Andrea Dworkin
Personal Information
Description
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women. An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in Pornography - Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse (1987), which remain her two most widely known books.
Books
Heartbreak
"Always innovative, often controversial, and frequently polarizing, Andrea Dworkin has carved out a unique position as one of the women's movement's most influential figures, from the early days of consciousness-raising to the "post-feminist" present. A tireless defender of women's rights, especially of the rights of those who have been raped and assaulted, and a relentless critic of pornography, Dworkin is one of feminism's most rigorous minds and fiercest crusaders.". "In Heartbreak, she reveals for the first time the personal side of her lifelong journey as activist and writer. By turns wry, spirited, and poignant, Dworkin tells the story of how she evolved from a childhood lover of music and books into a college activist, embraced her role as an international advocate for women, and emerged as a maverick thinker at odds with both the liberal left and the mainstream women's movement. The chronicle of a special life and its times, Heartbreak reveals the emotional price paid by a person who, from the age of six onwards, finds it impossible to compromise. Readers across the political spectrum will be engrossed by Dworkin's memories: refusing to sing Silent Night in grammar school, falling in love with books as a teenager at the local bookstore, fighting to rid Bennington College of parietals, giving away her money on the Orient Express en route to Crete, saving children in Amsterdam, speaking at a battered friend's funeral, fighting for sex workers at a NOW meeting in New Orleans."--BOOK JACKET.
Pornography
Presents a study of the damaging effect of pornography and its ramifications on society. From publisher description.
Woman Hating
Dworkin examines the place and depiction of women in fairy tales and pornography, focusing on the French erotic novels Story of O and The Image, and the magazine Suck. She then looks at the historical practices of Chinese foot binding and Medieval European witch burning from a radical feminist perspective. The book's final section discusses the concept of androgyny within various cultures' creation myths and argues for "the development of a new kind of human being and a new kind of human community" free from gender and gender roles.
Life and death
Mercy
Intercourse
A collection of short fiction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author offers a revealing look at what goes through a person's mind during sex as he captures the innermost thoughts of such couples as Bonnie and Clyde, Adam and Eve, and Richard Milhous Nixon and Pat Nixon.