ANDREA DWORKIN
Andrea Dworkin is internationally renowned as a radical feminist activist
and author who has helped break the silence around violence against women.
In her determination to articulate the experiences of poor, lower-class,
marginal, and prostituted women, Dworkin has deepened public awareness of rape,
battery, pornography, and prostitution. She is co-author of the
pioneering Minneapolis and Indianapolis ordinances that define pornography a
civil-rights violation against women. She has testified before the Attorney
General's Commission on Pornography and a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary
Committee. She has appeared on national television shows including Donahue,
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, and 48 hours. She has
been a focus of articles in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Republic, and
Time. And an hour-long documentary called Against Pornography: The Feminism of
Andrea Dworkin, produced by the BBC, was watched by more viewers in England than
any other program in the Omnibus series and has been syndicated throughout
Europe and Australia. Filmed in New York City and Portland, Oregon, it included
excerpts from Dworkin's impassioned public speaking and intimate conversations
between Dworkin and women who had been used in prostitution and pornography,
most since childhood.
The author of 13 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Dworkin is a
political artist of unparalleled achievement.
"In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to
evolve," said Gloria Steinem; Andrea is one of them." Dworkin's first
novel, Ice and Fire, was published in 1986; Mercy followed in 1990 to wide
acclaim in the U.S. and abroad- "lyrical and passionate," said The New York
Times; "one of the great postwar novels," said London's Sunday Telegraph; "a
fantastically powerful book," said the Glasgow Herald. Her latest nonfiction
book is Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against
Women (The Free Press).
Dworkin's activist political life began early. In 1965, when she was 18 and a
student at Bennington College, she was arrested at the United States Mission to
the United Nations, protesting against the Vietnam War. She was sent to the
Women's House of Detention, where she was given a brutal internal examination.
Her brave testimony about the sadism of that experience ? reported in newspapers
around the world-helped bring public pressure on the New York City government to
close the Women's House of Detention down. An unmarked community garden nw grows
in Greenwich Village where that prison once stood.
Dorkin's radical-feminist critique of pornography and violence against women
began with her first book, Woman Hating, published in 1974 when she was 27. She
went on to speak often about the harms to women of pornography and addressed the
historic rally in 1978 when 3,000 women attending the first feminist conference
on pornography held the first Take Back the Night March and shut down San
Francisco's pornography district for one night.
In 1980 Dworkin asked Yale law professor Catharine A. MacKinnon for help in
bringing a civil-rights suit for Linda Marchiano, who as "Linda Lovelace" had
been coerced into pornography, including Deep Throat. Under current law, Dworkin
and MacKinnon discovered, there was no way to help her. Later, in 1983, while co-teaching
a course on pornography at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1983, they
were commissioned by the Minneapolis City Council to draft a local ordinance
that would embody the legal principle, first proposed by Dworkin in Linda
Marchiano's behalf, that pornography violates the civil rights of women. Dworkin,
MacKinnon, and others organized public hearings on the ordinance-the first time
in history that victims of pornography testified directly before a governmental
body.
Dworkin has been a uniquely influential inspiration both to legal thinkers and
to grass-roots feminist organizers. Her original legal theory-that harm done to
women ought not be legally protected just because it is done through speech,"
and that sexual abuse denies women's speech rights-has not only fomented a rift
between advocates of civil rights and civil liberties but has also generated a
Constitutional crisis, a fundamental conflict between existing interpretations
of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A tireless fighter against the
pornography industry and those who collaborate with it, Dworkin has herself been
stigmatized professionally for her efforts to help women harmed by pornography ?
in part because U.S. media conglomerates side with pornographers' right to turn
women into "speech." Since the American Booksellers Association and the American
Publishers Association became plaintiffs in a 1984 lawsuit against the
Indianapolis ordinance, Dworkin's options for publishing in the U.S. have
dropped off dramatically. Her last three books have had to be published in
England first. Attempts to get the BBC documentary broadcast in the U.S. have so
far been unsuccessful. Yet in 1992 the BBC invited Dworkin to return, to
participate in a nationally televised debate on "political correctness" at the
prestigious Cambridge Union.
Called "the eloquent feminist" by syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman,
Dworkin has been a featured speaker at universities, conferences, and Take Back
the Night marches throughout North America and Europe, speaking out powerfully
against crimes of violence against women, the new right, racism, and anti-Semitism.
The New York Times described one of her lectures on pornography at New York
University Law School as "highly passionate," and reported that the audience
responded with a standing ovation. "She moved this audience to action," said a
Stanford University spokesperson. A University of Washington spokesperson said,
"She empowered the women and men present; in fact a coalition on violence
against women came out of her lecture." Ms. magazine admires "the relentless
courage of Dworkin's revolutionary demands. . . Her gift . . . is to make
radical ideas seem clear and obvious."
