Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Andrea-Dworkin - Letters-From-a-War-Zone PDF
Andrea-Dworkin - Letters-From-a-War-Zone PDF
Nonfiction
Woman Hating
Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
Right-wing Women
Intercourse
Pornography and Civil Rights (with Catharine A. Mackinnon)
Fiction
Mercy
the new womans broken heart: short stories
Ice and Fire
For John
"It does not take a long time, ' said madame,
"for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh
well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare
the earthquake? "
"A long time, I suppose," said Defarge.
"But when it is ready, it takes place, and
grinds to pieces everything before it. In the
meantime, it is always preparing, though it is
not seen or heard. That is your consolation.
Keep it."
IN T R O D U C T IO N 3
I T A K E B A C K T H E N IG H T
T h e Lie 9
T h e N ig h t and D a n g e r 13
P o r n o g r a p h y and G r ie f 19
II W ORDS
T h e P o w e r o f W o rd s 27
A W o m a n W rite r and P o r n o g r a p h y 31
S u s a n n a h C ib b e r 37
W h o s e P re ss? W h o se F re ed o m ? 41
P re fa c e to th e P a p e rb a ck E d itio n o f O u r Blood 47
N e r v o u s In te r v ie w 56
L o v in g B o o k s: M ale/F em ale/F em in ist 62
M o u r n in g T e n n e s s e e W illiam s 65
Wuthering Heights 68
Voyage in the Dark: H e rs and O u r s 87
III T A K E B A C K TH E D A Y
A F e m in ist L o o k s a t S a u d i A ra b ia 97
A B a tte re d W ife S u r v iv e s 100
A T r u e an d C o m m o n p la c e S t o r y 10 7
B io lo g ica l S u p e r io r ity : T h e W o rld 's M o s t D a n g e r o u s
and D e a d ly Idea 110
S e x u a l E co n o m ics: T h e T e r r ib le T r u t h 117
L o o k , D ick , L o o k . S e e Jane B lo w It. 12 6
F em in ism : A n A g e n d a 13 3
M a r g a r e t P apan d reo u : A n A m eric a n F em in ist in
G re e c e 15 3
I W an t A T w e n ty -F o u r -H o u r T r u c e D u rin g W hich
T h e r e Is N o Rape 162
V io le n ce A g a in st W om en: It B reaks the H eart, A lso the
B on es 172
P reface to th e B ritish Edition o f Right-wing Women 185
IV T H E N E W T E R R O R IS M
P o rn o g ra p h y : T h e N e w T e rro rism 19 7
W h y P o rn o g ra p h y M a tte rs to F em in ists 203
P o rn o g ra p h y 's P art in S e xu a l V io le n ce 206
T h e A C L U : Bait and S w itch 210
W h y S o -C alled Radical M en L o v e and N eed
P o rn o g ra p h y 214
For M en , Freedom o f Sp eech ; For W o m en , Silen ce
P lease 222
P o rn o g ra p h y and M ale S u p re m a cy 226
W om en L a w y e rs and P o rn o g ra p h y 235
Silen ce M ean s D isse n t 247
A g a in s t th e M ale Flood: C e n so r sh ip , P o r n o g ra p h y , and
E q u ality 253
P o rn o g ra p h y Is A C iv il R ig h ts Issue 276
L e tte r fro m a W ar Z o n e 308
E P IL O G U E
F em inism N o w 325
AFTERW ORD
W h a t B a t t e r y R e a l ly Is
Introduction
T h e Lie was written as a speech and given at a rally on October 20, 1979, at
Bryant Park, behind New York City's formal and beautiful main public library. This
park is usually dominated by drug pushers. It, with the library behind it, marks the
lower boundary of Times Square, the sexual-abuse capital of industrialized Amerika.
5000 people, overwhelmingly women, had marched on Times Square in a
demonstration organized by Women Against Pornography and led by Susan
Brownmiller, Gloria Steinem, and Bella Abzug, among others. The March had
begun at Columbus Circle at West 59 Street, the uppermost boundary of the Times
Square area, and the rally at Bryant Park marked its conclusion. For the first time,
Times Square didn't belong to the pimps; it belonged to women— not women hurt and
exploited for profit but women proud and triumphant. The March served notice on
pornographers that masses of women could rise up and stop the organized trafficking in
women and girls that was the usual activity on those very mean streets. Feminists took
the ground but didn't hold it.
and roam the streets in packs at night. T h e y fuck their w ives at night.
T h e y have their fratern ity parties at night. T h e y com m it their so-
called seductions at night. T h e y dress up in w h ite sh eets and burn
crosses at night. T h e in fam ous C ry sta l N igh t, w h en G erm an N azis
firebom bed and vandalized and broke the w in d o w s o f Jewish shops
and h om es th ro u gh o u t G e rm a n y — the C rystal N igh t, nam ed after
the broken glass that covered G erm an y w h en the night had
en ded — the C ry sta l N ight, w h en the N azis beat up or killed all the
Jews they could find, all the Jews w h o had not locked th em selves
in securely e n o u g h — the C ry sta l N igh t that fo resh ad o w ed the
slau gh ter to co m e— is the em blem atic night. T h e values o f the day
becom e the obsessions of the night. A n y hated g ro u p fears the night,
because in the night all the despised are treated as w o m en are treated:
as prey, targeted to be beaten or m urdered or sexually violated. W e
fear the night because m en becom e m ore d an gero u s in the night.
In the U nited States, w ith its distinctly racist character, the v e ry
fea r o f the dark is m anipulated, o ften sublim inally, into fear o f black,
o f black m en in particular, so that the traditional association b etw een
rape and black m en that is o u r national h eritage is fortified. In this
co n text, the im agery o f black night su g gests that black is in h eren tly
d an gerou s. In this co n text, the association of night, black m en, and
rape becom es an article o f faith. N igh t, the tim e o f sex, becom es also
the tim e o f race— racial fear and racial hatred. T h e black m ale, in the
S o u th h u nted at n igh t to be castrated and/or lynched, becom es in the
racist United States the carrier o f d anger, the carrier of rape. T h e use
o f a racially despised typ e o f m ale as a scapegoat, a sym bolic fig u re
em bodyin g the sexu ality o f all m en, is a com m on m ale-suprem acist
strateg y. H itler did the sam e to the Jewish m ale. In the urban United
States, the prostitu te population is d isproportionately m ade up o f
black w o m en , streetw a lk ers w h o inhabit the night, prototypical
fem ale figures, again scapegoats, sym bols carryin g the burden o f
m ale-defined fem ale sexuality, of w o m an as com m od ity. A n d so,
a m o n g the w o m en , nigh t is the tim e of sex and also o f race: racial
exploitation and sexual exploitation are fused, indivisible. N igh t and
black: sex and race: the black m en are blam ed fo r w h a t all m en do; the
black w o m en are used as all w o m en are used, but th ey are sin gu larly
and in ten sely punished by law and social m ores; and to u n tan gle this
cruel knot, so m uch a part o f each and e v e ry night, w e will h a ve to
take back the night so that it cannot be used to destroy us by race or
by sex.
N ight means, for all w om en, a choice: danger or confinem ent.
C onfin em ent is m ost often dangerous too— battered w om en are
confined, a w om an raped in m arriage is likely to be raped in her ow n
hom e. But in confinem ent, w e are promised a lessening of danger,
and in confinem ent w e try to avoid danger. T h e h erstory of w om en
has been one o f confinem ent: physical lim itation, binding, m ovem ent
forbidden, action punished. N ow , again, ev e ry w h e re w e turn, the
feet of w om en are bound. A w om an tied up is the literal em blem
of o u r condition, and ev ery w h e re w e turn, w e see o ur condition
celebrated: w om en in bondage, tied and bound. A ctor G eo rge
H am ilton, one of the new C o u n t Draculae, asserts that "[e]very
w om an fantasizes about a dark stran ger w h o m anacles her. W om en
don't have fantasies about m arching w ith Vanessa R ed grave. "2 He
doesn't seem to realize that w e do have fantasies about Vanessa
R edgrave m arching w ith us. T h e erotic celebration o f w om en in
bondage is the religion of o ur time; and sacred literature and
devotional films, like the bound foot, are ev eryw h ere. The
significance o f bondage is that it forbids freedom of m ovem ent.
H annah A rendt w ro te that "[o]f all the specific liberties w hich m ay
com e into our minds w hen w e hear the w ord 'freedom / freedom of
m ovem ent is historically the oldest and also the m ost elem entary.
Being able to depart for w h ere w e will is the prototypal gestu re of
being free, as lim itation of freedom o f m ovem ent has from time
im m em orial been the precondition fo r enslavem ent. Freedom o f
m ovem ent is also the indispensable condition for action, and it is in
action that men prim arily experience freedom in the w orld . "3 T h e
truth is that m en do experience freedom o f m ovem ent and freedom
in action and that w om en do not. W e m ust recognize that freedom of
m ovem ent is a precondition fo r freedom o f anyth in g else. It com es
before freedom o f speech in im portance because w ith o u t it freedom
o f speech cannot in fact exist. So w hen w e w o m en stru ggle for
freedom , w e m ust begin at the beginning and fight fo r freedom of
m ovem ent, w hich w e have not had and do not n o w have. In reality,
w e are not allowed ou t after dark. In som e parts o f the w orld, w om en
are not allowed ou t at all but w e, in this exem plary dem ocracy, are
perm itted to totter around, half crippled, during the day, and fo r this,
The Night and Danger
Notes
1. Georges Bataille, Death and Sensuality (New York: Ballantine Books, Inc.,
1969), p. 10.
2. Bataille, Death and Sensuality, p. 11.
3. Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade, Juliette, trans. Austryn Wainhouse
(New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1976), p. 404.
WO R
I DS
A part of this essay was published as an Afterword to both the British and
German editions of P o rn o g ra p h y : M en P o ssessin g W o m en . In the
United States, the whole essay was published in a small literary review. I wonder
if even a thousand people had the opportunity to read it. It took me a year to find
that small outlet. Looking back on this essay now, I can only say that I
considerably understated the effects pornography has had on me; no doubt I was
afraid of being ridiculed. I know some of the most brilliant, and certainly the
strongest, women of my time, and there is nothing unique in pornography's effect
on me.
The editor who published this essay invented the title. I didn't see it before it was
published. I didn't anticipate it either. The title suggests that I am dealing with
contemporary journalism and conjures up the pornography debate, intentionally
I think. But this essay is about male power, misogyny, and literature. The two
books reviewed here are intelligent, original books about how men use power to
suppress women's deepest, most creative, and most significant speech. Both books
should be read if they can be found. People have told me that I was terribly hard
on these books.! didn't mean to be. They are about what is killing me— how
women's writing is demeaned and how women are kept from publishing. M y
intemperance and impatience are from pain and also from an acute, detailed
knowledge of how this hatred of women's writing is both institutionalized and
indulged. So I am not happy with what these books leave out and I keep saying
that they have not said enough. But nothing is enough. So let me now thank these
writers for these books. I learned from both of them.
M any o f the w riters Russ refers to, h ow ever, did not live in a
nom inally egalitarian society. T h ey lived, fo r instance, in England in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. T h ey lived difficult, often
desperate lives, constrained, alm ost in dom estic captivity. T h e y w ere
middle-class in their society's term s, which does not translate into
anyth in g A m erikans on the face o f it understand. T h e y w ere poor;
th ey w ere poorly educated or self-educated; m ostly th ey died you n g;
th ey had virtually no social existen ce outside the patronage of
husbands or fathers. Russ invokes the m isogyn y su rrou nd ing their
w o rk then, but ignores the w a y s in w hich their w o rk s continue to be
m arginal now . T h is is a real loss. T h e m arginality o f w o rk s
acknow ledged as "great books" is a fascinating political p h enom enon.
T h e u rgen cy o f g ettin g those books to the cen ter of cu ltu re has to be
articulated by those w h o recogn ize the prodigal substance o f those
books. A s Russ so rightly says, W uthering Heights is m isread as a
rom ance— H eathcliff's sadism is, in fact, exem plary. Wuthering Heights
brilliantly delineates the social con stru ction o f that sadism , its
hierarchical deploym ent am ong m en to hu rt and control them and
then the im pact o f that m ale hum iliation on w om en; it also provides a
paradigm for racism in the raising o f the y o u n g H eathcliff. T h e book
should be o f vital interest to political scientists and theorists as well as
to aspiring w rite rs and all readers w h o w a n t abu n d an tly beautiful
prose. Sim ilarly w ith Jane Eyre: the book should be, but is not, central
to discourse on fem ale equality in e v e ry field o f th o u g h t and action. It
w ould also be useful to understand h o w G e o rg e Eliot can be
recognized as the suprem e geniu s o f the English novel and still be
largely unread. (We do read T o lsto y, her on ly peer, in tran slation . )
R uss avoids Eliot, perhaps because the m agnitude o f her ach ievem en t
su ggests that "great w rite r" is a real catego ry, small and exclusive,
w ith real m eaning.
T h e strategies of suppression that R uss isolates travel nicely
th ro u gh tim e. It is doubted that a w o m an really w ro te w h a te v e r it is
(that is a dated strategy: the co n tem p o rary version is that the w rite r is
not a real w o m an in the Cosmo sense, hot and free). It is acknow led ged
th at a w o m an w ro te the book, but it is m aintained th at she should not
h a v e — it m asculinizes her, m akes h er u nfit fo r a w o m a n s life, and so
on. T h e con ten t is judged by the g en d er o f the auth or. T h e book is
falsely categorized: it falls b etw e en g en res so it is m isread or
dism issed; a m an connected to the w o m an publishes her w o rk under
his nam e; the w o m an h erself is categorized in som e w a y that slanders
h er talent or h er w o rk. O r, it is sim ply discounted, according to the
principle: " W hat I don't understand doesn't exist. " O u r social invisibility,
R uss w rites, "is not a 'failure o f hu m an co m m u n ication / It is a socially
arranged bias persisted in long a fter the in form ation abo ut w o m e n s
experience is available (som etim es even publicly insisted upon). " (p.
