Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Dworkin (born 1946 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American radical feminist and writer. In her numerous books, articles and speeches she criticizes pornography, prostitution, and male violence against women, drawing from her own experience of prostitution and rape.
She has opponents on many parts of the political spectrum. Some on the right-wing claim she is a man-hater and a threat to family values, and some on the left accuse her of being unreasonably pessimistic; a proponent of censorship and against all sex. Pornographic cartoons of Dworkin have appeared in Hustler.
Dworkin, together with the feminist lawyer Catharine MacKinnon, drafted a proposal for a law that defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women, and allowed women to sue the producers and distributors of pornography in a civil court for damages. In 1983 the law was passed in Indianapolis, but was subsequently overturned as unconstitutional by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1985. The Supreme Court of the United States later upheld the lower court's ruling in American Booksellers Association, Inc. v. Hudnut.
Today Andrea Dworkin lives in Brooklyn, New York with her life partner John Stoltenberg, who is also a feminist activist.
Bibliography
Nonfiction
- Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant (2002)
- Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000)
- Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women (1997)
- Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females (1991)
- Letters from a War Zone: Writings, 1976-1987 (1988)
- Intercourse (1988)
- Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality (1988)
- Pornography—Men Possessing Women (1981)
- Our Blood: Prophesies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (1976)
- Woman Hating (1974)
Fiction
- Mercy (1990)
- Ice and Fire (1986)
- The New Woman's Broken Heart: Short Stories (1980)
See also