Andrea Dworkin is internationally renowned as a radical feminist activist
and author who has helped break the silence around violence against women.
In her determination to articulate the experiences of poor, lower-class,
marginal, and prostituted women, Dworkin has deepened public awareness of rape,
battery, pornography, and prostitution. She is co-author of the
pioneering Minneapolis and Indianapolis ordinances that define pornography a
civil-rights violation against women. She has testified before the Attorney
General's Commission on Pornography and a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary
Committee. She has appeared on national television shows including Donahue,
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, and 48 hours. She has
been a focus of articles in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Republic, and
Time. And an hour-long documentary called Against Pornography: The Feminism of
Andrea Dworkin, produced by the BBC, was watched by more viewers in England than
any other program in the Omnibus series and has been syndicated throughout
Europe and Australia. Filmed in New York City and Portland, Oregon, it included
excerpts from Dworkin's impassioned public speaking and intimate conversations
between Dworkin and women who had been used in prostitution and pornography,
most since childhood.
The author of 13 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Dworkin is a
political artist of unparalleled achievement.
"In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to
evolve," said Gloria Steinem; Andrea is one of them." Dworkin's first
novel, Ice and Fire, was published in 1986; Mercy followed in 1990 to wide
acclaim in the U.S. and abroad- "lyrical and passionate," said The New York
Times; "one of the great postwar novels," said London's Sunday Telegraph; "a
fantastically powerful book," said the Glasgow Herald. Her latest nonfiction
book is Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against
Women (The Free Press).
Dworkin's activist political life began early. In 1965, when she was 18 and a
student at Bennington College, she was arrested at the United States Mission to
the United Nations, protesting against the Vietnam War. She was sent to the
Women's House of Detention, where she was given a brutal internal examination.
Her brave testimony about the sadism of that experience ? reported in newspapers
around the world-helped bring public pressure on the New York City government to
close the Women's House of Detention down. An unmarked community garden nw grows
in Greenwich Village where that prison once stood.
Dorkin's radical-feminist critique of pornography and violence against women
began with her first book, Woman Hating, published in 1974 when she was 27. She
went on to speak often about the harms to women of pornography and addressed the
historic rally in 1978 when 3,000 women attending the first feminist conference
on pornography held the first Take Back the Night March and shut down San
Francisco's pornography district for one night.
In 1980 Dworkin asked Yale law professor Catharine A. MacKinnon for help in
bringing a civil-rights suit for Linda Marchiano, who as "Linda Lovelace" had
been coerced into pornography, including Deep Throat. Under current law, Dworkin
and MacKinnon discovered, there was no way to help her. Later, in 1983, while co-teaching
a course on pornography at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1983, they
were commissioned by the Minneapolis City Council to draft a local ordinance
that would embody the legal principle, first proposed by Dworkin in Linda
Marchiano's behalf, that pornography violates the civil rights of women. Dworkin,
MacKinnon, and others organized public hearings on the ordinance-the first time
in history that victims of pornography testified directly before a governmental
body.
Dworkin has been a uniquely influential inspiration both to legal thinkers and
to grass-roots feminist organizers. Her original legal theory-that harm done to
women ought not be legally protected just because it is done through speech,"
and that sexual abuse denies women's speech rights-has not only fomented a rift
between advocates of civil rights and civil liberties but has also generated a
Constitutional crisis, a fundamental conflict between existing interpretations
of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A tireless fighter against the
pornography industry and those who collaborate with it, Dworkin has herself been
stigmatized professionally for her efforts to help women harmed by pornography ?
in part because U.S. media conglomerates side with pornographers' right to turn
women into "speech." Since the American Booksellers Association and the American
Publishers Association became plaintiffs in a 1984 lawsuit against the
Indianapolis ordinance, Dworkin's options for publishing in the U.S. have
dropped off dramatically. Her last three books have had to be published in
England first. Attempts to get the BBC documentary broadcast in the U.S. have so
far been unsuccessful. Yet in 1992 the BBC invited Dworkin to return, to
participate in a nationally televised debate on "political correctness" at the
prestigious Cambridge Union.
Called "the eloquent feminist" by syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman,
Dworkin has been a featured speaker at universities, conferences, and Take Back
the Night marches throughout North America and Europe, speaking out powerfully
against crimes of violence against women, the new right, racism, and anti-Semitism.
The New York Times described one of her lectures on pornography at New York
University Law School as "highly passionate," and reported that the audience
responded with a standing ovation. "She moved this audience to action," said a
Stanford University spokesperson. A University of Washington spokesperson said,
"She empowered the women and men present; in fact a coalition on violence
against women came out of her lecture." Ms. magazine admires "the relentless
courage of Dworkin's revolutionary demands. . . Her gift . . . is to make
radical ideas seem clear and obvious."