48) Russ develops each of these ideas w ith sophistication and wit.
T h ere are tw o spectacular insights in her book. A bout Villette she
writes: "If Villette is the fem inist classic I take it to be, that is not
because o f any explicit fem inist declarations made by the book but
because of the novel's constant, passionate insistence that things are
like this and not like th a t. . . " (p. 105) She has articulated here that
which distinguishes fem inist thinking and perception from the m ore
corrupt and disingenuous male approaches to life and art.
She also discerns in the w hole idea of regionalism as a literary
subspecies a strategic w a y o f trivializing and dism issing w om en. Willa
C a th e r and K ate Chopin are regionalists (one m ight include Eudora
W elty and Flannery O 'C o n n or) but Sh erw ood A nderson (!), Thom as
W olfe, and William Faulkner are not. O f course, Faulkner is; and he is
a great novelist too, in m y view . Regionalist is used to suggest a small,
narrow w riter, a wom an; it is not used, even though accurate, to
describe M r Faulkner.
1 have three serious argum ents w ith Russ's book. First, she claims
that "(alt the high level of culture w ith which this book is concerned,
active bigotry is probably fairly rare. It is also hardly ever necessary, since
the social context is so far from neutral. " (p. 18) I think bigotry on the
high level is active, purposeful, malicious, and as com m on and slim y
as the bigotry in other social sew ers. T h e m isogynist spleen pollutes
criticism and m akes life hell for a w om an w riter. T h e m isogynist
spleen su ffuses the publishing industry— h o w w om en w riters are
talked about and to, treated, paid, actually published, sexually
harassed, persistently denigrated, and som etim es raped. I take the
bigotry o f high culture to be active.
Second, Russ scrutinizes rightly the w rongheaded ness o f those
w h o trivialize or dismiss books w ritten by the "w ro n g " people, but
she seem s to think that all books by "w ro n g " people are created equal
and I don't. She says w ith som e disbelief that som e w om en actually
th ou ght D o roth y Sayers w as a m inor novelist until they read Gaudy
Night. I read Gaudy Night, w hich I liked enorm ously, and still think
Sayers is a m inor novelist. I think great books, as distinguished from
all o th er books, do exist. It is true, as Russ eloquently insists, that
m any o f them have been left out o f the literary canon because of
racial, sexual, or class prejudice. It is also tru e— which Russ
ig n o res— that books by the "righ t" people are o ften overestim ated
and their value inflated. I think this m atters, because I do think great
books exist and they do m atter to m e as such. I think that w ritin g a
great book, as opposed to any o th er kind, is a suprem e accom plish
m ent; I think reading one is a g o rg e o u s and a w esom e experience.
Finally: I intensely disliked Russ's "A fte r w o rd , " in w h ich she
presents a pastiche o f fragm en ts from the w ritin gs o f som e w o m en of
color. D espite the apologia that precedes the "A fte r w o rd , " su ggestin g
that it is b etter to do som ethin g badly than not at all, I experienced
Russ's h om age to w o m en w rite rs o f color as dem ean ing and
condescending (to m e as a reader as w ell as to them as w riters). Fine
w rite rs are w o rth m ore. N eglect is not corrected unless the quality o f
respect given to a w rite r and her w o rk is w h a t it should be. I think
som e o f these w riters are fine and som e are not v e ry good; a fe w I
don't k n o w ; som e w o n d erfu l w rite rs are om itted. T h is h odgep odge
su ggests, am ong o th er things, that distinctions o f excellence do not
m atter, w h ereas to me th ey do, and I am insulted as a w rite r on behalf
o f the excellent w rite rs here w h o are treated in such a glib and
trivializing w ay. I sim ply ab h or the lack o f seriou sness in this
approach to these w riters.
Lyn ne Spender's book, Intruders on the Rights of M en, is about
publishing: h o w m en keep w o m en o u t of literature alto geth er or
allow us in on the m ost m arginal term s. "In literate societies, " she
w rites, "th ere is a close association b etw e en the printed word and th e
exercise o f power. " (ix) T h is is som ethin g A m erikan s h ave trouble
understanding. O n e o f the a w fu l consequ ences o f free speech/First
A m en d m en t fetishism is that political people, including fem inists,
h ave en tirely fo rgo tten that access to media is not a dem ocratically
distributed right, bu t rath er so m eth in g g o tten b y birth o r m on ey.
W ro n g sex, w ro n g race, w ro n g fam ily, and you h a ven 't g o t it.
Spender's political clarity on the relationship b etw e e n being able to
m ake speech public, and p o w er in the m aterial sense o f th e w o rd ,
enables h e r to shed a lot o f light on the inability o f w o m en to ch an ge
o u r status vis-a-vis speech in books. She tends to d efine equality in a
sim ple-m inded w ay: equal n u m bers of w om en to m en and
participation on the sam e term s as m en. N e verth eless, she ch allen ges
the so-called n eu trality o f cu ltu re as such; she u n d erstan d s th at th ere
is a politics to illiteracy that matters; she n ever loses sigh t o f th e fact
that pow er allows or disallows speech, and that male pow er has
m arginalized and stigm atized w o m e n s speech. She underestim ates
h o w much fem ale silence male pow er affirm atively creates.
H er discussion of the pow er of the publishers is inadequate. It is
conceptually the bare bones. She does not discern the wide latitude
that individual men in publishing have for sexual abuse and economic
exploitation of w om en on w him . She does not analyze the structure
of pow er within the industry— the kinds of p ow er men have over
w om en editors and h o w that affects which w om en w riters those
w om en editors dare to publish. She does not discuss m oney: h o w it
w orks, w h o gets it, h ow much, w hy. She does not recognize the
impact of the hum ongous corporations n o w ow n in g publishing
houses. She does not deal w ith publishing contracts, those adorable
o ne-w ay agreem ents in which the author prom ises to deliver a book
and the publisher does not promise to publish it. But: she does discuss,
too briefly, sexual harassm ent in publishing— an unexposed but
thriving part of the industry, because if w om en w riters, especially
fem inists, will not expose it (for fear of starving), w h o will? T h e book
is very interesting but much too superficial. It gives one som e ideas
but not enough analysis o f h ow pow er really functions: its dynamics;
the w a y it gets played out; the consequences of it creatively and
econom ically for w om en w riters. Spender is an advocate of w om en's
independent publishing, w hich is the only suggested solution; but she
does not explore the difficulties and dangers— political and
econom ic— of small, usually sectarian presses.
Both Intruders on the Rights of Men and How to Suppress Women's
Writing are genuinely w orth reading, but they will not bring the
reader closer to w h at it m eans for a w om an to w rite and publish; nor
will either book get the w riter herself throu gh another day.
Preface to the Paperback Edition of
Our Blood
O u r B lood is out of print again in both the United States and Britain.
O
u r B l o o d is
w as that I could not get m y w o r k published. So I too k to
public speaking— not the extem p oran eo u s exposition o f th o u g h ts or
the o u tp o u rin g o f feelings, bu t crafted prose that w o u ld inform ,
persuade, disturb, cau se recognition, sanction rage. I told m yse lf th at
if publishers w o u ld not publish m y w o rk , I w o u ld bypass them
alto geth er. I decided to w rite directly to people and fo r m y o w n voice.
I started w ritin g this w a y because I had n o o th e r choice: I sa w n o
o th er w a y to su rviv e as a w riter. I w a s convinced th at it w a s the
publishing establish m en t— timid and p o w erless w o m e n editors, the
su p e rstru ctu re o f m en w h o m ake the real decisions, m isogynistic
re v ie w e rs— th at stood b etw e en m e and a public p articularly o f
w o m en that I k n e w w a s there. T h e publishing establish m ent w a s a
form idable blockade, and m y plan w a s to sw im arou n d it.
In April 19 74 m y first b o ok -len gth w o r k o f fem in ist th eo ry , Woman
Hating, w a s published. B efore its publication I had had trouble. I had
been o ffered m agazine assign m en ts that w e re d isgu stin g. I had been
offered a g rea t deal o f m o n ey to w rite articles that an ed itor had
already outlined to m e in detail. T h e y w e re to be about w o m e n o r sex
or d ru gs. T h e y w e re stupid and full o f lies. For instance, I w a s o ffered
$ 150 0 to w rite an article on the use of barbitu rates and
am phetam ines by suburban wom en. I w as to say that this use of
drugs constituted a hedonistic rebellion against the dull conventions
of sterile housew ifery, that w om en used these drugs to turn on and
sw ing and have a w onderful new life-style. I told the editor that I
suspected w om en used am phetam ines to get through miserable days
and barbiturates to get through miserable nights. I suggested,
amiably I thought, that I ask the w om en w h o use the drugs w h y they
use them. I w as told flat-out that the article would say w hat fun it was.
I turned dow n the assignm ent. This sounds like great rebellious
fu n — telling establishm ent types to go fuck them selves w ith their
fistful of dollars— but w hen one is very poor, as I w as, it is not fun. It
is instead profoundly distressing. Six years later I finally made half
that am ount for a m agazine piece, the highest I have ever been paid
for an article. I had had m y chance to play ball and I had refused. I w as
too naive to know that hack w riting is the only paying gam e in tow n. I
believed in "literature, " "principles," "politics," and "the p ow er of fine
w riting to change lives. " W hen I refused to do that article and others, I
did so w ith considerable indignation. T h e indignation marked me as a
wild w om an, a bitch, a reputation reinforced during editorial fights
o ver the content of Woman Hating, a reputation that has haunted and
hurt me: not hurt m y feelings, but hurt m y ability to m ake a living. I
am in fact not a "lady, " not a "lady w riter, " not a "sw eet you n g thing. "
W hat w om an is? M y ethics, m y polirics, and m y style m erged to make
me an untouchable. Girls are supposed to be invitingly touchable, on
the surface or just under.
I th o u g h t that the publication o f Woman Hating would establish
me as a w riter of recognized talent and that then I would be able to
publish serious w ork in ostensibly serious m agazines. I w as w rong.
The publication of Woman Hating, about which I w as jubilant, w as the
beginning of a decline that continued until 198 1 w hen Pornography:
Men Possessing Women was published. T h e publisher of Woman Hating
did not like the book: I am considerably understating here. I w as not
supposed to say, for exam ple, "W om en are raped." I w as supposed to
say, "G reen-eyed w om en w ith one leg longer than the other, hair
betw een the teeth, French poodles, and a taste for sauteed vegetables
are raped occasionally on Fridays by persons. " It w as rough. I believed
I had a right to say w hat I w anted. M y desires w ere not particularly
whim sical: m y sources w ere history, facts, experience. I had been
b rou gh t up in an alm ost exclu sively male tradition of literature, and
that tradition, w h a tev er its faults, did not teach coyn ess or fear: the
w riters I adm ired w e re blunt and not particularly polite. I did not
understand th at— even as a w r ite r — I w a s supposed to be delicate,
fragile, intuitive, personal, introspective. I w anted to claim the public
w orld of action, not the private w orld of feelings. M y am bition w as
perceived as m egalom aniacal— in the w ro n g sphere, dem ented by
prior definition. Y es, I w as naive. I had not learned m y proper place. I
k n e w w h a t I w as rebelling against in life, but I did not k n o w that
literature had the sam e so rry boundaries, the sam e absurd rules, the
sam e cruel proscriptions. * It w a s ea sy en ou g h to deal w ith me: I w a s a
bitch. A nd m y book w as sabotaged. T h e publisher sim ply refused to
fill orders for it. Booksellers w an ted the book but could not g et it.
R eview ers ignored the book, consigned me to invisibility, p o verty,
and failure. T h e first speech in O ur Blood ("Fem inism , A rt, and M y
M o th er Sylvia") w a s w ritten before th e publication o f Woman Hating
and reflects the deep optim ism I felt at that tim e. B y O cto b er, the tim e
o f the second speech in O ur Blood ("R enouncing S e xu a l'E q u a lity'"), I
k n e w that I w as in for a hard tim e, bu t I still did not k n o w h o w hard it
w as goin g to be.
"R en o u n cin g Sexu al 'E qu ality'" w as w ritten fo r the N ational
O rg an iza tio n fo r W om en C o n fere n ce on Sexu ality that took place in
N e w Y o rk C ity on O cto b e r 12, 1974. I spoke at the end o f a three-
h o u r speakout on sex: w o m en talking about their sexual experiences,
feelings, values. T h e re w e re 110 0 w o m en in the audience; no m en
w e re present. W hen I w a s done, the 110 0 w o m en rose to th eir feet.
W om en w e re cryin g and shakin g and sh ou tin g. T h e applause lasted
nearly ten m inutes. It w a s one o f the m ost aston ishin g experiences of
I had been w arned early on about w h at it m eant to be a girl, but I hadn't listened.
