Ode to a Feminist Icon....

Andrea Dworkin, whose book, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant, I read a few weeks ago, died on April 9th of unspecified causes.

Dworkin has been a force in feminism for ages, but I just found out about her a few years ago when my interest in feminism began to build. I've read little of her work, but I've read and heard mountains of opinions about her. Some thought her a total man-hating nutjob, and some thought she was a goddess. She had radical opinions, and she wrote radical material, and she was crucified and revered in equal measure. Whether you (or I) agree with her or not, she was a force to be reckoned with. I plan to read much more of her work...especially since I picked up Heartbreak...and I find myself saddened that she's gone.

For more info on Dworkin and links to her work check out:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/

A blurb from The Guardian:

Her radical-feminist critique of pornography began with her first book, Woman Hating, published when she was 27. She campaigned frequently on the subject, helping to draft a law in 1983 that defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women.

The law, later overturned by an appeal court as unconstitutional, was inspired by the case of Linda Marchiano, who as Linda Lovelace said she had had been violently coerced into pornography, including the film Deep Throat, but had no recourse to the courts.

The drive of Ms Dworkin's writing and activism was to break the silence around violence against women, but her wider career saw her become a figure of adulation and loathing in equal measure. To opponents she was an archetypal man-hater, killjoy and proponent of censorship, but supporters rallied to her impassioned lectures and books. Gloria Steinem, a fellow feminist, said she was one of a handful of writers each century "who help the human race to evolve".