feminists speak out about Andrea: resources

Calling Women “An” Andrea Dworkin To Shut Them Up
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

I have been called “an” Andrea Dworkin more than a few times, as a slur. It is interesting which circumstances trigger that “name-calling,” and which don’t. I found I was called that most in “sex-positive” communities,
as I had the nerve to try to interject feminism and thwart homophobia into sex “positive” environments. When I first read her book, “Intercourse,” I was stunned at the brilliance and eloquence therein. And I love how she
does not mince words for **your** comfort. Andrea is appropriately called an “agitator,” as much as an activist. She certainly did not play by the rules and she did not mind the boys, which is absolutely admirable and ridiculously difficult. “No compromise” was what Andrea Dworkin’s life was about.

Andrea Dworkin died this week. It is a huge loss. On many levels. I was just published in a book with her this year. I was looking forward to more of such minglings, but I guess that was not meant to be. Andrea Dworkin scared me the way Nikki Craft scares me. I am scared of their unceasing demands and yet, I love them for it. Andrea pushed the envelope, which is really hard labor. Feminism is really hard, as you are pushing against the grain of society, but Andrea was not just a feminist, she was as far out and extreme as feminism gets! I cannot imagine holding up that responsibility for as long as she did. She kept watch on the borders between feminism and patriarchy like a driven guard, passionate in her
loyalism, armed with her words. And her words were fast, pointed, and poisonous. And men and women squirmed, as if in a slow motion cartoon, as they saw her words come hurling towards them full of logic that was damned hard to refute.

I have found “Andrea Dworkin” was used like a weapon, to cut off a feminist argument at the knees in the pro-sexuality movement. Anytime people did not like what you said, they just called you an Andrea Dworkin, then everyone stepped back from you. Wow. What power Andrea had. I hope when I am still alive people call uncompromising feminists “a” Kirsten Anderberg, to try to shut them up. That would be an honor.

For more information on Andrea Dworkin’s life, work and writings, please
visit the following links:

Online Andrea Dworkin Memorial: Post your fav Andrea quotes and memorials
http://www.andreadworkin.net/messages/

Another Online Memorial Page for Andrea:
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/sfvo/dworkin.html

To hear a raw two hour tribute to Andrea Dworkin from yesterday April 11th
and to access an Internet memorial please go to:
http://www.mediawatch.com/news.html

[NY Times: April 12, 2005
Radical Feminist Andrea Dworkin Dies at 58
http://tinyurl.com/4g8kf

Andrea Dworkin, feminist iconoclast, dies at 59
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=628590

Dworkin Online Library
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/OnlineLibrary.html

Donations in honor of Andrea Dworkin's life and work can be made to:
The Schlesinger Library
The Andrea Dworkin Fund
Radcliffe Institute
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-3600
or to the domestic-violence shelter or rape-crisis center of your choice.

(Contributions to The Schlesinger Library designated for The Andrea Dworkin Fund will go toward processing
the Andrea Dworkin papers and creating an on-line searchable guide.)

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