"You write like a m an, "an editor w rote me on reading a draft of a few early chapters of
Woman Hating. "W hen you learn to w rite like a w om an, w e will consider publishing
y o u . " T his adm onition reminded me of a guidance counselor in high school w h o asked
me as graduation approached w h at I planned to be w h en I g rew up. A w riter, I said. He
lowered his eyes, then looked at me soberly. He k n ew I w anted to g o to a superb
college; he kn ew I w as ambitious. "W hat you have to do, " he said, "is g o to a state
college— there is no reason for you to g o som ew here else— and becom e a teacher so
that you 11 have som ething to fall back on w hen you r husband dies. " T his story is not
apocryphal. It happened to me and to countless others. I had thought both the guidance
counselor and the editor stupid, individually stupid. I w as w rong. T h e y w ere not
individually stupid.
m y life. M any of the talks I gave received standing ovations, and this
w as not the first, but I had never spoken to such a big audience, and
w h at I said contradicted rather strongly much o f w h at had been said
before I spoke. So the response w as am azing and it overw helm ed me.
T h e coverage of the speech also overw helm ed me. O n e N e w Y ork
w eekly published tw o vilifications. O n e w as by a w om an w h o had at
least been present. She suggested that m en m ight die from blue-balls
if I w ere ever taken seriously. T h e oth er w as by a m an w h o had not
been present; he had overheard w om en talking in the lobby. He w as
"enraged. " He could not bear the possibility that "a w om an m ight
consider masochistic her consent to the m eans o f m y release. " Th at
w as the "danger D w orkin s ideology represents. " Well, yes; but both
w riters viciously distorted w h at I had actually said. M an y w om en,
including som e quite fam ous w riters, sent letters deploring the lack of
fairness and honesty in the tw o articles. N one of those letters w ere
published. Instead, letters from men w h o had not been present w ere
published; one of them com pared m y speech to H itlers Final Solution.
I had used the w ords 'lim p" and "penis" one after the other: "limp
penis. " Such usage outraged; it offended so deeply that it w arranted a
com parison w ith an accomplished genocide. N othin g I had said about
w om en w as m entioned, not even in passing. T h e speech w as about
w om en. T he w eekly in question has since never published an article
of m ine or review ed a book of mine or covered a speech of mine (even
though som e of m y speeches w ere big events in N ew Y ork C ity). *
T h e kind of fu ry in those tw o articles simply saturated the publishing
establishm ent, and m y w o rk w as stonew alled. Audiences around the
country, m ost of them w om en and m en, continued to rise to their
feet; but the journals that one m ight expect to take note o f a political
w riter like m yself, or a phenom enon like those speeches, refused to
acknow ledge m y existence. T h ere w ere tw o n o tew o rth y if occasional
exceptions: Ms. and M other Jones.
A fter Our Blood was published, I went to this same weekly to beg— yes, beg— for
some attention to the book, which was dying. The male writer whose "release" had
been threatened by "Renouncing Sexual 'Equality"'asked to meet me. He told m e , over
and over, how very beautiful Our Blood was. "You kn o w — um— um," I said, "tha t— um,
um — That Speech is in Our Blood— you know , the one you w rote about. " "So
beautiful, " he said, ' so beautiful. " The editor-in-chief of the weekly w rote me that Our
Blood was so fine, so moving. But Our Blood did not get any help, not even a mention, in
those pages.
In the years follow in g the publication o f Woman Hating, it began to
be regarded as a fem inist classic. T h e h o n o r in this will only be
apparent to those w h o value M ary W ollstonecraft's A Vindication of the
Rights of Women o r Elizabeth C a d y Stanton 's The W om ans B ible. If w as
a great honor. Fem inists alone w e re responsible for the survival o f
Woman Hating. Fem inists occupied the o ffices of Woman Hating's
publisher to dem and that the book be published in paper. Phyllis
C h e sle r contacted fem inist w riters o f reputation all o ver the co u n try
to ask fo r w ritten statem ents o f support for the book. T h o se w rite rs
responded w ith astonishing gen erosity. Fem inist new sp apers
reported the suppression o f the book. Fem inists w h o w orked in
bookstores scavenged d istributors' w a reh o u ses fo r copies o f th e book
and w ro te o ver and o ver to the publisher to dem and the book.
W om en's studies program s began using it. W om en passed th e book
from hand to hand, b o u gh t second and third and fo u rth copies to g ive
friends w h e n e v e r they could find it. Even th ou gh the publisher o f
Woman Hating had told m e it w a s "m ed iocre, " the p ressu re finally
resulted in a paperback edition in 1976: 2500 lefto v e r unbound copies
w e re bound in paper and distributed, sort of. Problem s w ith
distribution continued, and bookstores, w h ich reported selling the
book steadily w h en it w a s in stock, had to w ait m on th s fo r orders to
be filled. Woman Hating is n o w in its fifth tin y paperback printing. T h e
book is not an o th er piece o f lost w o m en 's literature on ly because
fem inists w o u ld not g ive it up. In a w a y this sto ry is h earten in g,
because it sh o w s w h a t activism can accom plish, even in the Y a h o o
land o f A m erikan publishing.
But I had n o w h e re to go, no w a y to co n tin u e as a w riter. So I w e n t
on th e road— to w o m en 's gro u p s w h o passed a hat fo r m e at the end
of m y talk, to schools w h e re fem inist stu d ents fo u g h t to g et m e a
hund red dollars or so, to co n feren ces w h e re w o m e n sold T -sh irts to
pay me. I spent w e ek s o r m on ths w ritin g a talk. I took long, d rea ry bus
rides to do w h a t appeared to be o n ly an even in g 's w o rk and slept
w h e re v e r there w a s room . Being an insom niac, I did not sleep m uch.
W om en shared th eir h om es, th eir food, their h earts w ith m e, and I
m et w o m en in e v e ry circum stan ce, nice w o m en and m ean w o m en ,
brave w o m en and terrified w o m en . A n d the w o m e n I m et had
su ffered e v e ry crim e, e v e ry indignity: and I listened. "T h e Rape
A tro city and the B oy N e xt D o o r" (in this volum e) a lw a y s elicited th e
same responses: I heard about rape after rape; w om en's lives passed
before me, rape after rape; w om en w h o had been raped in hom es, in
cars, on beaches, in alleys, in classroom s, by one man, by tw o men, by
five men, by eight men, hit, drugged, knifed, torn, w om en w h o had
been sleeping, w om en w h o had been w ith their children, w om en w h o
had been out for a w alk or shopping or going to school or going hom e
from school or in their offices w orking or in factories or in
stockroom s, young w om en, girls, old w om en, thin w om en, fat
w om en, housew ives, secretaries, hookers, teachers, students. I
simply could not bear it. So I stopped giving the speech. I thought I
would die from it. I learned w hat I had to know , and m ore than I could
stand to know.
M y life on the road w as an exhausting m ixture of good and bad, the
ridiculous and the sublime. O n e fairly typical example: I gave the last
lecture in Our Blood ("The Root C a u se, " m y favorite) on m y tw en ty-
ninth birthday. I had w ritten it as a birthday present to m yself. T h e
lecture w as sponsored by a Boston-based political collective. T h ey
w ere supposed to provide transportation and housing for m e and,
because it w as m y birthday and I w anted m y fam ily w ith me, m y
friend and our dog. I had offered to com e another time but they
w anted me th en — en famille. O n e collective m em ber drove to N e w
Y ork in the m ost horrible thunderstorm I have ev er seen to pick us up
and drive us back to Boston. T h e oth er cars on the road w e re blurs of
red light here and there. T h e driver w as exhausted, it w as impossible
to see; and the driver did not like m y political view s. He kept asking
me about various psychoanalytic theories, none o f w hich I had the
good sense to appreciate. I kept trying to change the subject— he kept
insisting that I tell him w h at I thou ght of so-and-so— ev e ry time Igot
so cornered that I had to answ er, he slammed his foot d ow n on the
gas pedal. I thought that w e would probably die from the d riv e rs
fatigu e and fu ry and G od's rain. W e w ere an h o u r late, and the jam-
packed audience had waited. T h e acoustics in the room w e re superb,
w hich enhanced not only m y o w n voice but the endless h ow lin g of
m y dog, w h o finally bounded throu gh the audience to sit on stage
during the question-and-answ er period. T h e audience w as fabulous:
involved, serious, challenging. M an y of the ideas in the lecture w ere
n ew and, because th ey directly confronted the political nature o f m ale
sexuality, enraging. T h e w om an w ith w h o m w e w e re supposed to
stay and w h o w as responsible fo r o u r trip hom e w as so en raged that
she ran out, n ever to return. W e w e re stranded, w ith o u t m on ey, not
k n o w in g w h ere to turn. A person can be stranded and get by, even
th ou gh she will be imperiled; tw o people w ith a G erm an shepherd
and no m oney are in a m ess. Finally, a w om an w h o m I k n e w slightly
took us all in and loaned us the m on ey to g et hom e. W orkin g (and it is
dem anding, intense, difficult w o rk) and traveling in such en dlessly
im provised circum stances require that one d evelop an affection fo r
lo w com edy and gro ss m elodram a. I n ever did. Instead I becam e tired
and dem oralized. A nd I g o t even poorer, because no one could ev er
afford to pay me fo r the tim e it took to do the w ritin g.
I did not begin dem anding realistic fees, secure accom m odations,
and safe travel in exch an ge fo r m y w o rk until a fter the publication of
O ur Blood. I had tried in term itten tly and m ostly failed. B ut n o w I had
to be paid and safe. I felt I had really en tered m iddle age. T h is
presented n e w problem s fo r fem inist o rgan izers w h o had little access
to the m aterial resources in their com m un ities. It also presented m e
w ith n e w problem s. For a long tim e I g o t no w o rk at all, so I just g o t
p oorer and poorer. It m ade no sense to a n yon e bu t me: if y o u h ave
n oth in g, and som eone o ffe rs you som eth in g, h o w can you turn it
d o w n ? B ut I did, because I k n e w that I w o u ld n ever m ake a living
u nless I too k a stand. I had a fine and g ro w in g repu tation as a sp eaker
and w riter; but still, th ere w a s no m on ey fo r m e. W h en I first began to
ask fo r fees, I g o t a n g ry responses fro m w o m en : h o w could the
a u th o r o f Woman Hating be such a scu m m y capitalist pig, o n e w o m an
asked in a nearly obscene letter. T h e letter w rite r w a s g o in g to live on
a farm and h ave n oth ing to do w ith rat-shit capitalists and b o u rgeo is
fem inist creeps. W ell, I w r o te back, I didn't live o n a farm and didn't
w a n t to. I b o u gh t food in a su p erm arket and paid rent to a landlord
and I w an ted to w rite books. I a n sw ered all the a n g ry letters. I tried to
explain the politics o f g ettin g the m on ey, especially from colleges and
universities: the m o n ey w a s there; it w a s hard to get; w h y should it g o
to Phyllis Sch lafly o r W illiam F. B uckley, Jr.? I had to live and I had to
w rite. S u rely m y w ritin g m attered, it m attered to them o r w h y did
th ey w a n t me: and did th e y w a n t m e to stop w ritin g ? I needed m o n ey
to w rite. I had don e the rotten jobs and I w a s living in real, not
rom antic, p o verty. I fou nd th at th e e ffo r t to explain really
helped— not a lw ays, and resen tm e n ts still surfaced, bu t e n o u g h to
make me see that explaining even w ithout finally convincing w as
w orth w hile. Even if I didn't get paid, som ebody else m ight. A fter a
long fallow period I began to lecture again. I lectured erratically and
never made enough to live on, even in w h at I think o f as stable
poverty, even w hen m y fees w ere high. M any fem inist activists did
fight for the m oney and som etim es got it. So I m anaged— friends
loaned me m oney, som etim es anonym ous donations cam e in the
mail, w om en handed me checks at lectures and refused to let me
refuse them , fem inist w riters gave me gifts o f m oney and loaned me
m oney, and w om en fought incredible and bitter battles w ith college
adm inistrators and com m ittees and faculties to get m e hired and paid.
The w om en's m ovem ent kept me alive. I did not live well or safely or
easily, but I did not stop w riting either. I rem ain extrem ely grateful to
those w h o w en t the distance for me.
I decided to publish the talks in Our Blood because I w as desperate
for m oney, the m agazines w ere still closed to me, and I w as living
hand-to-m outh on the road. A book w as m y only chance.
T h e editor w h o decided to publish Our Blood did not particularly like
m y politics, but she did like m y prose. I w as happy to be appreciated as
a w riter. T h e com pany w as the only unionized publishing house in
N ew Y ork and it also had an active w om en's group. T h e w om en
em ployees w ere universally w onderful to m e— vitally interested in
fem inism, m oved by m y w ork, conscious and kind. T h e y invited me
to address the em ployees of the com pany on their biennial w om en's
day, sho rtly before the publication of Our Blood. I discussed the
system atic presum ption o f male ow nersh ip o f w om en's bodies and
labor, the material reality of that ow nership, the econom ic degrading
o f w om en's w ork. (The talk w as subsequently published in abridged
form under the title "Phallic Imperialism" in Ms., D ecem ber 19 76 . )
Som e men in suits sat dourly through it, taking notes. Th at, needless
to say, w as the end o f Our Blood. T h ere w as one o th er telling event: a
highly placed departm ent head th rew the m anuscript o f O ur Blood at
m y editor across a room . I did not recognize male tenderness, he said. I
don't kn o w w h eth er he made the observation before or after he
th rew the m anuscript.
