Customer Reviews

Life And Death

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Dworkin's analysis of the banality of misogyny worldwide is absolutely brilliant. She is truly a gifted writer. Her essays on the tragedy of the Nicole Brown murder case are eloquent and powerful. Her discovery of "holocaust porn" in Israel shows that even a "cynic" like Dworkin can be once again stunned with disbelief at the level of inhumanity women are subjected to globally. Like anyone who subscribes to the radical idea that women are human beings, i.e. feminism, her work will be vilified, misrepresented (anti-first amendment, anti-sex, anti-male, blah blah blah...), trivialized, etc. But to those with an open mind and an open heart and an appreciation for fine writing, Life and Death will not dissapoint.

If I were to try to find fault with this book (and I would have to try hard to do so) it would be a certain degree of repetition. This is a fault of the format rather than the writing, since these articles were all previously published and not written in the context of this book, and there is some inevitable overlap.

None-the-less the repetition perhaps forms part of the message. For one thing the events described by Dworkin aren't just happening, they are happening again and again and again. The repetition of the reports in our newspapers, the repetition of battering and rapes as experienced by victims, and the repetition of the memories, which become banal without ever losing their edge is this book's subject matter, and to repeat these accounts without ever becoming boring is sheer brilliance.

There is also the repetition known to anyone who has ever been a victim of sexual abuse and tried to talk about it; the repetition of stating facts that should have people out on the streets rioting if anything does, and finding that somehow they don't matter that much.

If you talk about it you just learn how commonplace it is as people, especially women, tell you of similar experiences. Dworkin learnt how commonplace it was so now she tells us that as well as her own experiences.

You begin to feel lucky in comparison; it only happened once, no bones were broken, you can walk down the street without a panic attack, whatever advantage you personally have.

Elsewhere Dworkin has written "Everything that didn't happen to you -- I apply this to myself as part of the way that I survive -- everything that didn't happen to you is a little slack in your leash. You weren't raped when you were three, or you weren't raped when you were 10."

It is perhaps here that much of the opposition to Andrea Dworkin's work probably lies, because none of us want to believe these things are so commonplace, even those of us who have been forced by experience to do so. It would be a great pity if some readers thought this book was over-the-top, or a merely focused on a few isolated cases. While some people still want to believe that Dworkin is some sort of "special case" in her experiences there will be many people who will resist this book as exaggeration. I wish it were. Dworkin is exact in her writing.

Dworkin deserves to go down in history for framing anti-pornography theory in terms of civil rights in such a way as made all talk of censorship irrelevant. We would expect anything she does afterwards to pale in comparison, but it doesn't. This book is a wonderfully compassionate piece of writing and should be read by pretty much everyone.

I read this book recently and was quite compelled by it. Andrea Dworkin's analysis of the war on women is both powerful and shockingly brutal. While i do not agree with all her views on different subject matter, i do echo her thoughts on acts of rape and the people who commit those acts. this book voices her opinions on the different ways that women are raped every day. I understand the horror that people go through and i truly agree with andrea when she says that women should do whatever possible to fight back. Truly empowering and thought provoking.

By now, Andrea Dworkin needs no introduction. For many people her name is synonymous with radical feminism and perhaps even with feminism, period. There are many paradoxes associated with Dworkin's writing, not least of which is the fact that as America's famously most-radical, most-disliked feminist voice, she is also one of the most widely admired by readers who know relatively little about the rich variety of the feminist movement as a whole. The reasons strike to the core of her undeniable appeal and also of her moral ambiguity. Dworkin, almost uniquely among radical feminists, writes of womanhood by definition as a state of degradation and misery equivalent to being a concentration camp prisoner. She believes that gender is an artificial social construct and that we have it within ourselves to grow beyond gender by main strength. This is a line guaranteed to appeal to many sides of the feminist fence, to liberal feminists who believe that nothing should hinder women from becoming the equals of male in acheivement, to cultural feminists who believe that women are superior to men, and to lesbian feminists who are interested in the possibility of new gender types combining the best of many worlds. Thus, together with the spates of lamentation and vituperation, Dworkin offers feminists guilty pleasures as well: the chance to indulge in the admiration for men that many of us still have--for the courage of dissidents and torture survivors, say, or the Dionysiac ecstasies of romantic poets, or the perversity of a Genet or a Rimbaud--while transferring all these qualities de facto to women. She takes Patti Smith one step further. And she often writes splendid prose.

