Published in 1976
118 pages
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.
What is this book about?
“We live in a male-imagined world, and our lives are circumscribed by the limits of male imagination. Those limits are severe.” (page 55)
This book comprises Dworkin’s forward-thinking, revolutionary speeches. She explores the nuances of socialized identity with clear, eloquent, quite beautiful, and transformative notes on sexual hierarchy, which are even more relevant today. She analyzes the relationship between masculine and feminine cultural/sexual realities and proposes ways to create equality that embrace naming (developing a non-misogynist language) and call for discontinuing the patriarchy by redefining what it means to be a gendered man and woman and by making ourselves [women] visible, developing a sisterhood.
Dworkin is an intersectional feminist and, through these speeches, shows how deeply the patriarchy has been ingrained into our consciousness. Discovering and destroying the roots of the patriarchy, then replanting a system that does not prioritize one human over another, is her necessary and vital vision for future generations of the sisterhood of all women and oppressed groups.