Our Blood w as published in cloth in 1976. T h e only review o f it in a
m ajor periodical w as in Ms. m any m on ths after the book w as out of
bookstores. It w as a rave. O th erw ise, the book w as ignored: but
purposefully, m aliciously. G loria Steinem , Robin M organ , and K aren
D e C r o w tried to review the book to no avail. I contacted nearly a
hundred fem inist w riters, activists, editors. A large m ajority m ade
countless effo rts to h ave the book review ed. Som e m anaged to
publish review s in fem inist publications, but even th ose w h o
freq u en tly published elsew h ere w e re unable to place review s. N o one
w as able to break the larger silence.
O ur Blood w as sent to virtually e v e ry paperback publisher in the
United States, som etim es m ore than once, o v e r a period o f years.
N one w ou ld publish it. T h erefo re, it is w ith g rea t joy, and a sh a k y
sense o f victory, that I w elcom e its publication in this edition. I h a v e a
special love for this book. M ost fem inists I k n o w w h o h ave read O ur
Blood h ave taken m e aside at one tim e o r a n o th er to tell m e th at th ey
h ave a special affection and respect fo r it. T h e r e is, I believe,
som ething quite beautiful and u nique about it. Perhaps that is
because it w as w ritten for a hu m an voice. Perhaps it is because I had
to figh t so hard to say w h a t is in it. Perhaps it is because O u r Blood has
touched so m an y w o m e n s lives directly: it has been said o v e r and
o ve r again to real w o m en and the experience of saying th e w o rd s has
inform ed the w ritin g o f them . Woman Hating w a s w ritte n b y a
y o u n g er w riter, one m ore reckless and m ore hopeful both. T h is book
is m ore disciplined, m ore som ber, m ore rigorou s, and in som e w a y s
m ore im passioned. I am happy that it w ill n o w reach a larger
audience, and so rry that it took so long.
A nd rea D w o rk in
N e w Y o rk C ity
M arch 19 8 1
Nervous Interview
1978
In 1978 I wrote a whole bunch of short articles. I desperately needed money and
wanted to be able to publish them for money. O f these articles, N ervous
In terview is probably the most obscure in its concerns and certainly in its form
and yet it was the only one that was published at all, not for money. Norman
Mailer managed to publish lots of interviews with himself, none of which made
much sense, all of which were taken seriously by literati of various stripes. So this
is half parody of him and his chosen form and half parody of myself and my
chosen movement.
Q : So w h y this? W h y n ow ?
A: I couldn't sleep. V e r y edgy. N e rv o u s nigh tm ares about N e w Y o rk .
G o in g hom e. C esspool and paradise. Y o u see, I've lived m an y places. I
keep leaving them . I keep return in g to N e w Y o rk but I can't stay put.
But that's w h a t I w a n t m ost. T o stay still. S o I'm restless and irritated.
Q : I m ean, any Freudian w ould have a field day w ith yo u r work . Penis
en vy, penis hatred, penis obsession, som e m ight say.
A: M en are the source of that, in their literature, culture, behavior. I
could never have invented it. W ho w as m ore penis obsessed than
Freud? Except m aybe Reich. But then, w h at a com petition th a t w ould
be. C h o o se the m ost penis obsessed man in history. W hat is so
rem arkable is that men in general, really w ith so few exceptions, a r e
so penis obsessed. I m ean, if an yon e should be sure of se lf-w o rth in a
penis-oriented society, it should be the one w h o has the penis. But
one per individual doesn't seem to be en ough . I w o n d er h o w m an y
penises per man w ou ld calm them d ow n . Listen, w e could start a
w h o le n ew surgical field here.
Q : Isn't th ere som eth in g quite pathological in alw ays looking at sex in
male term s? S a y you describe m ale attitud es tow ard s sex accurately.
D o n 't you accept their term s w h en yo u analyze e v e ry th in g using
th eir term s?
A: T h e ir term s are reality because th ey control reality. So w h a t term s
should w e use to understand reality? All w e can do is face it or try to
hide from it.
Q : W ho?
A: I'd rath er not say.
After many years of barely being able to publish in magazines at all, the women
at H ot W ire, a magazine about music, asked me to write something about my
identity as a writer. Thematically, this follows up on some of what I wrote in
N erv o u s In terview . With male writers, people want to know who they are.
With women, stereotypes are simply applied. The invitation from H o t W ire
gave me an exceptionally short chance to say something myself about my own
identity and development.
liv e a strange life, but often the stran gest thing about it is that I
I still love books and have faith in them and g et courage from
them as I did w h en I w as youn g, hopeful, and innocent. T h e
innocence w as particularly about w h at it takes to endure as a
w rite r— simply to survive, if one is rigorous, unsentim ental, radical,
extrem e, and tells the truth. T h e books I loved w h en I w as yo u n ger
w e re by wild men: D ostoevsky, Rim baud, Allen G in sberg am ong the
living, Baudelaire, W hitm an, the undecorous. I read Freud and
D arw in as great visionaries, their w o rk culled from the fantastic,
com plex imagination. M y o w n values as a w rite r w e re set back then;
and w o rk by w om en (except for Gone with the Wind and the N ancy
D re w books*) intruded m uch later. In eighth grade science class, m y
best girlfriend and I (lovers too) w ere both w ritin g novels, as an
* Imagine my surprise when, accidentally and very recently, I discovered that the
Nancy D rew books were written by a man under a female pseudonym.
antidote to the boredom o f learning by ro te— and these novels had
w o m en as heroes w h o had great am bitions. T h e y w ere nam ed after
Belle S tarr and Am elia Earhart: stran ge nam es, w om en w h o w e re not
usual, not grounded, not boring.
I h ave never w anted to be less than a great w riter; and I h ave n ever
been afraid o f failing, the reason being that I w ou ld rath er fail at that
than succeed at an yth in g else. T his am bition is deeply rooted in male
identification: and m any o f the characteristics that I value m ost in
m yself as a person and as a w rite r are. W hen you n g, I n e ver th o u g h t
about being hom osexual or bisexual or heterosexual: only about
being like Rim baud. Artiste in the soon-to-be-dead m ode w a s m y
sexual orien tation , m y gen d er identity, the m ost intense w a y of
living: d yin g early the inevitable end o f doing ev ery th in g w ith
absolute passion. I w as devoted to Sappho, h er existen ce obscuring
the gen d er specificity o f m y tru e devotion. W hen I read books, I w a s
the w riter, not the Lady. I w as incorrigible: no m atter w h a t happened
to m e, no m atter w h a t price I paid fo r being in this w o m a n s body, for
being used like a w om an , treated like a w o m an , I w a s the w rite r, not
the Lady. Sexu al annihilation, not esthetic b u rn -ou t w ith a
m agnificent literature left behind, w a s the real dead-end fo r w o m en
too dense to com prehend.
Fem inism provided a w a y fo r m e to understand m y o w n life: w h y
being free w a s not just a m atter o f living w ith o u t self-im posed or
social o r sexual limits. M y so-called freedom on m an y occasions
nearly cost me m y life, but th ere w a s neither traged y nor rom ance in
this: neith er D o sto ev sk y nor Rim baud had e v er ended up being
sexually used and cleaning toilets.
Sexual Politics w a s about the w ritin g and sex I had adored; w ith big
doses o f lesbianism too. I learned from this book w h a t th ey w e re
doing to me: see, said M illett, h ere he does this and this and this to
her. I w asn 't the w riter, a fter all. I w a s the her. I had plenty o f open
w o u n d s on m y body, and I began to feel them hu rt. Had I been the
user, n ot the used, m y sensitivity probably w ou ld h ave approxim ated
H en ry M illers. T h is is not pleasant to face; so I don't. Som ed ay I
m ust.
1 h ave learned trem en d o u sly fro m w o m en w rite rs as an adult; I
h ave learned that great w ritin g from w o m en is g e n u in e ly — not
rom antically— despised, and that the books are w ritten out of an open
vein; I have learned about w o m e n s lives. M y ambitions as a w riter
still go back, too far, into m y obsessions w ith the men; but w hat I
learned from them , I need every day of m y w riting life— I am not
afraid of confrontation or risk, also not of arrogance or erro r— I am
happy not to even be able to follow the rules o f polite discourse,
because I learned to hate them so early— I love w h at is raw and
eloquent in w riting but not feminine. I have learned to appreciate the
great subtlety and strength o f w om en w h o w rite w ithin the
boundaries of a fem inine w ritin g ethic: but I do not accept it for
m yself.
W hat I affirm here is that w hile I did not learn w ritin g from
w om en, I have learned virtually everyth in g im portant about w h at it
m eans to be a w om an from w om en w riters: and I have also learned
m uch about male pow er from them , once I cared enough about
w om en as such to realize that male p o w er w as the them e m y o w n life
had led me to. I know male pow er inside out, w ith know ledge of it
gained by this female body. I dare to confront it in m y w ritin g because
o f the audacity I learned from male w riters. I learned to confront it in
life from living fem inists, w riters and activists both, w h o lived
political lives not bounded by either female frailty or male
ruthlessness; instead animated by the lum inous self-respect and
militant com passion I still hope to achieve.
Mourning Tennessee Williams
( 1911- 1983)
H eathcliff overhears her say that to m arry him would degrade her,
and he runs aw ay, to return later, an adult, educated, rich, still dark,
filled w ith hate and w anting revenge. She chooses w hite: fair, rich
Edgar Linton. T h e great love is in sam eness, not difference. This true
love is destroyed by the divisive im peratives o f a racist hierarchy that
values w hite, fair, rich, and despises dark, poor. H eathcliff recognizes
the brutal and irrevocable m eaning of this choice, but C a th y never
does. She hides from its m eaning in the artifices and moral
bankruptcy o f fem ininity. She says she will m arry Edgar so that she
can use his m oney to help H eathcliff achieve equality through
education and clothes and the o ther refinem ents m oney can buy. "'If I
m ake any sense o f you r nonsense, m iss/" says Nelly, her servant and
the main narrator of the story, "'it goes to convince me that you are
ignorant of the duties you undertake in m arrying; or else that you are
a wicked, unprincipled g irl/"17 N elly m eans that intercourse is a duty
o f m arriage; and it is immoral to have sexual relations w ith one man
w hile loving another. C a th y , probably ignorant of intercourse per se,
is ready to sacrifice herself, her person, for H eathcliff. Because she is
self-sacrificing, she n ever understands w h y H eathcliff considers
him self abandoned and betrayed by her choice of the fair, the rich,
o ver the dark, the poor. He understands the contem pt; and he also
understands that in abandoning him, she is destroying herself,
because th ey are one. '"W hy did you despise m e? " ' H eathcliff asks her
w h en she is dying. "'W hy did you betray y o u r o w n heart, C a th y ? I
have not one w ord of co m fo rt . Y ou d eserve this. Y ou have killed
yourself.. . . Y ou loved m e— then w h at right had you to leave m e? " '18
Even before m arrying, C a th y had the passionate conviction, based
on nothing she could understand, that she w as doing the w ro n g
thing; an irrational an guish — "Here! and here!' replied C atherin e,
striking one hand on her forehead, and the o th er on her breast: 'in
which place the soul lives. In m y soul and in m y heart, I'm convinced
that I'm w ro n g ! " '19
In betraying H eathcliff, she betrays herself, h er o w n nature, her
integrity; this betrayal is precisely co n gru en t w ith becom ing
fem inine, each tiny step tow ard w h ite, fair, rich, a step a w a y from self
and honor. She slow ly becom es a creatu re o f social b eau ty and grace.
She repudiates the ruffian renegade, physically stron g and fearless,
w h o roam ed the m oors: not H eathcliff; herself. She does kill herself:
she destroys h er o w n integrity and authen ticity. T h e g o w n s, the
gloves, the w h iten ed, useless, unused skin, are em blem s o f h er
contem pt for honor, self-esteem . She becom es a social cipher; she is
no lon ger a wild will in a stron g body, w h o le in h er o w n natu re and
w h o le in love.
H eathcliff s sadism is not equal and opposite to C a th y 's fem ininity.
T h is is not a "M e T a rza n Y o u Jane" story. T h ere is no m ale-fem ale
sym m etry in affliction, no simple exposition o f dom inance and
subm ission m odeled on sex-role stereo typ es. C a th y 's fem in in ity is a
slow , lazy, spoiled abandonm ent o f self, a failure o f h o n o r and faith.
H eathcliff's sadism has a d ifferen t genesis: he is patriarchy's
scapegoat until he becom es its m ale p rototype. Wuthering Heights,
perhaps uniquely, sh o w s an interlocking chain o f m en socialized to
hate and to cause pain th ro u gh abusing p ow er. H eath cliff is but one
o f m any m ale tyran ts in Wuthering Heights; but he alone has the self-
conscious perspective o f one w h o has been pow erless and hum iliated
because he is dark, dirty. Because his hum iliation is based on race, he
cannot escape the pow erlessn ess o f childhood by g ro w in g into
dom inance: w h ite, fair, rich. T h e pain he inflicts w h en he has p o w e r is
n ever the accidental, careless dom inance of the privileged. His self-
consciousness, rooted in race, is necessarily political, fo resh a d o w in g
The Wretched of the Earth, The Pedagogy of the O ppressed: '" T h e ty ra n t, '" he
says, '"grin d s d o w n his slaves and th ey don't turn against him; th ey
crush those beneath th e m / "20 He is the revo lu tio n a ry excep tion,
consecrated to revenge; he cru sh es up, not d ow n . H e will d estro y
those w h o h u rt him, o r those w h o are the d escend ents o f th ose w h o
hu rt him: the fam ily, the class, the kind, the type, a n y o n e w h o se
status is w h ite, fair, rich. '"I have no pity! '" he says. '"I h ave no pity!
