Andrea Dworkin - The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant

Petra Kelly

length about his courage and honor; his stunning contributions

to pacifism and world peace (through renouncing NATO).

Some of them mentioned Petra in passing. One or two did

not mention her at al but called him “brother” and nearly

dissolved in tears. (And we thought that boys couldn’t cry. )

The sentimentality on behalf of the male convert to pacifism

was astonishing. Many of the speakers appeared to accept that

Petra and her companion-lover were the victims of a plot,

probably CIA, because the CIA saw him as a turncoat and

wanted to kil him - she was, as monsters say, collateral damage.

Others thought that there had been a mutual suicide pact,

that Petra had agreed - ladies first - to be killed by the former

NATO general. I waited for Bella Abzug, one of my heroes,

to speak. She spoke last, I think, but nothing she said challenged the notion of Petra as a helpmate who wanted to be kil ed. She even managed to say something nice about the boy,

though she nearly choked on the words. I was devastated.

I got up to go to the front to speak. I was not on the agenda.

Cora motioned me back to my seat and said in a loud whisper

that there wasn’t time for anyone else to say anything. She

gestured in a way that implied she couldn’t be more sor y.

I forced myself through the ropes that marked the speaking

area and kept it sacrosanct. I turned to face the audience of

mourners. Here were men I had known since I was eighteen

- from my earliest days in fighting against the war in Vietnam.

I couldn’t believe that nothing had changed - peace, peace,

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Heartbreak

peace, love, love, love; they did not understand nor would

they even consider that a man had murdered a woman.

I said that while Petra’s life had been extraordinary her

death was not; it was an ordinary death for a woman. Petra

had been kil ed by her lover, her intimate, her mate. She was

kil ed in her bed wearing a nightgown. (I knew but didn’t say

that Petra would never commit suicide by any means while

unclothed or even partly exposed - the pornography of it

would have been repellent to her. She also would never have

used a gun or allowed its use. ) She had probably been asleep.

Nothing could be more commonplace or cowardly. The audience of pacifists started hissing and some started shouting.

I said that there was probably no conspiracy and certainly no

acquiescence on the part of Petra; everything in her life and

politics argued against any such complicity. It had to be faced,

I said, that pacifists had not taken a stand against violence

against women; it was stil invisible to them, even when the

woman was Petra Kel y, a world-class activist. I said that the

male’s life meant more to them than hers did. By this time the

pacifists were in various stages of rage.

No pacifist woman stood up to support me, though Petra

would have. I said that, hard as it was, one had to understand

that Petra had died like millions of other women around the

world: prematurely, violently, and at the hands of someone

who was presumed to love her. I said that nonviolence was

not possible if the ordinary, violent deaths of women went

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Petra Kelly

unremarked, unnoticed. However extraordinary Petra had been

in her life, I repeated, her death could not have been more

commonplace.

The mourners were angry Some were shouting nasty names

at me. I said that I had to speak because not to do so would

be to betray Petra’s work and the work we had done together,

in concert. I ran from the room. One woman grabbed my arm

on my way out. “Thank you, ” she said. That’s enough; it has

to be enough - one on-site person during a conflict showing

respect.

I felt that I had stood up for Petra. I knew she would have

stood up for me.

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Capitalist Pig

I started speaking and lecturing as a feminist because I had a

lot of trouble getting my work published. I spoke on violence

against women. In the early years of the women’s movement,

this subject was marginal, violence itself considered an anomaly,

not intrinsic to the low status of women. I accepted that

valuation; I just thought that this was work I could do and

therefore had to do. When something’s got your name on it,

you’re the one responsible for finding a way to create an

awareness, a stand, a set of strategies. It’s yours to do. There

can be 100, 000 others with their names on it, too, but that

doesn’t get you off the hook.

I spoke in small rooms fil ed with women, and afterward

someone would pass a hat. I remember a crowd of about fifty

in Woodstock, New York, that chipped in about $60. I slept

on the floor of whoever had asked me or organized the event,

and I ate whatever I was given - bad tabbouleh stands out

in my mind. I needed money to live on but didn’t believe in

asking for it from women, because women were poor. Women’s

centers in towns and on college campuses were poor.

Sometimes a woman would pass me a note that had a check

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Capitalist Pig

in it for $25 or some such sum; the highest I remember was

$150, and that was a fortune in my eyes.

I had to travel to wherever the speech was in the hope that

I'd be able to collect enough money to pay for my expenses.

Flo Kennedy often talked about how if you did not demand

money people would treat you badly. I did not believe that

could be true, but for the most part it was. I can remember

the gut-wrenching decision to ask for a fee up front, first $200,

then $500. A few years later I got a speaking agent, Phyllis

Langer, who had been an editor at Ms. She took a 25 percent

commission, whereas most speaking or lecture agents took a

full 33 percent. By the time I hired her, I was making in the

$ l, 500-$3, 000 range. She made sure that I got paid, that the

event was handled okay, with publicity, and that expenses were

reimbursed. She was kind and also provided perspective.