Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

cogent and meaningful, with an intellectual richness, a moral

subtlety. Y ou don’t have to shout to tell the truth. Y ou can

think. Y ou have a responsibility to think. M y wild sisters revel

in being wretched and they do not think. Sartre is writing

about the French under the German Occupation, well, French

intellectuals really, and he says— “ We were never as free as

under the German Occupation. We had lost all our rights, and,

first o f all, the right to speak; we were insulted every day, and

had to keep silent.. . . and everywhere, on the walls, the

papers, the movie screen, we were made to confront the ugly

mug that our oppressor presented to us as our own: but this is

precisely why we were free. As the German poison seeped into

our minds, every just thought we had was a real conquest; as

an omnipotent police kept forcing silence upon us, every word

we uttered had the value o f a declaration o f rights; as we were

constantly watched, every gesture we made was a commitm ent. ” This is moral eloquence, in the mouth o f a man. This

applies to the situation o f women. This is a beautiful truth,

beautifully expressed. Every just thought is a real conquest,

for women under the rule o f men. They don’t know how hard

it is to be kind. Our oppressor puts his version o f us

everywhere, on walls, in the papers, on the movie screens.

Like a poison gas, it seeps in. Every word we utter is a

declaration o f our rights. Every gesture is a commitment. I

make gestures. I experience this subtle freedom, this freedom

based on nuance, a freedom grotesquely negated by a vulgar,

reckless shout, however sincere. He didn’t know that the Je w s

were being exterminated, perhaps, not then. O f course, yes,

he did know that they had been deported from France. Yes.

And when he published these words much later, in 1949, he

did know, but one must be true to one’s original insights,

one’s true experiences, the glimpses one has o f freedom. There

is a certain pride one takes in seeing something so fine, so

subtle, and saying it so well— and, o f course, one cannot

endlessly revise backwards. His point about freedom is

elegant. He too suffered during the war. It is not a cheap point.

And it is true that for us too every w ord is a declaration o f

rights, every gesture a commitment. This is beautifully put,

strongly put. As a wom an o f letters, I fight for m y kind, for

women, for freedom. The brazen scream distracts. The wild

harridans are not persuasive. I write out Sartre’s passage with

appreciation and excitement. The analogy to the condition o f

wom en is dramatic and at the same time nuanced. I w ill not

shout. This is not the ovens. We are not the Jew s, or, to be

precise, the Je w s in certain parts o f Europe at a certain time.

We are not being pushed into the ovens, dragged in, cajoled in,

seduced in, threatened in. It is not us in the ovens. Such

hyperbole helps no one. I like the w ay Sartre puts it, though

the irony seems unintended: “ We were never as free as under

the German O ccupation. ” Actually, I do know that his

meaning is straightforward and completely sincere— there is

no irony. This embarrasses me, perhaps because I am a captive

o f m y time. We are cursed with hindsight. We need irony

because we are in fact incapable o f simple sincerity. “ We were

never as free as under the German O ccupation. ” It gives the

right significance to the gesture, something Brecht never

managed incidentally. I like the sophistication, the unexpected

meaning. This is what a writer must do: use w ords in subtle,

unexpected w ays to create intellectual surprise, real delight. I

love the pedagogy o f the analogy. There is a mutability o f

meaning, an intellectual elasticity that avoids the rigidity o f

ideology and still instructs in the meaning o f freedom. It

warns us not to be simple-minded. We were never as free as

under the German Occupation. Glorious. Really superb.

Restrained. Elegant. True in the highest sense. De Beauvoir

was my feminist ideal. An era died with her, an era o f civilized

coupling. She was a civilized woman with a civilized militance

that recognized the rightful constraints o f loyalty and, o f

course, love. I am tired o f the bellicose fools.

O N E

In August 1956

(Age 9)

M y name is Andrea. It means manhood or courage. In Europe

only boys are named it but I live in America. Everyone says I

seem sad but I am not sad. I was born down the street from

Walt W hitman’s house, on M ickle Street, in Cam den, in 1946,

broken brick houses, cardboard porches, garbage spread over

cement like fertilizer on stone fields, dark, a dark so thick you

could run your fingers through it like icing and lick it o ff your

fingers. I w asn’t raped until I was almost ten which is pretty

good it seems when I ask around because many have been

touched but are afraid to say. I w asn’t really raped, I guess, just

touched a lot by a strange, dark-haired man w ho I thought was

a space alien because I couldn’t tell how many hands he had

and people from earth only have two, and I didn’t know the

w ord rape, which is ju st some awful word, so it didn’t hurt me

because nothing happened. Y o u get asked if anything happened and you say well yes he put his hand here and he rubbed

me and he put his arm around m y shoulder and he scared me

and he followed me and he whispered something to me and

then someone says but did anything happen. And you say,

well, yes, he sat down next to me, it was in this m ovie theater

and I didn’t mean to do anything w rong and there w asn’t

anyone else around and it was dark and he put his arm around

me and he started talking to me and saying weird things in a

weird voice and then he put his hand in m y legs and he started

rubbing and he kept saying ju st let m e.. . . and someone says

did anything happen and you say well yes he scared me and he

followed me and he put his hand or hands there and you don’t

know how many hands he had, not really, and you don’t want

to tell them you don’t know because then they will think you