T h e m ore the w o rm s w rith e, the m ore I yearn to cru sh out their
entrails! It is a m oral teething; and I grind w ith g rea ter en erg y , in
proportion to the increase o f pain/"21 His sadism is proud and explicit,
conjuring up no less a philosopher of cruelty than Sade: '"H ad I been
born w h ere law s w ere less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat
m yself to a slow vivisection o f those tw o, as an ev e n in g s
am u sem en t/"22 T h e tw o he refers to are C a t h y 's daughter and his
o w n son.
H eathcliff's persecution in childhood is distinct, a racist oppression.
But the locus o f male dom inance, of pow er abused, is, according to
Bronte, in the com m onplace experience of being a m ale child,
pow erless as all children are, hu rt and hum iliated by older boys or
adult m en. Using narrative, Emily Bronte w ro te a psychological and
physical profile o f the pow er dynam ics o f the English ruling class,
gender male: h o w boys, treated sadistically, learn to take refuge in a
num b, orthodox dom inance, insular, herm etically sealed against
vulnerability and invasion. A m ore familiar exam ple m ight be the
socializing rituals in elite English public schools: h o w ruling class boys
are put throu gh sadistic hum iliation and physical abuse. A boy
escapes this or oth er choreographed pow erlessness into socially
secure and physically safe dom inance, and he never risks the
possibility o f being vulnerable to such injury again. T h is training,
occurring in w h a tever circum stances, destroys any possibility of
em p athy w ith the pow erless or the socially w eak or w om en or the
exiled or the colonialized or the ostracized because one's o w n body,
having experienced the pain and hum iliation of being pow erless, is
safe only in a com plete disavow al o f social vulnerability, of
identification w ith the injured. D om inance m eans safety. O n e is
taught, through em otional and physical torture, to sn u ff out
em pathy.
T h e training to sadism begins in childhood. W e call it child abuse.
H eathcliff is hit, flogged, beaten, assaulted, insulted, sham ed,
hum iliated, called a vagabond, m ade hom eless, despised as a social
inferior, ridiculed. His protector, the elder M r Earnshaw , is benign, a
gentlem an o f effortless dom inance, p o w er in the form of u n
challenged patriarchal authority and m anners. But he does not give
H eathcliff a patriarchal cover, the necessary protection, the nam e o f a
father. T h e outcast is H eathcliff H eathcliff, a patriarchal no one w ith
no rights because he has no last nam e, no fa th e rs lineage or passed-
on authority. H aving no nam e m eans having no earnest protection;
and so even w hile M r E arn shaw is still alive, H eathcliff is physically
abused by H indley, the legitim ate son, and by the servan ts, as the w ife
of the patriarch and m oth er of his real children says nothing, silently
sanctioning the physical abuse. W hen M r E arn sh aw dies, H eathcliff
H eathcliff is not only a n o n en tity in patriarchy, a nam eless boy; he is a
dark, dirty pariah, hated w ith racist malice by H indley, w h o se
patriarchal legitim acy gives him real p o w er as the head-of-th e-fam ily.
W ith H indley the boss, H ea th cliffs bad treatm en t becom es
system atic, no lon ger random or covert. T h is physical and
psychological abuse is not o n ly his individual affliction o r curse; it
d efines his social and civil status. H ea th cliffs adult sadism begins in
th e m echanism s he develops to su rviv e this cruel childhood: th e v e ry
capacity to en dure m istreatm ent, to w ait, to w atch , to hate; the
resolve to be aven ged , an essential d efen se against pain. " I ' m tryin g
to settle h o w I shall pay H indley b a ck /" says the y o u n g H eathcliff. "'I
don 't care h o w long I w ait, if I can on ly do it at last. I h ope he will not
die before I do! '" 23 H eathcliff learns to take positive delight, to
experience real pleasure, in w atch in g "H in dley d egradin g h im self past
redem ption;. . 24 T h is w atch in g and w aitin g reinforces a stron g
stoicism:
Notes
1. C u r r e r B ell [ C h a r lo tte B ro n te ], "B io g ra p h ic a l N o tic e o f Ellis a n d A c to n
B ell [E m ily and A n n e B r o n te ] , " S e p t e m b e r 19 , 18 5 0 , x ix - x x v i, in E m ily
B r o n te , Wuthering Heights ( N e w Y o r k : R a n d o m H o u s e / T h e M o d e r n L ib ra ry ,
19 7 8 ), pp. x x i v - x x v .
2. C u r r e r B ell, "E d ito r's P r e fa c e to th e N e w E d itio n o f Wuthering Heights
u n d a te d , x x v ii- x x x ii, in B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, x x v iii.
3. B e ll, " E d it o r 's P r e f a c e , " x x iv .
4. E m ily B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 9 5 .
5. B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 9 7 .
6. B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 9 7 .
7. B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 5 1 .
8. B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 5 4 .
9. B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 4 9 .
10 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, pp. 4 2 - 4 3 .
1 1 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 43.
12 . B r o n t e , Wuthering Heights, p. 6 6 .
13 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 6 3 .
14 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 6 2 .
1 5 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 79 .
16 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 9 5 .
1 7 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 9 7 .
18 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 1 8 9 .
19 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 9 3.
20. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 1 3 2 .
2 1 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 1 7 9 .
22. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 3 1 8 .
23. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 7 1 .
24. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 7 7 .
2 5 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 44 .
26. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 76 .
2 7 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 86.
28. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 1 2 9 .
29. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 2 1 9 .
30. B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 1 9 3 .
3 1 . B r o n t e , W uthering Heights, p. 3 2 4 .
32. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 3 1 6 .
33. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 3 3 1 .
34. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 3 0 5.
3 5 . B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 338 .
36. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 16 0 .
3 7 . B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 7 6 .
38. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 7 7 .
39. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 7 7 .
40. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 120 .
4 1 . B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 7 6 .
42. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 16 0 .
43. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 7 0 .
44. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 2 1 1 .
4 5. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 1 6 5 .
46. B ell, " E d i t o r s P r e f a c e , " x x ix
4 7. B r o n te , Wuthering Heights, p. 93.
Voyage in the Dark:
Hers and Ours
In my class at the University of Minnesota I also taught this book by Jean Rhys. I
like her toughness. I like her lack of sentimentality. I hate her twenty-seven-year
silence, and it hurts me that she published so little. Her work was lost once, and I
see it fading now. To last, work must not only be in print, stay in print, but other
writers must use it, be influenced by it, value it. If those other writers are women,
their work will disappear too, you see.
Mr Jones said, "He knew you'd be either eighteen or twenty-two. You girls
only have two ages. You're eighteen and so of course your friend's twenty-
two. O f course."3
T h e contem pt is like som e im perm eable finish, glossy, p olyu reth an e,
a hard, glossy shell; no pores; nothing g ets in or o u t T h e narrator
captures ev ery nuance of this contem pt. '"P o o r little A n n a/ m aking
his voice ve ry kind. I'm so dam ned so rry y o u 've been h avin g d bad
tim e/ M aking his voice v e ry kind, but the look in his e yes w a s like a
h igh, sm ooth, unclim bable wall. N o com m unication possible. Y ou
h ave to be th ree-qu arters mad even to attem pt it. "4
A nn a is eighteen w h en the sto ry opens. She is on the road in a
vaudeville sh o w . She is used to m en picking h er up. Sh e has not had
sex. W alter takes h er to dinner. She discovers it is d in ner in a suite o f
room s w ith a bedroom . "H e kissed m e again, and his m outh w as hard,
and I rem em bered him sm elling th e glass o f w in e and I couldn't think
o f an yth in g but that, and I hated him . 'L ook here, let m e g o /1 said."5 1
remembered him smelling the glass of wine and I couldn't think of anything but
that: in this one detail, the n arrator is forcin g us to rem em b er th at the
man is a consum er, not a lover. R efu sin g him , she g o es into the
bedroom . She w a n ts love, rom ance: "S o o n h e ll com e in again and kiss
me, but d ifferen tly. H e ll be d ifferen t and so 111 be d ifferen t. It'l l be
d ifferen t. I th ou gh t, 'It'l l be d ifferen t, d ifferen t. It m u st be
d ifferen t. '" 6 He doesn't com e in; she lies on the bed, cold: "T h e fire
w as like a painted fire; no w a rm th cam e fro m it. "7 He w a its fo r h er to
com e out, takes h er h om e, back to an em p ty, cold, rented room . Sh e
becom es ill, and w rite s him a note asking fo r help. He visits her, helps
her, g iv es h er m on ey, pays the landlady to take care o f her, finds o th e r
room s fo r h er fo r w h e n she is w ell, and the rom ance begins. Sh e is not
b o u gh t fo r a night; instead, she has the lon g-term em otional and
m aterial secu rity o f an affair, bein g his until he is tired o f her. Sh e tells
him she is not a virgin, bu t she is. A fte r m aking love the first tim e, she
thinks: '"W h e n I shu t m y e y es 111 be able to see this room all m y life. '" 8
S h e doesn't look in the m irror to see if she has changed. "I th o u g h t
that it had been just like the girls said, excep t that I hadn't k n o w n it
w ou ld h u rt so m u ch . "9 Sh e w a s infatu ated . She w a n ted to be valued,
loved. Instead, she had to g et up in the m iddle o f th e n igh t to sneak
o u t o f his bedroom and o u t o f his h ouse, a w o m an alone in th e big
n ight. " O f co u rse, y o u g et used to th in gs, y o u g et used to a n y th in g . "10
S h e is happy and she is afraid; she k n o w s h e r happiness w ill end.
W arned by h er friend, M audie, older and also in vau deville, she m akes
the tragic m istake. " 'O n ly , don't g et soppy ab o u t h im ' [M audie) said.
T h a t 's fatal. T h e thing w ith men is to get everyth in g you can out of
them and not care a damn. Y ou ask any girl in London— or any girl in
the w hole world if it com es to that [...]'" 11 W hen W alter is finished
w ith her, she know s it: "I w anted to pretend it w as like the night
before, but it w asn't any use. Being afraid is cold like ice/and it's like
w h en you can't breathe. 'Afraid o f w h a t? ' I th ou gh t. "12 She sees
W alter put m oney in her purse. She begins the inevitable descent; the
first man over and done with; the others waiting; no m oney o f her
ow n; no home. She w anders through a w o rld of men and rented
room s. N othing assuages her grief: "Really all you w ant is night, and
to lie in the dark and pull the sheet o ver you r head and sleep, and
before you kn ow w h ere you are it is night— that's one good thing.
Y ou pull the sheet o ver you r head and think, 'H e got sick of m e, 'an d
'N ever, not ever, n ever. ' And then you go to sleep. Y o u sleep very
quickly w hen you are like that and you don't dream either. It's as if
you w ere dead."13 (Today w e call this grief "depression. " W om en have
it. )
But this is no story o f a w om an 's broken heart. This is the story o f a
w om an w h o is, in the eyes o f the m en w h o behold her, a tart, w h eth er
her heart is broken or not. "'I picked up a girl in London and sh e__
Last night I slept w ith a girl w h o — ' T h at w as me. N ot 'girl' perhaps.
Som e other word, perhaps. N ever m ind. "14
N o one has w ritten about a w om an 's desperation quite like
this— the great loneliness, the great coldness, the great fear, in living
in a world w here, as one man observes, "'a girl's clothes cost m ore
than the girl inside th em . '" 15 Eliot and H ardy have w ritten vividly,
unforgettably, about w om en in desperate dow nfalls, ostracized and
punished by and because of a sexual double standard— I think of
H etty in Adam Bede and T e ss in Tess of the D'Urbervilles; H aw th orn e
also did this in The Scarlet Utter. But R hys sim ply gives us the w om an
as w om an, the w om an alone, her undiluted essence as a w om an , h o w
m en see her and w h at she is for. T h ere is a contem porary sense of
alienation— distance and detachm ent from any social mosaic, except
that the men and the m on ey are the social m osaic. Society is simpler;
exploitation is simpler; survival depends on being the thing m en w an t
to use, even as there is no hope at all fo r survival on those term s, just
goin g on and on, the sam e but poorer and older. A nna observes the
desperate m asquerade o f w om en to g et from day to day:
T h e c lo th e s o f m o st o f th e w o m e n w h o p a ssed w e r e like c a r ic a tu r e s o f th e
c lo th e s in th e s h o p - w in d o w s , b u t w h e n th e y sto p p e d to lo o k y o u s a w th at
th e ir e y e s w e r e fix e d o n th e fu tu r e . "If I co u ld b u y th is, th e n o f c o u r s e I'd be
q u ite d if f e r e n t . " K e e p h o p e a liv e a n d y o u c a n d o a n y th in g [ . . . ] B u t w h a t
h a p p e n s if y o u d o n 't h o p e a n y m o re , if y o u r b a c k 's b r o k e n ? W h a t h a p p e n s
t h e n ? 16
T A K E B A C K
T HE DAY
It's hard to fight liberals. They slip and slide. Jimmy Carter had a human rights
dimension to his foreign policy so that South Africa was held accountable for its
racism. Countries that systematically segregate women, like Saudi Arabia, had
nothing to fear from this human rights president. Now that Reagan's support of
apartheid is Amerikan foreign policy, people may think the points made in this
essay are glib or cheap. I hate apartheid, in South Africa and in Saudi Arabia,
on the basis of race or on the basis of sex. Do women matter or not? Is there a single
standard of human rights that includes women or not?
