Andrea Dworkin is dead

[lovingboth]

Susie Bright on the late Andrea Dworkin.

The most interesting omission from the googlism is "Andrea Dworkin is wrong", which was a popular t-shirt slogan among American bisexual women back in the late 80s/early 90s.

I'm struck by the difference in my reaction to her death with the reaction to, say, David English or Ronald Reagan's death, where there was a part of me sad they hadn't suffered more.

All of them were often Wrong - English's journalistic career can be summed up with his "Gay Gene Abortion Hope" headline while he was editor of the evil Daily Mail.

It's probably because, unlike them, she never had power.

Thank ghod.

Comments

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Didn't she and Catherine McKinnon frame the Canadian anti-porn law?

That's a degree of power, I guess.

I'm glad she didn't manage more than that.

I wished her no evil, though.

Hurrah!

[tanais.livejournal.com]

I had a bet with someone that she would die of natural causes heart attack or liver/renal failure (the person I bet with a decade ago was convinced she would be assassinated). I took one look at her and said "coronary in 10 year's time"... please please let me be right. Its dinner at my favourite diner in San Francisco that hangs by a thread,

If I have I won then go me... but the Guardian is being very fuzzy on details (http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1457224,00.html)...

Grrrrr

[lovingboth]

Certainly looks like natural causes of some description.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I disagree with a lot of what Dworkin said, but I don't hate her in the way I hate, say, Thatcher. She was wrong about many things, but I think she was wrong for the right reasons, if that makes sense. She looked at a world where women were abused and oppressed, and wanted to make it better, not for personal gain but because she believed it was the right thing to do.

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert on her work, but it seems to me that she was misguided rather than evil. She pointed out problems of sexism quite corectly, and then arrived at what seem to me reactionary solutions, but this is probably a failing rather than a desire to opress.

[blackgrass.livejournal.com]

Amazing how forgiving human nature is. Though I agree\ with the reasons that her intentions were honourable to her own philosophy & observations in life. Andrea Dowking though, was unforgiving in her approach to opposition or any sexworkers opinions that she `could be wrong here`. She took no prisoners so to speak. Yes, she did probably mean well, but the road to hell, as they say is paved with good intentions. Andrea Dowkin seemed to be a miserable & unhappy woman, who died prematurely, without resolving her personal issues!In approaching sexworkers as she did, she held back the rights of sexworkers & firmly tried to seal the stigma of them too.