Andrea Dworkin

Feminist, activist, and writer

• Born: September 26, 1946
• Birthplace: Camden, New Jersey
• Died: April 9, 2005
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

Dworkin wrote many classic feminist texts that illustrate the suppression of women, and she was a fierce critic of the pornography industry.

Early Life

Andrea Dworkin (AN-dree-ah DWOHR-kihn) was born in Camden, New Jersey, to Sylvia Spiegel, a child of Hungarian immigrants, and Harry Dworkin, the grandson of a Russian Jew who fled Russia to escape military service. At age ten, Dworkin and her family moved from the diverse city of Camden to Cherry Hill Township, where she felt isolated not only by her Jewish heritage but also by her precocious nature. After refusing to sing “Silent Night” in a school pageant because of separation of church and state, Dworkin was sequestered by a teacher in an empty room as reprimand. This experience of isolation fueled Dworkin’s determination to stand up for her beliefs and for the rights of others.

In 1964, Dworkin attended Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied literature and philosophy. It was during this time that Dworkin became a political activist, protesting against the Vietnam War. In February, 1965, Dworkin was arrested during a protest and sent to the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village, where she was subjected to a brutal physical examination. With the help of a friend, Dworkin launched a letter-writing campaign about her experience to prominent New York newspapers. Her campaign paid off, resulting in a grand jury investigation that eventually prompted the closing of the facility. Because of the stress of the trial, Dworkin left for Crete, where she wrote and published a book of prose poems titled Child (1966). She eventually returned to Bennington College to finish her degree. During that time, Dworkin continued protesting against the war in Vietnam, but she also got involved in feminist politics, campaigning for contraception on campus and the legalization of abortion.

After graduation, Dworkin moved to the Netherlands, where she married a Dutch political radical, who became violently abusive. Ricki Abrams helped Dworkin escape the abusive marriage by giving her asylum. Abrams introduced Dworkin to feminist literature, leading to their collaboration on Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality (1974), which would become Dworkin’s first work on sexual violence and male dominance. In Woman Hating, Dworkin explores the power relationships that manifest in societal ideas of sexuality and how those relationships are enforced in everyday life.

Life’s Work

Upon her return to New York, Dworkin quickly became an active feminist, participating in demonstrations for lesbian rights, in campaigns against violence against women, and in consciousness-raising groups. Gaining prominence as a writer and an orator, Dworkin was chosen to address the first Take Back the Night March in 1978 in San Francisco, during which three thousand women marched through the red light district in protest of rape and pornography.

In 1980, Dworkin became a champion for the antipornography movement when she asked feminist Catherine MacKinnon for help in a civil rights suit for Linda Marchiano, who had been coerced by her ex-husband into making pornographic films. Unable to help Marchiano because of legal limitations, MacKinnon and Dworkin drafted a city ordinance in 1983. The ordinance not only defined pornography as sex discrimination but also allowed women who had been harmed by pornography to sue the producers and the distributors for damages in civil court. While several cities passed the ordinance, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional on the premise of free speech.

At the same time that Dworkin was writing and campaigning for the antipornography civil rights ordinance, she published Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981). In the book, Dworkin declared that women cannot be free until the world is free of pornography because the production and consumption of pornography incites violence against women.

In 1987, Dworkin published what is perhaps her most radical book, Intercourse. In this book, Dworkin uses the same theoretical framework she applies to pornography, asserting that because the sexual subordination in pornography exists in heterosexual intercourse, all heterosexual intercourse is demeaning to women. Opponents of Dworkin vilified her for this idea, claiming that she believed all sex was rape.

In her time, Dworkin published eleven nonfiction works in addition to many essays, poems, and fiction works. One book in particular, Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation (2000), was directly influenced by her Jewish heritage. In it she compares the oppression of women to the persecution of the Jews and the women’s liberation movement to the Zionist movements. Dworkin compared women’s position in society to that of the Jews, claiming that both groups were victims of men’s violence.

In 1998, Dworkin married her life partner and fellow activist John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice (1989). Dworkin’s last years were spent in fragile health because of osteoarthritis in her knees. Stoltenberg blamed Dworkin’s deteriorating health on the writing of Scapegoat, which had been emotionally and physically demanding. Dworkin blamed her failing health on a sexual assault she experienced in Paris in 1999. On April 9, 2005, Dworkin died in her Washington, D.C., home from acute myocarditis.

Significance

Dworkin was a renowned and notorious radical feminist. Her theories on sex and pornography were rejected by many, prompting harsh criticism that was often directed against her character. Furthermore, her radical ideas often polarized second wave feminists, those who were fighting for rights in the workplace and reproductive rights. Feminists supporting freedom of speech and sex-positivism criticized Dworkin for promoting censorship and negative ideas about sexuality. In spite of these attacks, Dworkin stood by her theories, refusing to waver in her fight to draw attention to the injustice of sexual violence. While controversial, Dworkin’s theories and works succeeded in generating a nationwide dialogue about pornography, sex, and power. In addition to creating a national dialogue, Dworkin played an important role in shaping feminist theory. Her theories on sex and power are taught in women’s and gender studies classrooms across the nation, giving a new generation of feminists a framework with which to critically analyze the politics of sexuality.

Bibliography

Dworkin, Andrea. Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Chronicles the personal side of Dworkin’s career as an activist and a writer.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Intercourse. New York: Free Press, 1987. Perhaps Dworkin’s most controversial book, this offers readers insights into her theories about the politics of sex.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women’s Liberation. New York: Free Press, 2000. Dworkin’s only book to strongly focus on Jewish issues, this offers readers insight to her views on anti-Semitism and Zionism and their similarities to sexism and the women’s movement.

Dworkin, Andrea, and Catherine A. MacKinnon. In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. A transcript of oral testimony given by victims of pornography. Includes an introduction by Dworkin. This is an important document of Dworkin’s activism.