This essay is now ten years old. Wife-beating is the most commonly committed
violent crime in the United States, according to the FBI. In New Hampshire, I
meet eighteen-year-old women who work in a battered women $ shelter. One
talks about how she feels when women decide to go home and she has to drive
them. In Toronto, I meet two women who travel through rural Canada in the
dead of winter to find and help battered women. In a project called " O ff the
Beaten Path,” Susan Faupel is walking 600 miles— from Chicago, Illinois, to
Little Rock, Arkansas— for battered women. In a southern state, I am driven to
the airport by an organizer of the rally I have just spoken at; the car keeps
veering off the road as she says she is being battered now; when? I keep asking;
now, now, she says; she has gone to the organizing meetings for the
antipornography demonstrations with make-up covering the bruises on her face.
In the South especially I meet lesbians, married with children, who are being
beaten by their husbands— afraid to leave because they would lose their
children, battered because they are lesbian. In Seattle, I find safe houses, secret
from most feminists, for women being beaten by their women lovers. In small
towns where there are no shelters, especially in the North and Midwest, I find
safe houses organized like an underground railroad for women escaping battery.
I
n a few
a n d d read .
Rape is very terrible. I have been raped and I have talked with
hundreds o f w om en w h o have been raped. Rape is an experience that
pollutes one's life. But it is an experience that is contained w ithin the
boundaries o f one's ow n life. In the end, one's life is larger.
A ssault by a stranger or w ithin a relationship is very terrible. O n e
is hurt, undermined, degraded, afraid. But one's life is larger.
A battered w ife has a life sm aller than the terror that destroys her
o ver time.
M arriage circumscribes her life. Law, social convention, and
economic necessity encircle her. She is roped in. H er pride depends on
projecting her o w n satisfaction w ith her lot to fam ily and friends. H er
pride depends on believing that her husband is devoted to her and,
w h en that is no longer possible, convincing others anyw ay.
T h e husband's violence against her contradicts everyth in g she has
been taught about life, m arriage, love, and the sanctity of the family.
Regardless of the circum stances in w hich she g rew up, she has been
taught to believe in rom antic love and the essential perfection of
married life. Failure is personal. Individuals fail because of w h at is
w ro n g w ith them . T h e troubles o f individuals, pervasive as they are,
do not reflect on the institution of m arriage, nor do they negate her
belief in the happy ending, promised e v ery w h e re as the final result of
m ale-fem ale conflict. M arriage is intrinsically good. M arriage is a
w om an's proper goal. W ife-beating is not on a w om an 's map of the
world w hen she marries. It is, quite literally, beyond her im agination.
Because she does not believe that it could have happened, that he
could h ave done th at to her, she cannot believe that it will happen
again. He is her husband. N o, it did not happen. And w h en it happens
again, she still denies it. It w as an accident, a m istake. A nd w h en it
happens again, she blames the hardships of his life outside the home.
T h ere he experiences terrible hurts and frustrations. T h ese account
for his m istreatm ent o f her. She will find a w ay to com fort him, to
make it up to him. And w h en it happens again, she blames herself.
Sh e will be better, kinder, quieter, m ore of w h a tever he likes, less of
w h a te v e r he dislikes. A nd w h en it happens again, and w h en it
happens again, and w h en it happens again, she learns that she has
n o w h ere to go, no one to turn to, no one w h o will believe her, no one
w h o will help her, no on e w h o will protect her. If she leaves, she will
return. Sh e will leave and return and leave and return. S h e will find
that her parents, doctor, the police, h er best friend, the n eigh bors
upstairs and across the hall and n ext door, all despise the w o m an w h o
cannot keep h er o w n h o use in order, h er injuries hidden, her despair
to herself, h er smile am iable and convincing. S h e will find that society
loves its central lie— that m arriage m eans happiness— and h ates th e
w o m an w h o stops telling it even to save h er o w n life.
T h e m em ory o f the physical pain is vague. I rem em ber, o f cou rse, that
I w as hit, that I w as kicked. I do not rem em b er w h e n o r h o w o ften . It
blurs. I rem em b er him banging m y head against the flo o r until I
passed out. I rem em b er being kicked in the stom ach. I rem em b er
being hit o ver and over, the blow s h ittin g d ifferen t parts o f m y body
as I tried to g et a w a y fro m him . I rem em b er a terrible leg in ju ry from a
series o f kicks. I rem em ber cryin g and I rem em b er scream ing and I
rem em b er beggin g. I rem em b er him p u n chin g m e in th e breasts. O n e
can rem em b er that one had horrible physical pain, bu t that m em o ry
does n ot bring the pain back to the body. Blessedly, th e m ind can
rem em b er these ev en ts w ith o u t the body reliving them . If one
su rvives w ith o u t p erm an ent injury, the physical pain dims, recedes,
ends. It lets go.
T h e fear does not let go. T h e fear is the eternal legacy. A t first, th e
fear infuses e v e ry m inu te o f e v e ry day. O n e does not sleep. O n e
cann ot bear to be alone. T h e fear is in the ca vity o f one's chest. It
craw ls like lice on o n e s skin. It m akes the legs buckle, th e h eart race. It
locks o n e s jaw . O n e s hands trem ble. O n e s th roat closes up. T h e fear
m akes one en tirely desperate. Inside, on e is a lw a y s in upheaval,
clinging to a n yon e w h o sh o w s a n y kindness, co w e rin g in th e
presence o f an y threat. A s years pass, the fea r recedes, but it does not
let go. It n ever lets go. A n d w h e n the m ind rem em b ers fear, it also
relives it. T h e victim o f en cap su lating violence carries both the real
fear and the m em o ry o f fear w ith h er alw ays. T o g e th e r, th ey w ash
o v e r her like an ocean, and if she does not learn to sw im in that
terrible sea, she goes under.
And then, there is the fact that, during those w eeks that stretch
into years w hen one is a battered w ife, one's mind is shattered slow ly
o ve r time, splintered into a thousand pieces. T h e mind is slow ly
subm erged in chaos and despair, buried broken and barely alive in an
im penetrable tom b o f isolation. This isolation is so absolute, so killing,
so morbid, so m alignant and devouring that there is nothing in o n e s
life but it, it. O n e is entirely shrouded in a loneliness that no
earthquake could m ove. M en have asked over the centuries a
question that, in their hands, ironically becom es abstract: "W hat is
reality? " T h ey have w ritten complicated volum es on this question.
T h e w om an w h o w as a battered w ife and has escaped k n o w s the
answ er: reality is w hen som ething is happening to you and you kn ow
it and can say it and w hen you say it o th er people understand w h at
you mean and believe you. That is reality, and the battered w ife,
imprisoned alone in a nightm are that is happening to her, has lost it
and cannot find it anyw here.
I rem em ber the isolation as the w o rst anguish I have ever know n. I
rem em ber the pure and consum ing m adness of being invisible and
unreal, and every blow m aking me m ore invisible and m ore unreal, as
the w o rst desperation I have ever know n . I rem em ber those w h o
turned aw ay, pretending not to see the injuries— m y parents, dear
god, especially m y parents; m y closest fem ale friend, next door,
herself suffocating in a m arriage poisoned by psychic, not physical,
violence; the doctor so officious and aloof; the w om en in the
neighborhood w h o heard every scream; the m en in the neighborhood
w h o smiled, yes, lewdly, as they half looked aw ay, half stared,
w h en ever they saw me; m y husband's fam ily, especially m y m other-
in-law, w hom I loved, m y sisters-in-law , w h o m I loved. I rem em ber
the frozen m uscles of m y smile as I gave false explanations o f injuries
that no one w anted to hear an yw ay. I rem em ber slavishly
conform ing to every external convention that w ould dem onstrate
that I w as a "good w ife, " that w ould convince oth er people that I w as
happily married. And as the w eigh t of social convention becam e
insupportable, I rem em ber w ith d raw in g fu rth e r and fu rth e r into that
open grave w h ere so m any w om en hide w aitin g to die— the house. I
w e n t ou t to shop only w h en I had to, I walked m y dogs, I ran out
scream ing, looking for help and shelter w h en I had the strength to
escape, w ith no m oney, o ften no coat, n othing but terror and tears. I
m et only averted eyes, cold stares, and the vu lgar sexual aggression of
lone, laughing m en that sent me run nin g hom e to a d an ger that w as
at least fam iliar and familial. H om e, m ine as w ell as his. H om e, th e
only place I had. Finally, e v ery th in g inside crum bled. I g av e up. I sat, I
stared, I w aited, passive and paralyzed, speaking to no one, m inim ally
m aintaining m yself and m y anim als, as m y husband stayed a w a y fo r
lon ger and lon ger periods o f tim e, slam m ing in only to thrash and
leave. N o one m isses the w ife w h o disappears. N o one investigates
her disappearance. A fte r aw hile, people stop asking w h e re she is,
especially if they have already refused to face w h a t has been
happening to her. W ives, a fter all, belong in the hom e. N o th in g
outside it depends on them . T h is is a bitter lesson, and the battered
w ife learns it in the bitterest w ay.
1977
1
All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.
Hitler, Mein Kampf*
It would be lunacy to try to estimate the value of man according to his race,
thus declaring war on the Marxist idea that men are equal, unless we are
d e te rm in e d to d raw th e u ltim a te co n seq u en ces. And th e u ltim a te
c o n s e q u e n c e o f r e c o g n iz in g th e im p o r ta n c e o f b lo o d — th a t is, o f th e racial
fo u n d a tio n in g e n e r a l— is th e t r a n s fe r e n c e o f th is e s tim a tio n to th e
in d iv id u a l p e rso n .
H itle r , M ein Kam pf2
SuperW om on's ideology is distinguished from lesbian separatism in general (that is,
lesbians organizing politically and/or culturally in exclusively fem ale groups) by tw o
articles o f dogm a. (1) a refusal to have anyth in g to do w ith w om en w h o have anyth in g
to do w ith males, often including w om en w ith male children and (2) the absolute belief
in the biological superiority of w om en.
biological destiny. We are left to infer that the society of her creation
will be good because she is good, biologically good. In the interim,
incipient SuperW om on will not do anything to "encourage" w om en
to "collaborate" with m en— no abortion clinics or battered w om an
sanctuaries will com e from her. A fte r all, she has to conserve her
"en ergy" which m ust not be dissipated keeping "w eaker" w om en alive
th rough reform measures.
T h e audience applauded the passages on fem ale superiority I male
inferiority enthusiastically. This doctrine seem ed to be music to their
ears. W as there dissent, silent, buried in the applause? W as som e of
the response the spontaneous pleasure that w e all kn ow w hen, at last,
the tables are turned, even for a m inute, even in im agination? O r has
pow erlessness driven us mad, so that w e dream secret dream s of a
final solution perfect in its simplicity, absolute in its efficacy? And will
a leader som eday strike that secret chord, harness those dream s, our
own nightm are turned upside dow n? Is there no haunting,
restraining m em ory of the blood spilled, the bodies burned, the ovens
filled, the peoples enslaved, by those w h o have assented th rou gh ou t
history to the very sam e dem agogic logic?
In the audience, I saw w om en I like o r love, w om en not strangers to
me, w om en w h o are good not because of biology but because they
care about being good, sw ept along in a sea of affirm ation. I spoke out
because those w om en had applauded. I spoke out too because I am a
Jew w h o has studied Nazi G erm an y, and I k n o w that m any G erm an s
w h o followed H itler also cared about being good, but found it easier
to be good by biological definition than by act. T h o se people,
w retched in w h at th ey experienced as their o w n unbearable
pow erlessness, becam e convinced that th ey w ere so good biologically
that nothing th ey did could be bad. A s H im m ler said in 1943:
2
I a m to ld th a t I a m a se x ist! I do b e lie v e th a t th e d iffe r e n c e s b e t w e e n th e
s e x e s a re o u r m o s t p re c io u s h e r ita g e , e v e n t h o u g h t h e y m a k e w o m e n
s u p e r io r in th e w a y s th a t m a t t e r m o st.
G e o r g e G ild e r , Sexual Suicide4
P e r h a p s th is fe m a le w is d o m c o m e s fr o m r e s ig n a tio n to th e r e a lity o f m a le
a g g r e s s io n ; m o re lik e ly it is a h a r m o n ic o f th e w o m a n s k n o w le d g e th a t
u ltim a te ly s h e is th e o n e w h o m a tte r s . A s a r e s u lt, w h ile th e r e a re m o r e
b rillian t m e n th a n b rillia n t w o m e n , th e r e a r e m o r e g o o d w o m e n th a n g o o d
m en.
S te v e n G o ld b e r g , T he Inevitability of Patriarchy5
3
I h a v e told y o u th e v e r y lo w o p in io n in w h ic h y o u [w o m en ] w e r e held b y
M r O s c a r B ro w n in g . I h a v e in dicated w h a t N a p o le o n o n c e th o u g h t o f y o u
and w h a t M u sso lin i th in k s n o w . T h e n , in case a n y o f y o u a sp ire to fictio n , I
h a v e cop ied o u t fo r y o u r b e n e fit th e a d v ic e o f th e critic a b o u t c o u r a g e o u s ly
a c k n o w le d g in g th e lim itatio n s o f y o u r se x . I h a v e r e fe r re d to P r o fe s s o r X
an d g iv e n p ro m in e n c e to his s ta te m e n t th a t w o m e n a re in te lle ctu a lly ,
m o ra lly and p h y sica lly in fe rio r to m e n . . . and h e r e is a final w a r n i n g . . . M r
John L a n g d o n D a v ie s w a rn s w o m e n " th a t w h e n c h ild re n c e a se to be
a lto g e th e r d esirab le, w o m e n c e a se to be a lto g e t h e r n e c e s s a r y . " I h o p e y o u
w ill m a k e n o te o f it.
