Andrea Dworkin - Right-wing Women

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Right-wing Women

ANDREA DWORKIN

A Perigee Book

Perigee Books

are published by

G. P. Putnam’s Sons

200 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Copyright © 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 by Andrea Dworkin

Copyright © 1983 by Andrea Dworkin

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in

any form without permission in writing from the publisher. Published on

the same day in Canada by General Publishing Co. Limited, Toronto.

The author gratefully acknowledges permission from the following sources

to reprint material in this book:

The University of California Press for the excerpt from “The Coming

Gynocide, ” in Sappho: A New Translation , Mary Barnard, translator (1973),

© copyright 1957 by The Regents of the University of California.

New' Directions Publishing Corporation for six lines from “Canto 9 1 ”

from The Cantos of Ezra Pound by Ezra Pound. Copyright © 1956 by Ezra

Pound.

Portions of this book have been published in slightly different form in Ms.

and Maenad.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Dworkin, Andrea.

Right-wing women.

Includes index.

1. Women’s rights— United States.

2. Conservatism— United States.

3. Right and left

(Political science).

I. Title.

[H Q 1426. D898

1982b]

305. 4'2'0973

82-9784

ISBN 0-399-50671-3

AACR2

First Perigee printing, 1983

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgments

M any people went out of their w ay to help me in different w ays in

the course of m y w riting this book. I owe sincere thanks to Geri

Thoma, Anne Simon, Robin Morgan, Catharine A. MacKinnon,

Karen Hom ick, Emily Jane Goodman, Rachel Gold, Sandra Elkin,

Laura Cottingham, Gena Corea, and Raymond Bongiovanni.

I am very grateful to Sam Mitnick for supporting this project

and to all the people at Perigee involved in publishing it.

This book owes its existence to Gloria Steinem, whose idea it

was that I expand an earlier essay, “Safety, Shelter, Rules, Form,

Love: The Promise of the U ltra-Right” (Ms. y June 1979), into a

book. I thank Gloria not only for the idea but also for her insistence on its importance.

And I thank, once again, both John Stoltenberg and Elaine

Markson, who sustain me.

Andrea Dworkin

New York C ity

March 1982

For Gloria Steinem

In Memory of M uriel Rukeyser

Contents

1. The Promise of the Ultra-Right

13

2. The Politics of Intelligence

37

3. Abortion

71

4. Jew s and Homosexuals

107

5. The Coming Gynocide

147

6. Antifeminism

195

Notes

239

Index

245

Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens

the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place,

everywhere conceded— a place earned by personal

merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance,

wealth, family and position. Conceding, then, that

the responsibilities of life rest equally on man and

woman, that their destiny is the same, they need the

same preparation for time and eternity. The talk o f

sheltering woman from the fierce storms o f life is the

sheerest mockery, for they beat on her from every

point of the compass, just as they do on man, and

with more fatal results, for he has been trained to

protect himself, to resist, and to conquer. Such are

the facts in human experience, the responsibilities of

individual sovereignty.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1892