Andrea Dworkin: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant

women who are down who are paying the freight for al the

rest; the women who have been pushed up even a smidge

have taken to acting as if everything is al right or wil be soon.

Their arguments are not with men or even with subgroups of

men, for instance, pimps. They smile and make nice with the

men. Their arguments are with me or other militants. Being a

militant simply requires fighting sexual abuse - the right of a

rapist, the right of a pimp, the right of a john, the right of an

incest-daddy to use or intimidate or coerce girls or women.

A young woman just out of college says that date rape does

not happen, and the media conspire to make her rich and

famous.

A woman of no intellectual distinction writes a 3, 000-page

book, or so it seems, and she is celebrated - she becomes rich

and famous.

The wealthy wife of a multimil ionaire writes longingly

about being a stay-at-home mother. Feminists, she says, have

made that too hard - as she pursues a golden career writing

(without talent) about how she wants to be home mopping

up infant vomit.

151

Heartbreak

A middle-class English feminist of ferocious mediocrity

spends her time charting the eating disorders of her betters.

They are not so evident on the landscape now, but there

were so-called feminists who published in Playboy , Hustler ,

and Penthouse and penned direct attacks on feminists fighting

pornography and prostitution. There were women labeled

feminist who wrote pornographic scenarios in which the

so-called fantasies were the rape of other feminists, usually

named and sometimes drawn but always recognizable; one at

least has become a male through surgery - her head and heart

were always right there.

Making fun of the victims was even more commonplace

than making fun of the feminists fighting in behalf of those

who had been raped or prostituted.

It became an insult to be cal ed or considered a victim, even

when one had been victimized. The women in pornography

and prostitution had not been victimized just once or by a

stranger; more often the family tree was a poison tree - sexual

abuse grew on every branch. Only in the United States could

second-class citizens (women) be proud to disown the experiences of sisters (prostitutes), stand up for the predator, and minimize sexual abuse - this after thirty-five years spent

fighting for the victim’s right to live outside the dynamic of

exploitation. “If you’re ignorant to what’s going on around

you, ” said one former prostitute, "or haven’t got the education

to bring yourself out of that, you stay there. And so it

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Basics

becomes from the little go-go dancer to the strip-tease dancer

to the glamorous effect to pornography, [and] coaxing other

women into doing the same thing because I was a strong

woman. Coming from a woman it sounds better, it comes

across better, and I didn’t realize I was doing it until I got the

chance to do some healing. In the long run I was being tricked

into it just like every other woman out there. ”

What does it mean if you cal yourself a feminist, have the

education, and act like a designer-special armed guard to keep

women prostituting?

It is true, I think, that at the beginning, in the early years,

feminists did not and could not imagine women hurting other

women on purpose - being so morally or politically cor upt.

The naivete was stunning; betrayal is always an easier choice.

One follows the patriarchal nar ative by blaming the incest-

mothers, the Chinese mothers who bound their daughters’

feet, the bad mothers in the fairy tales. One did not want to

fol ow the patriarchal nar ative. But is it not the political

responsibility of feminists to figure out the role of female-to-

female betrayal in upholding male supremacy? Isn’t that

necessary? And how can one do what is necessary if one is too

cowardly to face the truth?

The truth of a bad or incapacitated mother is a hard truth

to face. As one woman said, “I was forced to be the head of

the family because my mother couldn’t do it. She was in a

mental institution. ” Another woman said, “My mother was

153

Heartbreak

scared for men to be around [because] al my sisters were al

molested by this man, and so she protected us from him, but

a lady came in my life who seduced me and molested me also.

I was twelve, and I thought I was safe. ” So there she was, the

bad mother or the betraying mother or the incapacitated

mother or the unknowing mother; and each had her own sadness or ter or.

Not too many prostituting women got past twelve without

being sexual y abused, and not too many were childless, and

not too many lived lives as teenagers and adults without men

abusing them: “I was into drugs, in the limelights and the

glamorous life, and thought I was bet er than the whores on

the streets ’cause what I did was drove fancy cars and travel

around in airplanes, al this shit, but I was stil in the same pain

as everybody else, [and] instead of using men I started using

women for whatever my needs was. ” The media antifeminists

are not unlike the woman-using prostitutes and the strung-out

mothers - their venom goes in the direction of other women

because it is easier than taking on men. Is this ever going to

stop?

154

Immoral

People play life as if it’s a game, whereas each step is a real

step. The shock of being unable to control what happens,

especially the tragedies, overwhelms one. Someone dies;

someone leaves; someone lies. There is sickness, misery, loneliness, betrayal. One is alone not just at the end but al the time. One tries to camouflage pain and failure. One wants

to believe that poverty can be cured by wealth, cruelty by

kindness; but neither is true. The orphan is always an orphan.

The worst immorality is in apathy, a deadening of caring

about others, not because they have some special claim but