These things come at a price, though, and it is a substantial one. To take Dworkin at her word, women are being asked to envision themselves as contemptible organisms prior to the conversion and possibly even afterward. Were a man to portray women as Dworkin does, he would likely be called a misogynist, and no amount of poetic passion would be able to save him; feminists would probably think that they gave up being impressed by Rimbaud quotes in their undergraduate years, especially those which came from the boyfriend who told you how bourgeois you were. Dworkin knows all about this--read her great novel of the sixties, "Mercy"--but she does it to us, and the scary thing is that we do, indeed, seem to like being treated rough by a genuinely brave and genuinely butch woman. Much of this may be attributed to Dworkin's talent for self-promotion. Effective though her rhetoric is, it works overtime to create an image of Dworkin as a hybrid of Celine and Celan, with a little Nelson Mandela thrown in--which she and other feminist activists may well deserve in a sense, but why more than those who use less filthy language and are less contemptuous of "feminine" women, spelling out again and again the violence which deservedly awaits us? The answer: we admire a Dworkin in part because there are things we still admire and envy about men. If Dworkin is to be taken as seriously as the feminist movement now takes her, with good reason, we need to examine ourselves very closely on this score, and become a little more resistant to certain forms of manipulation. Women have been resisting male violence for many years, not in the spirit of soldiers but with the stubborn patience of civilians. This may not be the most effective method, but if we change tack, it should not be because Dworkin's ubiquitous Sixties, Black Panther, and Holocaust references are her way of being a butch lesbian.

This is still a book which should be read. There are several excellent essays in it, and Dworkin's heartbreaking account of her origins as a gifted child in the wastelands of New Jersey is required reading for all parents of daughters. But after finishing it, one should immediately pick up the autobiography of an ordinary woman for balance.

I read this book recently and was quite compelled by it. Andrea Dworkin's analysis of the war on women is both powerful and shockingly brutal. While i do not agree with all her views on different subject matter, i do echo her thoughts on acts of rape and the people who commit those acts. this book voices her opinions on the different ways that women are raped every day. I understand the horror that people go through and i truly agree with andrea when she says that women should do whatever possible to fight back. Truly empowering and though provoking.

Rarely do books come along that have the power to enthrall, shock, and stir every woman, every where. "Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women", a collection of speeches and essays by Andrea Dworkin has the power to do so. No matter what your gender, age, social class, ethnicity, sexual preferance, religion, or political party, this book is a necessity since violence is a major threat to all women. Right from the start, Dworkin reminds us that women have not "come a long way, baby" and that we should not measure the progress of women by their presence in the job market, but by the amount of violence inflicted on women. Using this standard, it is obvious from the book that women still have many struggles ahead to reach full equality and respect, which cannot be achieved simply via laws. Through her own sickening and disheartening experiences, to the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Dworkin's priority is to show that violence against women is not accidental and that men who commit this violence commit a political act because violence keeps women scared, weak, and dependent. She states that the political system which rules this country is dominated by men and that these men in power "protect any man's violence against any woman" (65); statements such as this one, which some may find farfetched, are common throughout the book and although you may not agree with them, they force you to reflect. Dworkin discusses the epidemic that faces half of all married women today, domestic violence, and provides the best detailed account that I, a crisis worker at a battered women's shelter, have ever read. When women are terrorized, beaten, and killed in their homes, when home is a prison, there is no safe place for women. Dworkin declares that we must retaliate against violent men by making the legal system, the media, and society tougher on them and has the courage to say that "if the law won't do anything, you must do something" (125). Much of the book concentrates on Dworkin's "specialty", pornography, and it is difficult to dismiss anything she says on this subject considering her past works such as "Pornography: Men Possessing Women", and her fight to develop an antipornography civil rights ordinance with Catherine MacKinnon. You will not view pornography in the same context once you read the first hand accounts of women in the pornography business, how men do act out pornography, and how soldiers in the Serbia rape/death camps make their own pornographic films by torturing and raping women for the camera. Dworkin successfully shows what pornography truly is; not an expression of "free speech", but a dehumanizing, devastating, humiliating, "woman-hating atrocity" (76). "The world of pornography is real- not ideas," she states, and "women's lives become pornography" (70). Her arguement causes one to question how and why the 10$ million a year pornography industry is legally protected. She also discusses the subject of prostitution which is easy to shy away from, and says that "when men use women in prostitution, they are expressing a pure hatred for the female body" (145). Again true to her reputation, she radically states that every man in society benefits from women in prostitution because prostitutes are at the bottom of the male hierarchy. People with weak stomachs may have a tough time reading this collection at times. Many people will not agree with Dworkin's radical thoughts such as sexual intercourse being a "political institution" and her "by any means necessary" strategy to ending violece against women. However, you do not have to accept all her positions to understand that we all must take more personal responsibility in ending rape, domestic violence, prostitution, and pornography. In this day where we seem to have plenty of questions but no answers to women's oppression, Dworkin offers advice and solutions ranging from closing down pornographic stores and organizing political support for women who kill violent men, to making our feminism more known and for women to stop trying to convince themselves and each other that they are "fine." Perhaps the best advice she gives is to refuse to have "amnesia" when it comes to violence against women; we must not forget the rapes and batterings that we hear and read about, one we turn off the TV or put away the paper. Despite experience as a sexual assault and domestic violence advocate, this book was somewhat of a wake-up call for me. The details and topics are not pleasant, by they are unfortunately reality, and we must open our eyes to this reality before we can change it. By incorporating personal anecdotes, an historical outlook, and a global perspective, Dworkin provides an excellent book that the mainstream public can easily comprehend and get excited about. This book is excellent for first timers to Dworkin and Women's Studies and for people who have been in the struggle for awhile; it is for people who want to form more of an opinion on pornography; it is for men you have a woman in their life that they care about; and it is for anyone who cares about the safety and lives of half of the world's population.