V ir g in ia W o o lf, A Room of O n e s O w n 7
This was given as a speech to women at Harper & Row, the original publishers of
O u r Blood. I refer to it in the preface to O u r Blood in this volume: men in
suits took notes and my goose was cooked. Later, M s. published an "edited"
version. This is the original text. I was very pleased to be asked by the women
employees at Harper & Row to speak on a day they had organized in behalf of
women workers. Harper & Row was, at the time, the only unionized publisher in
New York, and in addition there was a women's group. Most workers in
publishing are women, low paid with no power. Organized with lawyers and
money to defend the speech rights of pornographers, publishers do not allow those
who work for them to organize as workers or as women; nor do they pay any
attention to the rights of writers to economic dignity or creative integrity.
Publishing is a stinking, sick industry in the United States. The low-paid editors
and clerical workers who listened to this speech had a lot in common with the
woman who wrote it: that is what the essay is about. I thank the women of
Harper & Row for inviting me in.
Notes
1. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics, ed. Carl D^gler (New
York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966), p. 22.
2. P h y llis C h e s le r a n d E m ily Jane G o o d m a n , Women, Money, and Power ( N e w
Y o rk : W illiam M o r r o w a n d C o m p a n y , Inc., 1976), p. 19.
3. Kate Mill ett, The Prostitution Papers: A Candid Dialogue (New York-: Avon
Books, 1973), p. 87.
4. Radoslav Selucky, "Emancipation or Equality?" Uterami noviny, March 6,
1965, cited by Hilda Scott in Does Socialism Liberate Women? Experiences from Eastern
Europe (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974), p. 123.
5. Scott, Does Socialism liberate Women?, p. 5.
6. For data on these same processes in underdeveloped and developing
countries, see Ester Boserup, Womens Role in Economic Development (New York:
St. M artins Press, 1970).
Look, Dick, Look. See Jane Blow It.
1979
This too was a speech, given April 8, 1983, at Hamilton College in upstate New
York. It was published at the invitation and by the initiative of a male student in
the college literary magazine, T h e A B C 's o f R ead in g , in 1984. I remember
flying up in a plane that was more like a tin can, just me and the pilot. I remember
the semicircle of hundreds of young faces. That night, fraternity boys tried to
break into the rooms I was staying in on campus in a generally deserted building.
There were two immovable, institutional doors between me and them. I couldn't
get an outside line and the switchboard didn't answer to get security. I waited.
They went away.
I still think that prostitution must be decriminalized, as I say in this speech;
but, increasingly, I think there must be simple, straightforward, enforced
criminal laws against exploiting women in commercial sexual transactions. The
exploiter— pimp or john— needs to be recognized and treated as a real criminal,
much as the batterer now is.
I w ith the shit, the real shit. Robin M organ calls it "atrocity
w o rk . " A nd that's p retty m uch w h a t it is.
I deal w ith w h a t happens to w o m en in the norm al co u rse of
w o m en 's lives all o v e r this planet: the norm al stu ff that is abusive,
crim inal, vio latin g— the point being that it is considered normal by the
society at large. It is so system atic that it appears that w o m en are not
being abused w h en these com m onplace th in gs happen to w o m en
because th ese abuses are so com m onplace.
Because w om en are everyw h ere, and because, as Shulam ith
Firestone said, a sex class is invisible because everyo n e takes it to be
nature, and because m any of the abuses that w om en system atically
su ffer are called sex, and because w om en are socialized in a w ay to
m ake us indifferent to the plight o f o th er w om en, and because there
are no institutional m eans of redress for the crim es com m itted
against us, fem inism som etim es seem s as if a grou p o f w om en are
standing in front of a tidal w ave w ith one hand up saying: "Stop. "
Th at is w h y people say, "Well, it's hopeless. " And from "it's hopeless, "
people say: "Well, it's life."
T h e stance o f the w om en's m ovem ent is that it is not "just life. " It is
politics; it is history; it is power; it is econom ics; it is institutional
modes of social organization: it is not "just life." And that applies to all of
it: the sexual abuse, the econom ic degradation, the "natural"
relationship betw een w om en and children (to paraphrase Firestone
again: w om en and children are not united by biology, w e are united
by politics, a shared powerlessness; I think this is true).
T h e w om en's m ovem ent is like o th er political m ovem ents in one
im portant w ay. Every political m ovem ent is com m itted to the belief
that there are certain kinds of pain that people should not have to
endure. T h ey are unnecessary. T h ey are gratuitous. T h e y are not
part of the G od-given order. T h ey are not biologically inevitable.
T h e y are acts o f hum an will. T h ey are acts done by som e hum an
beings to o th er hum an beings.
If you believe that God made w om en to be subm issive and inferior,
then there is alm ost nothing that fem inism can say to you about you r
place in society. A political m ovem ent against the will o f G od does not
sound like a very reasonable form o f organizing. And in fact
frequ en tly a m isogynist will say: "Y o u r argu m ent isn't w ith me. It's
w ith G o d . " And w e say: "Well, since you're created in His im age,
you 're the best w e can do. So stand there and let's discuss this. Y ou
represent Him, you do that all the tim e a n y w a y . "
A n o th er mode of argum ent about w om en's inferiority— a
pervasive m ode— has to do w ith biology. T h ere are a lot of w a ys to
address this issue. It is, in a certain sense, the basic issue of w o m e n 's
rights, of w h at w om en's rights should be: because there is a question
as to w h a t rights w e w om en should have. If it w ere a com m on
supposition that w e should enjoy the sam e rights as m en and that our
lives had the sam e w o rth , w e w ould be living in a v e ry d ifferen t
w orld. T h ere is not that supposition. T h ere is not that prem ise. So in
trying to discuss w h a t rights w o m en should have, m any people refer
to biology, and th ey do so in a m yriad o f w ays. For instance, th ey m ay
find— th ey g o to great g reat len gths to find— variou s craw lin g things
that behave in certain specified w a y s and th ey say: "L ook at that!
Seven million years ago you w e re related to th a t. " T h is is an abuse of
C h a rles D a rw in to w hich an y literate person should object; on e
should cringe to see such form idable theoretical w o rk used in such a
vile w ay. But these sam e people point to prim ates, fish, th ey point to
an yth in g that m oves, an yth in g that is actually alive, an yth in g that
th ey can find. A nd th ey tell us that w e should infer o u r righ ts from
the behaviors o f w h a te v e r th ey are pointing to. Frequently th e y point
to things that aren't alive, that are on ly postulated to have been alive at
som e previous m om ent in prehistory. O n e o u tstan d in g exam p le is
the cichlid, w hich is m y personal favorite. It is a prehistoric fish — or,
to be m ore precise, som e m en thin k it was a prehistoric fish. T h e
follow ers o f K onrad L o ren z— and these are scientists, o k a y ? — say
that the m ale cichlid could not m ate unless his partn er d em on strated
awe. N o w is this a projection o r is t h i s .. . a fish? K a te M illett
w ond ered in Sexual Politics h o w a fish d em on strates aw e. People w h o
look to o th er anim als (I will concede that w e are also anim als) to find
reasons w h y w o m en , hu m an w o m en , should be subordin ate jum p
from species to species w ith alarm ing d ex terity and ign ore all
in form ation that contradicts their ideological point of view . N o w , this
is a quite hu m an failing, and that is the point: it is a hu m an failing. O n e
need not postulate th at a chim pan zee o r an insect has the sam e failing
to locate som eth in g hum an.
T h e w o m en 's m o vem en t is concern ed first o f all w ith this virtually
m etaphysical prem ise that w o m en are biologically inferior. I don't
k n o w h o w m an y tim es in y o u r o w n lives you h a ve experienced the
sense that you w e re being treated in a certain w a y because those
around you considered y o u to be biologically inferior to them . I
suspect that if you trace backw ards, m an y of the hum iliating ev en ts
o f y o u r lives— and I am talking to the w o m en in this ro o m — w ou ld
have at their base a co m m itm en t on the part o f th e person w h o
created the hum iliation that you d eserved to be treated in the w a y in
w h ich you w ere treated because y o u w e re a w o m an . T h is m eans that
there is som e sense in w hich you are biologically not entitled to the
sam e dignity and the sam e hum an respect to w hich m en are entitled.
T h is belief in the biological inferiority o f w om en is, o f course, not
limited to m en. N ot only men have this belief. W om en are raised to
believe this sam e thing about ourselves, and m any o f us do. T h is
belief is really the underpinning of the sexual system in w hich w e live,
w h eth er you as an individual en coun ter it directly or indirectly. It is
also the justification for m ost o f the system atic sexual assault that
w om en experience.
I am going to talk a lot today about sexual assault, but first I w ant to
m ake a generalization about the w o m e n s m ovem ent and its
relationship to know ledge— its purpose, in fact. T h e w o m e n s
m ovem ent is not a n arrow ly political m ovem ent. It is not only an
electoral m ovem ent. It is not only a reform m ovem ent, h o w e v er you
understand the w ord reform , because w hen you are dealing w ith a
presum ption of biological inferiority or G od -given inferiority, there is
no reform that addresses that question. T h ere is no w a y to change
the status of w om en in any society w ith o u t dealing w ith basic
metaphysical assum ptions about the nature of wom en: w h a t w e are,
w h at w e w ant, w h at w e have a right to, w h a t o ur bodies are for, and
especially to w hom o ur bodies belong. T h e w o m e n s m ovem ent is a
m ovem ent for know ledge, tow ard know ledge. I com e here to a college
to speak to you, and m any of you are students here, and you are here
for a lot o f different reasons, personal reasons; but you are also here
for social reasons. Y ou are sent to college to learn h o w to becom e
adults in this society, adults o f a certain class, adults o f a certain type,
adults w h o will fit into a certain place. And the w om en here are here
in part to be taught h o w to be w om en. A s far back as you can go,
w h en you w ere first taken to kindergarten, that is w h y you w ere
taken there. A nd the same thing is tru e fo r the men. If w h a t th ey
w anted to teach you is not sealed, if it isn't fixed, if anyth in g is loose
and rattling around, this is their last chance to fix it. M ost of the tim e
they succeed. Y o u get fixed. And yet these institutions are supposed
to exist so that you can acquire know ledge. T h e w om en's m ovem ent,
like o th er political m ovem ents before it, has unearthed a trem endous
body o f know ledge that has not been let into colleges and universities,
into high schools, into grade schools, fo r political reasons. A nd for
that reason, y o u r relationship to kn ow led ge has to be a qu esting one:
not learning w h a t you are given, but finding w h a t qu estions you
m ust ask. T h e w om en 's m ovem en t in general, w ith m any exceptions,
w ith m any failures, w ith m any im perfections, has been dedicated to
that process o f finding out w hich qu estions to ask and asking those
questions.
A lot o f the questions are considered unspeakable. T h e y are
unspeakable questions. A n d w h en th ey are asked, those w h o ask
them are greeted w ith extrao rd in ary hostility. I am sure you h ave
experienced som eth in g sim ilar w h e n e v e r you h ave asked a question
that som ebody didn't w a n t asked. E veryth in g th at you h ave been
tau gh t about the liberal tradition o f education, abo u t the valu e of
books, th e b eau ty o f art, the m eaning of creativity, is lost, m eans
nothing, unless you retain the independence to ask y o u r o w n
questions, alw ays, th ro u gh o u t y o u r lives. A n d it is easier n o w than it
will be in ten years, and it is easier n o w than it will be w h e n yo u are
fifty or sixty or seven ty. It is one o f the m ost extrao rd in ary th in gs
about g ettin g older: e v ery th in g that people say about becom ing m ore
co n servative is true. E veryth in g that people say abo ut selling o u t is
true. If y o u are not brave en ou gh n o w to ask the qu estion s th at you
think need to be asked, you will n ever be brave en ou gh . S o don't ev er
put it o ff. T h e w o m en 's m ovem en t can n ot su rv iv e unless yo u m ake
that com m itm ent. T h e w o m e n s m ovem en t is not a m o v em en t that
just passes d o w n an ideology: it's a m ovem en t that creates ideology,
and th at is v e ry d ifferent. It creates w a y s o f u nd erstan d in g th e w orld
in w h ich w o m en live, w a y s o f u nd erstan d in g the social co n stru ction
o f m asculinity and fem inin ity, w a y s o f und erstan d in g w h a t prejudice
is as a social construction , h o w it w o rk s, h o w it is transm itted. It
creates w a y s o f u nd erstan d in g w h a t the hatred o f w o m en is, w h y it
exists, h o w it is transm itted, w h a t fu n ctio n it serves in this society or
in any o th er society, regardless o f h o w that society is o rgan ized
econom ically, regardless o f w h ich side o f the Iron C u rta in it is on,
w h e th e r or not it is a nuclear society. S o w e are dedicated to qu estions
and w e try to find an sw ers.
