Talk:Andrea Dworkin

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bits missing- lovers, plus why disbelieved?

As a person new to this article, I am struck by how it doesn't mention any female lovers she may have had. She identified as lesbian- of course she had a perfect right to do so for her own reasons, but I was wondering if there are any people known in WP:RS to have been her lovers?

The other thing I was wondering is if it could be explained why people disbelieved her claims of rape, what reasons did those disbelieving her give? (Or course, women are often disbelieved when it's true.) special, random, Merkinsmum 01:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, friends. The question of why she is not believed, assuming you are serious, open-minded, and earnest about this, is a good one. I remember reading the Guardian article in real time, in France, when it came out. I was drinking a Kir Royale a the time, a champagne cocktail that Andrea apparently passed out over, and I myself realized, *this is simply not credible.* You may or may not be offended by me saying this, but I have longed turned my back on the world of the PC, so I will proceed: this is an older, obese, ill-dressed, unkempt, woman of ghastly ugliness, looking well beyond her ample years, and in ill health. Some may tell us till-the-cows-come-home that all of these points are neutral to a potential rapist -- the fact that his intended victim is hiedeously ugly, means *nothing* to him. He would just as soon rape the ill-dressed, ugliest woman on earth, as Miss Universe in a micro-mini: it simply doesn't matter to him since rape is a crime of violence. FEW PEOPLE BELIEVE THIS -- I DON'T.

The waiters, if they were rapists, had choices. Andrea would be the very, very last on their line, and you can be pretty sure not then either. Whether they could rape her and resist vomiting is a real question.

Moreover, the seeds of paranoia are right there in the Guardian article. To Andrea's credit, she literally makes no mention of being raped. None. Don't ask others, look at it. Read the article. She says that she was drinking in the hotel bar/cafe, she fell asleep, woke up in her room with her vagina bleeding a bit, and therefore she decided she had been raped. That's her account, not mine. Well, what if she was drinking, got a lot a little tipsy (or maybe a lot), went to her room somehow, or was helped there by the hotel staff who may been concerned (or aghast)? What if she fell? Drunk on the restaurant floor? Or had an infection? She was ill, remember. We absolutely don't know what happened. Neither did she. And nobody asked the accused.

Andrea thus admits four things. She was drinking. Lost consciousness. Doesn't know what happened. Has no memory of rape. Again, we can add a fifth that she was fabulously unattractive on top of this. In light of the above, she determined she'd been raped and wrote a fantastical article about it. Well, people were shocked when they read it. I remember reading the article, thinking, good Christmas, what the heck is this? The woman I was travellin with had the same reaction, and we looked at one another, shaking our heads, in amazement.

If anything, I think Andrea set back real victims of rape, because after her fable, they also might not be believed, which would be a tragedy. Oh, and by the way, a lot of her other accounts of abuse (maybe all of them, actually) also have no witnesses. They may have happened (or not), but it doesn't seem like this one did. It did get her a lot of attention, though, didn't it? If that is what she wanted, good for her, because even though she passed years ago, we are still talking about it. My best to you, Mare Nostrum 14:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You're assuming the guy/s would have wanted normal sex (so to speak) and therefore would have made another choice, so she couldn't have been raped or even invited for a date. However, rape for political purposes exists; consider wartime rape by victors and by soldiers in battle; and consider reports of women who are raped in nursing homes, which cases are often difficult to prosecute because of memory issues by the time a case comes to trial. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Was it wartime, or a nursing home, or was it an absurdly unattractive woman alone in a locked hotel room?--Thedoorhinge (talk) 08:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

To suggest that she could not have been raped because she was fat and unattractive is not good enough. Pensioners, conventionally unattractive people, overweight people and children are raped all the time. All the more reason that the doubts expressed should be clarified. Currently they just sit there in the article unexplained, along with another reference to accusations of insanity. I am absolutely not qualified to elucidate this, is anyone else? 84.215.54.198 (talk) 14:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you please point to the specific passages that perhaps should be edited? And if you have additional sources that we should know about, could you please list them or add them to the article? That'll give us starting points. Thank you very much. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Umm.. you do realize that other reasons were provided besides the fact that she was a hideous looking Jabba the Hutt type woman? Her nastiness certainly does qualify as a valid reason to doubt she was raped. While I agree that, on its own, it is insuffcient to prove anything but you have completely ignored the other listed reasons for doubt -- not the least of which that she doesn't remember being raped. I'll add yet another reason, she was something of paranoid radical that could find "patriarchal abuse" in a croissant if she looked at it for more than 30 seconds. As far as politically motivated rapes, those don't fit the bill of an unconscious woman. In order for the act to be vengeful or personal they would have wanted her to be conscious of it. Raping an unconscious women is overwhelming more likely to be done for sexual gratification than for "political purposes," in which case, the Jabba the Hutt principle is clearly a meaningful factor.--Cybermud (talk) 17:04, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Sympathetic women are not the only ones raped. She was a direct and clear communicator and that sometimes is taken as nastiness. I've read several of her books and don't recall her ever focusing on anything trivial as a proof of sexism; maybe it was in passing; if paid bakers are predominantly male and if the men generally exclude women from cooking for pay that's patriarchal abuse. Good point on political rape but not always the case: one could rape an available woman for political reasons without insisting on consciousness.