Andrea Rita Dworkin (1946-2005) was an American radical feminist and writer, as well as anti-war activist and anarchist in the 1960s, best known for her criticism of pornography; she was married to John Stoltenberg. She wrote many books.

She wrote in the Preface to this 1997 collection, "Yet at I organized this, my third collection of writings... I saw with some shock that my 'I' is everywhere in these essays and speeches, referring directly and explicitly to my own life. The experiences I have chosen to write about are not polite---they include being raped, battered, and prostituted---and I have not been polite about them."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"(Her father) was nurturant and emotionally empathic... He said I was the apple of his eye from the time I was born and I believe him. I did nothing to earn it and it was the one great gift of my life." (Pg. 10)
"My fiction is not autobiography. I am not an exhibitionist. I don't show myself... Autobiography is the unseen foundation of my nonfiction work..." (Pg. 15)
"When I emerged as a writer ... it was to demand change. I wanted to change the power structure in the social world that had made degradation a destiny for many of us... for women." (Pg. 28)
"But especially I have had the love of John Stoltenberg, with whom I have lived now for twenty years... I love John with all my heart and soul..." (Pg. 33)
"...in 1965 no one knew that. Sexual abuse wasn't on anybody's map of the everyday world until feminists redrew the map." (Pg. 56)
"We live in a rape culture. Men have to be sent to prison to live in a culture that is as rapist as the normal home in North America." (Pg. 116)
"The problem for women is that being hurt is ordinary." (Pg. 132)
"I want to say that what's urgent is to make the war against women visible." (Pg. 168)

Once again, Dworkin rubs our face in reality. This excellent book should be required reading.

I find it unfortunate that so many hear the voice of femininism in Dworkin's hysterical, illogical, venom spewing shrieks. While I do not doubt her when she speaks to the need for reform, her quixotic policies, and near-schizophrenic tendency to scream out hatred and blame (seemingly indiscriminatly) negate any progressive crumb that may sneak through.

As a feminist, I am forced into despair whenever I hear of Dworkin -- directly or indirectly, bandied about as a spokeswoman for feminism. Not all feminists (or feminisms) share her paranoia or delusions of persecution (there is enough persecution of women out there, Andrea, why go chasing windmills?).

I find most of Dworkin's prose fueled by these insane delusions. This book in particular reminded me of Mein Kampf in it's finger-pointing, scapegoating and hate/fear/disinformation fueled invective.

One of the first things I learned in my college education was to be able to tell the s*** from the daffodils. One does not need an expensive education, though, to know to compost this book.

Perhaps the most useful thing one might say about Andrea "emotional bulimic" Dworkin is that she breathes; and in doing so contributes to the process of photosynthesis by producing CO2. In this way, Dworkin's existance on the planet can be said to be useful...however after reading this mindless drivel, I can't find any others. In this rambling and pathetic collection of essays, we are told (and told and told and told) that Dworkin was abused by everyone on the planet. Not suprisingly, this led to her worldview that everyone who is male is mean. After reading this, I am sorry to say that were I know Dworkin, I would be mean to her as well. She whines, complains and rants for countless pages, only to come to the most sophomoric conclusions available and clearly revealed in any 6th grade lunch room. Girls are nicer than boys. Dworkin should, in the interests of our planet's intellectual well-being, be banned from being within 200 feet of a word processer. Perhaps we might keep her away with cheeseburgers.