Dworkin, Andrea

Author, critic, lesbian, and radical feminist, Andrea Dworkin (1946-2005) was born in Camden, N.J., the daughter of Sylvia (Spiegel) and Harry Dworkin. A 1968 graduate of Bennington College, Dworkin was arrested in 1965 in New York City for protesting against the Vietnam war, and spent four days in the Women's House of Detention. She later made headlines, publicizing her brutal treatment at the hands of staff, which led to a grand jury investigation of the prison. Married in 1969 to Cornelius (Iwan) Dirk de Bruin, a Dutch political activist, Dworkin lived in Amsterdam before fleeing her abusive husband in 1971, and publishing Woman Hating (1974), and Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (1976). Her 1981 book, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, argued that "male power is the raison d'être of pornography; the degradation of the female is the means of achieving this power."

In 1983, with lawyer Catharine MacKinnon, Dworkin drafted a controversial civil rights ordinance defining pornography as sex discrimination, which was later overruled in 1986 as a violation of the First Amendment. Other analyses of sexual politics include Right-wing Women (1983), Intercourse (1987), Letters from a War Zone (1988), and Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000). The author of short stories and novels (Ice and Fire, 1987 and Mercy, 1991), Dworkin lectured widely and contributed to numerous periodicals and anthologies. Dworkin workes on behalf of many causes, including abortion rights, rape, battery, pornography, and incest in the United States and abroad. Since 1974 she made her home with author, activist, and feminist John Stoltenberg. Dworkin died April 9, 2005 in Washington, D.C.

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