The purpose of this talk page is to discuss the article. This discussion is legitimate if it is to support editing the article. If you have a source, please post.

I indented your reply to distinguish it from the previous.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:07, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the above indentation now gives the impression I was replying to you rather than the IP.

Calling blatant misandry and conspiracy theory paranoia "clear communication" is about the worst euphemism I've ever seen. What Dworkin may have termed "patriarchal abuse" (by the all powerful and ideologically conforming "Baker's Guild for Men" no doubt) is no more or less than sexism. Though I doubt she would have appended "abuse" to the term. That is a continuation of the modern day, never-ending domain expansion of "abuse" to include anything and everything that hurts, discriminates or merely annoys women (eg psychological, emotional, intellectual, financial, etc abuse). I'm sure some would call my very words here "intellectual abuse" a la Vision 2000 and advocate I be banned for writing them. The fact is that Dworkin's rape claims were widely disbelieved, for good reason. I'm ok with expanding on those reasons but not implying that the public's disbelief was somehow unfounded or didn't exist. No new sources are needed to support that -- only an accurate representation of the existing ones. btw.. I have no idea what you mean by "Sympathetic women are not the only ones raped." Sympathetic to what?--Cybermud (talk) 18:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

My solution is to indent anyway and then name (maybe in boldface) the earlier poster to whom I'm replying.

If the article with respect to the rape of her misrepresents any source, or the totality if a source is omitted, please let us know how it misrepresents.

"I have no idea what you mean by 'Sympathetic women are not the only ones raped.' Sympathetic to what?" The term sympathetic women is used in another sense: 'women for whom there is sympathy'. The statement was in response to your "[h]er nastiness certainly does qualify as a valid reason to doubt she was raped."

Other points: "What Dworkin may have termed 'patriarchal abuse' . . . is no more or less than sexism." Exactly. Given your context, it looks like that's not what you meant or you're approving sexism. The Vision 2000 statement does not refer to "intellectual abuse". Intellectual abuse occurs and occurs genderally. ". . . [D]omain expansion of 'abuse' to include anything and everything that hurts, discriminates or merely annoys women (eg psychological, emotional, intellectual, financial, etc abuse):" I don't see a linguistic problem with this. Evidence amply supports it substantively; no room is left on this page to recount feminist history. Reanalyzing what you describe as "blatant misandry and conspiracy theory paranoia" would take far too long on a talk page intended for improving the article, not for discussing her work otherwise. I accept we disagree.

Nick Levinson (talk) 06:35, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Uhh.. ok. I, also, accept that um.. you accept that we disagree.

"Intellectual abuse occurs and occurs genderally..." Postmodernism Generator?

Glad you see no "linuguistic problem" with defining abuse as "anything that merely annoys women," no doubt we can also call the "abusers" (ie men) "batterers." Better yet, let's just call them "<insert adjective here> rapists," and say all men are rapists (because, of course, they are.) No need to "to recount feminist history" your approval of rhetorical acrobatics with "abuse" illustrates the point I was making quite nicely, TYVM.--Cybermud (talk) 13:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

photo link and godson

Should we provide a link to a 1974 photograph of her (photo shown by the photographer (scroll down), as accessed Sep. 15, 2010)? The link probably would be at the end of the External Links section. The photo itself cannot be posted unless someone gets permission, but the link itself is not illegally facilitating copyright infringement, so it would be legal. On the other hand, would this be too trivial and/or trivializing?

Her godson is Isaac Dorfman Silverglate, according to her book Scapegoat (hardcover, 2000), p. [v] (dedication page). The godfather was/is Allen Ginsberg. Does Isaac count as part of her family? In some cultures, the godparent is responsible for the godchild's (or the godfather is responsible for the godson's) college education; at any rate, he has graduated from Columbia University. And, by the way, I think she was atheist. Should this relationship be mentioned?

Nick Levinson (talk) 07:01, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I withdraw both as questions.

Other (and probably better) pictures are findable, albeit not necessarily licensable for WP, and while WP likes having pics I doubt there's much need in this case and it too much risks trivializing her work.

And I forgot that Allen Ginsberg is the one to whom she had said "I'd kill you" re child porn ([1], as accessed Oct. 8, 2010), so the godchild relationship, which I don't recall paralleled in other WP biographies, would need more about this or shouldn't be in, and in the context of her life's work it's an interesting story but maybe not important enough to fit into a single article on her.

Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Writing America excerpt somewhere?

Andrea died while she was writing a new book, Writing America, and she got about two chapters more or less done. I thought an excerpt was posthumously posted to the Web, with permission, but I'm beginning to think I'm confusing it with another work of hers. I'd like to cite a Writing America excerpt if it publicly exists, but I can't find it. Anyone know about it? Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 02:12, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Drug-Rape in Paris

The section describing Dworkin's account of being drugged and raped in Paris seems to have been removed, and it's still being mentioned later in the text. I'm guessing it was cut because there is controversy around it, but both the story and the controversy are documented by reliable sources and have obvious bearing on her biography. Can we put it back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.142.53.19 (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

The account of Dworkin's rape has not been removed. In Andrea Dworkin#Later life, please see the paragraph that begins, "In June 2000" (the penultimate paragraph). — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 19:03, 1 October 2010 (UTC)