Andrea Dworkin - Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality

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Copyright 1974 by Andrea Dworkin

All rights reserved

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Drawing on page 98 by Jean Holabird

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For Grace Paley

and in Memory o f Emma Goldman

. . . Shakespeare had a sister; but do not

look for her in Sir Sidney Lees life of the

poet. She died young alas, she never

wrote a word.. . . Now my belief is that

this poet who never wrote a word and was

buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives

in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are

washing up the dishes and putting the

children to bed. But she lives; for great

poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to

walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within

your power to give her. For my belief is

that if we live another century or soI

am talking of the common life which is the

real life and not of the little separate lives

which we live as individuals and have

five hundred a year each of us and rooms

of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what

we think; if we escape a little from the

common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each

other but in relation to reality. . . if we

face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is

no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and

that our relation is to the world of reality

. . . then the opportunity will come and the

dead poet who was Shakespeares sister

will put on the body which she has so often

laid down. Drawing her life from the lives

of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she

will be born. As for her coming without

that preparation, without that effort on

our part, without that determination that

when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we

cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come

if we worked for her, and that so to work,

even in poverty and obscurity, is worthwhile.

Virginia Woolf,

A Room of One's Own (1929)

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T

Ricki Abrams and I began writing this book together in

Amsterdam, Holland, in December 1971. We worked

long and hard and through a lot o f living and then, for

many reasons, our paths separated. Ricki went to Australia, then to India. I returned to Amerika. So the book, in its early pieces and fragments, became mine as

the responsibility for finishing it became mine. I thank

Ricki here for the work we did together, and the time

we had together, and this book which came from that

time and grew beyond it.

Andrea Dworkin

C O N T E N T S

Introduction

17

Part One: THE FAIRY TALES

29

Chapter 1 Onceuponatime: The Roles

34

Chapter 2 Onceuponatime: The Moral of the

Story

47

Part Two: THE PORNOGRAPHY

5 1

Chapter 3 Woman as Victim: Story of O

55

Chapter 4 Woman as Victim: The Image

64

Chapter 5 Woman as Victim: Suck

75

Part Three: THE HERSTORY

91

Chapter 6 Gynocide: Chinese Footbinding

95

Chapter 7 Gynocide: The Witches

118

Part Four: ANDROGYNY

151

Chapter 8 Androgyny: The Mythological Model

155

Chapter 9 Androgyny: Androgyny, Fucking, and

Community

174

Afterword

197

Notes

205

Bibliography

211

There is a misery of the body and a misery

of the mind, and if the stars, whenever we

looked at them, poured nectar into our

mouths, and the grass became bread, we

would still be sad. We live in a system that