JKR is our queen than Dworkin should be our priestess philosopher.
Why is it so expensive?? Cheapest I can find is £48 average is in the £100s
drugs always are lol but I suppose because her husband let them go out of print apparently, so the copies left are rare. You can always borrow from the library, or if you don't mind virtual reading that much, then this link: http://radfem.org/dworkin/
i think i love you
Her husband let them go out of print, as far as I know.
I can usually find tons of old radfem lit on thriftbooks and similar sites secondhand for a few dollars so you might try there, I saw some of her books insanely expensive and some for $8-$10 last I checked.
My local radfem collective did a book discussion of Last Days at Hot Slit when it was published and I thought that was a good collection of her work, a lot of really strong writing I enjoyed but also so damn depressing, the weird poli les stuff of course, and then honestly the graphic detail about her sex work was hard to get through. I do think it would be a good start if you haven't read her though, and then if there was an excerpt you liked you could seek out the whole book it came from.
Thank you for the recommendation. LDAHS is in print so I'll get a copy. Thanks for the warning, I will probably have to skip that stuff as I can't really take it.
If you haven’t yet, I would also recommend looking up YouTube videos of her interviews. It’s nice to have a voice to the name, and I’m not gonna spoil anything, but she sounded completely different than I would have imagined. That’s just me, though.
Great suggestion, thank you. I was curious and had a quick look just to hear her voice, clicked on the first video that came up and it was this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssbhpnyE5Lc
At first I was mesmerised by her voice, its softness and gentleness and articulacy, but then I was captivated by what she was saying, so clearly and without compromise. Talking precisely, elegantly, with almost surgical precision about the status of women as a class as something to be penetrated and yet never raising her voice. She's so sure and steady.
I feel unbelievably proud of her, seeing her here among those men. Anthony Burgess smoking his cigarillo with his absurd nicotine-stained comb-over. Jim Haynes reclining almost horizontal on his back, staring dismissively at the ceiling as she talks.
When she finishes speaking there's a kind of stunned silence.
She's so real and unpretentious.
Burgess keeps interrupting her and I'm like, "everyone shut up, let her speak" (even when they're not interrupting).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs0kh7TxTdU
This is a great speech, and my intro to her. She had a lovely voice.
That is just marvellous, thank you for the link. I'm in total awe of her, that gentleness and grace and strength, and unfiltered uncompromise. Stunning.
Thank you for this! It never occurred to me to video search her. Watching that video is going to be a reward for me at some point today.
Your library may have some of her works. If they don't have them in the actual building, they can order them from other libraries in their system. That's how I've been able to get my hands on some of them. Right Wing Women was incredibly eye-opening for me (especially as someone who grew up in a right-wing household).
Thanks, I have reserved Right Wing Women at my library (currently it's out on loan, due back tomorrow).
I’d say out of what I’ve read so far, Intercourse is the best, especially from a stylistic standpoint. I read RWW first, though.
"Life and Death" is my recommendation; a collection of essays.
here's a link to 14 of her works (3 of which are fiction): http://radfem.org/dworkin/
I would recommend starting with Woman Hating, though Right-Wing Women, Letters from a War Zone, and Heartbreak were my favourites. So really any one of those. If you don't want to be chronological, then start with Right-Wing Women, maybe? ... I think that was the first one I read, and it felt like I had been living in a fog and suddenly my brain was crystal clear or something.
Woman Hating (1974)
Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (1976)
FICTION: the new womans broken heart: short stories (1980)
Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981)
Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females (1983)
FICTION: Ice and fire: a novel (1986)
Intercourse (1987)
Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality (1988)
Letters from a War Zone: Writings, 1976–1989 (1989)
FICTION: Mercy (1991)
Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women (1997)
In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (1998)
Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000)
Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant (2002)
Thank you Grace, i was hoping you'd reply :)
My question was partly inspired by reading the excepts you have quoted recently in some of your comments.
I've reserved RWW at my library (only one copy, currently out on loan - so at least one other person is interested) and have put a couple of the in-print paperbacks on my wishlist.
💜 Tortoisemouse you are so lovely. and that is great! I'm happy your library has it x