W e are also a m o vem en t against hu m an su fferin g. T h e re is n o w a y
to be a fem inist and to fo rget that. If you are a fem inist, and if you
have fo rgo tten that o u r purpose is to end the su ffe rin g o f cou ntless
unn am ed and invisible w o m en from the crim es com m itted against
th em — and yes, w e m ay also end the su fferin g o f the m en w h o are
com m itting the crimes, yes, w e probably think w e can— then your
fem inism is hollow and it doesn't m atter, it doesn't count. This is a
m ovem ent against suffering. So, in betw een the lines, w hen you hear
people say that this is a m ovem ent for freedom , for justice, for
equality— and all of that is entirely and deeply tru e— you m ust
rem em ber that w e are trying to elim inate su fferin g too. Freedom,
justice, and equality have become slogan words, M adison A ven u e
words: so has revolution. N obody tries to sell suffering: in Am erika,
suffering is barely acknowledged. Su fferin g does not fit into the
advertising schem e of things as a goal for a happy Am erikan. So it is a
good m easure o f you r ow n com m itm ent to understand that in the
end, in the end, the positives that w e are searching for have to be
m easured against the true condition o f w om en that w e kn o w and
that w e understand. T h e goal of the society w e live in is to achieve
Happiness, consum er Happiness. You are supposed to get Happiness
from lip gloss and tw en ty -fo u r hours of television every day. That
m eans that you are not supposed to feel pain: you m ight not kn ow
w hat it is you do feel, but you m ust not feel pain. O n e of the things
the w om en s m ovem ent does is to m ake you feel pain. Y ou feel your
o w n pain, the pain of other w om en, the pain of sisters w hose lives
you can barely imagine. You have to have a lot of courage to accept
that if you com mit yourself, over the long term , not just for three
m onths, not for a year, not for tw o years, but for a lifetime, to
fem inism, to the w om en's m ovem ent, that you are going to live with
a lot of pain. In this cou ntry that is not a fashionable thing to do. So be
prepared for the therapists. And be prepared for the prescriptions. Be
prepared for all the people w h o tell you that its you r problem , it's not
a social problem, and w h y are you so bitter, and w h at's w ro n g with
you? And underneath that is alw ays the presum ption that the rape
w as delusional, that the battery did not happen, that the econom ic
hardship is your ow n u nfortunate personal failing. Hold o nto the fact
that that's not true: it has never been true.
T h ere have been many w ays of defining the essential concerns of
feminism. There are m any differences of opinion. T h ere are m any
ideological strains in the w o m e n s m ovem ent. T h ere are m any
d ifferent sets of priorities. I am going to discuss mine as an individual
fem inist w h o w rites books, w h o travels around the co u n try a lot, w h o
hears from w om en all over the world. You decide w h at that means.
I think that w o m en 's fundam ental condition is defined literally by
the lack of physical integrity of o u r bodies. I think that o u r
subordinate place in society begins there. I do not think w e can talk
about w o m en 's condition in strictly econom ic term s, th ou gh I do not
w a n t to see any exclusion o f econom ics from any discussion of
w o m en 's condition. But I w ould say that w h a t is fun dam ental and
w h at m ust alw ays be considered is the sexual and reproductive
in tegrity of a w om an 's body. A w o m an is an individual and w o m en
are a class. T h e class o f w o m en includes w o m en o f ev e ry race,
econom ic and social condition, in ev ery society on the face o f this
globe.
It used to be that som e fem inists w ou ld speak at college cam puses
and w ou ld say, "Y ou 're too y o u n g to k n o w a n yth in g, w h a t do you
k n o w , w h a t have you ev er experienced, w ait until you g et o u t there,
w ait until the bastards start fu ckin g w ith you , then you'll see w h a t
fem inism is ab o u t. " T h e search for k n o w led ge has revealed that by
th e tim e w o m en are the age o f m ost o f the w o m en in this room , one
in fo u r has been sexually assaulted already. In fact since m ost o f you
are o ver eigh teen, I suspect that m ore than a q u a rter o f y o u h ave had
this experience o f sexual assault.
Incest is the first assault. W e n e ver had an y idea o f h o w com m on it
w as. W e h ave a lw ays heard o f the incest taboo, but, as I am sure you
h ave heard in o th er con texts, law s are m eant to be broken: this one
especially. M o st incest victim s are girls. T h e y are assaulted in a
va riety o f w a y s, freq u en tly by their fath ers, o ften by step -fath ers. W e
are talking about assault by m en w h o are in intim ate situations of
p ow er: adults w ith children, beloved adults. V e r y little incest is
com m itted by w o m en w ith children. T h e re is beating of children by
w o m en , a lot o f it. W e m ust not leave that out. A lot o f w o m en are
forced to h ave children th ey do not w a n t, and th ere is a lot o f b a ttery
especially on those children. But th ere does not seem to be v e ry m uch
sexual abuse.
Incest is terrifically im portan t in und erstan d in g the condition of
w o m en . It is a crim e that is com m itted against som eone, a crim e from
w h ich m an y victim s n ever recover. N o w , life is hard, or, as Jim my
C a rte r said, life is unfair. H orrible th in gs happen from w h ich people
n e ve r recover. T h a t is true. Probably no w o m an ev er reco vers from a
rape; probably no w o m an ev er reco vers fro m battery. B ut this is
different, because the child does not have a chance in the w orld. Her
w hole system of reality, her w hole capacity to form attachm ents, her
whole capacity to understand the m eaning of self-respect, is
destroyed by som eone w hom she loves. Incest victim s are now
organizing in this country, and they are organizing politically. O n e of
the reasons that they are organizing politically and not psychiatrically
is because they understand that it is the p ow er o f the fath er in the
family that creates the environm ent that licenses the abuse. T h ey
understand that probably better than anyone w h o hasn't had the
experience understands it. T h ey have seen the m o th e rs fear of the
father; they kn o w their ow n fear o f the father; they have seen the
com m unity support for the father; they have seen the psychiatric
com m unity's defense of the father; they have seen the legal system 's
refusal to treat the father like a criminal; th ey have seen the religious
leaders' refusal to take incest as seriously as the grave crim e of
hom osexuality. T h ey understand the world in w hich w om en live.
M ost im portant, I think, they understand the fear of their m others,
which is not to say that they ever forgive their m others for w hat
happened to them . This is a society in w hich it is v e ry hard to forgive
you r m other, no m atter w h at happens to you. But incest victim s are
truly at the center of our political situation. T h ey have been, in m y
opinion, the bravest am ong us for speaking o ut about w h at happened
to them w h en they w ere children. And th ey are organizing to get
children som e protection, som e rights: and the w om en's m ovem ent
has to be m ore serious in understanding that the connection betw een
w om en and children really is political. T h e pow er of the father is w hat
m akes w om en and children a political underclass.
Marital rape is also very im portant in understanding the condition
o f w om en. N o w I will tell you a story. I have a godson. It is a surprise
to me that I have this godson, but I do. M y godson's father is a civil
liberties law yer. I do not like civil liberties law yers because they
defend pornographers and racists and rapists and Nazis. In m any
w ays w e are ideological and political enem ies. M y godson's m other,
w h o is m y close friend, is an anti-rape fem inist. T hat m eans that she
understands fem inism through understanding rape. M y godson's
fath er tells me, and he publishes an article in a new spaper that tells a
lot o f people, that w hen a w om an is raped by som eone she kn ow s it is
not so bad. He also says, to me and the public, that in m arriage rape is
im possible, not because the law says so— alth ough the law freq u en tly
does say so— but because w e can n ever k n o w w h a t the w om an really
w anted. M y godson's fath er is a v e ry nice m an, a v e ry sensitive man.
He defends rapists in co u rt— even th ou gh his doing so causes his w ife
unbearable personal pain— because he believes that w o m en co n
sistently accuse m en o f rape w h en th ey have only had sex and
because he believes that penalties fo r rape are too severe a n y w a y. It is
im possible fo r him to even consider that being raped by som eone you
k n o w — like a hu sban d — m ight be worse than being raped by a
stranger; that it can d estroy y o u r ability to go on; that it is the rape of
yo u r body and also the total destruction o f y o u r in tegrity and yo u r
self-esteem , y o u r trust, y o u r deepest privacy. T h e physical injuries
that w o m en su ffe r in m arital rape are no less g ra ve than the physical
injuries that w o m en su ffer in an y o th er kind o f rape. N everth eless, in
the hom e the right to privacy has gu aran teed the husband total access
to his w ife's body. V e ry specific statu tes h a ve guaran teed him that
access, those rights. A t the sam e tim e w e h ave in this co u n try a
clim ate in w h ich people are terrified o f crim e on th e streets. W om en
are scared to death o f rape. B ut the tru th is— factually, not just
polem ically— that e v e ry w o m an is m ore likely to be raped by som eone
she kn o w s, especially by a fath er or a husband; and the hom e, w h ich is
being prom oted as a place o f peace and h a rm o n y and C h ristian bliss is
the m ost d an gero u s place in the w orld fo r a w om an . T h a t is the tru th .
A w o m an w h o is m urdered is likely to be m u rdered in h er hom e by a
husband or lover. It is v e ry hard to find o u t h o w m an y w o m en are
actually battered: th e estim ates based on research are n o w close to
fifty percent o f m arried w o m e n — fifty percen t o f m arried w o m en
h ave perhaps been battered at som e point in a m arriage. T h a t's w ar.
T h a t's not life, that's w ar.
R ecen tly there w as a gan g rape in N e w B edford. Y o u had a vigil
here. F orty-th ree percent o f all the rapes com m itted in this co u n try
are pair o r g an g rapes. F orty-th ree percent. T w e n ty -s e v e n percent
are th ree o r m ore m en; sixteen percent are tw o m en. G a n g rape is
com m on, and it is alm ost n ever su ccessfu lly prosecuted because th e
m en are w itn esses for each other: th e y all tell th e sam e sto ry. T h e y all
say that the victim cam e w ith them w illin gly o r took m on ey. It doesn't
m atter w h a t happened to the w o m an . T h e re will not be a p rosecu tion
at all for th at rape. T h e im plications o f this are sta gg erin g becau se it
m eans that any group of men can rape any individual w om an, and
that is in fact the case.
T h e Kinsey Institute, which studied such diverse phenom ena as
sex, sex, and sex, called gang rape "polyandrous attention. " A w om an,
according to Kinsey research, walked d ow n a street. Actually, the
K insey categories are such that a w om an is defined as som eone
fifteen years old or more. So m aybe a teenager is walking dow n the
street. She is gang-raped: male predators follow her, seek her out,
force her. It is "polyandrous atten tion. " Th at is the m ost recognition
that gang rape has had until fem inists began to analyze rape.
In talking about rape, w e often talk about strangers w h o rape
w om en, because that is the stereotype o f rape, and also because
strangers do rape w om en, though in less than half the rapes
com m itted. M ost w om en will be raped by som ebody they know . So
w h y is it that w e are brought up to believe that rape is com m itted by
strangers w hen m ostly it isn't? In m y view , rape is simply a m atter of
access. T h ere is no qualitative distinction about men here. T h e group
of m en that w e know are w orse to us than the group o f men that w e
don't kn ow because they have the m ost access to us. Rape is a
question o f access. M en will rape w om en to w hom they have access.
T h e stranger in rape is used in a very im portant political w ay,
especially in organizing w om en on the right: the stranger is used as a
scapegoat. In the United States the stran ger is black and he is a rapist.
In Nazi G erm an y the stranger w as a Jew and he w as a rapist.
This use of rape associated w ith a stran ger is a basic com ponent of
racism. W om en's fears o f rape are legitim ate. T h o se fears are
manipulated to serve the ends o f racism.
We n o w see the same scapegoat strategy being used against
h om osexual men, w h o are accused o f child m olestation w h en m ost
child m olestation is o f little girls. It is not that hom osexual m en do not
rape. T h ey do. So do black m en and Jewish men. M en in all classes and
o f all races and ethnicities rape, w hich is not to say that all m en rape. It
is to say that all m en benefit from rape, because all m en benefit from
the fact that w om en are not free in this society; that w om en cow er;
that w om en are afraid; that w om en cannot assert the rights that w e
have, limited as those rights are, because of the ubiquitous presence
o f rape.
W hen fem inists began paying attention to rape, o u r intrusion into
this area of male th ou gh t and m ale stu d y and m ale activity w as not
m uch appreciated. W e w ere told that w e w e re m aking th in gs w o rse
for certain grou ps of m en, especially fo r black men. Before the
fem inist m ovem ent, rape w as treated by politically p rogressive people
as a com plete figm ent o f a w om an 's im agination or as a ven gefu l,
reactionary, racist effo rt to d estroy som ebody else or as an act o f
personal vengeance. T h e distinction I am m aking h ere is v e ry
im portan t because rape is real. T h e selective use of the identity of the
rapist has been false. T h a t is a stagg erin g ly d an gero u s piece of
inform ation, because w h en w e look especially at w h ite m ale an ger
w ith fem inists for dealing w ith rape at all, w e find that suddenly for
the first time in the h istory o f this co u n try w h ite m en w e re included
in the catego ry of potential rapists. S om ebody w as o nto their gam e at
last. T h e y did not like it. It is precisely the w h ite liberals w h o h ave
been saying that th ey have been figh tin g u niversally fraud u len t
claims against black m en all th ese years w h o w e re m ost stubborn in
refu sin g to understand that rape w as real and that rape w as
com m itted by all kinds and classes o f m en, including them. T h e y w e re
perpetu ating the racist stereotypin g b y refu sin g to ack n o w led ge that
all kinds of m en do rape, thus leaving black m en as the rapists in the
public mind.
W e frequ en tly find o u rselves in these d an gero u s and difficult
situations because w e are challenging not only p o w e r— and p o w er is
serious, p o w er is im p ortan t— but notions o f reality w ith w h ich people
have becom e com fortable even th o u g h th e y protest them . It is not
true th at because people protest a condition th ey really w a n t to see it
elim inated. It is an u gly but basic fact o f life that too freq u en tly
protest is a form o f attach m en t to a condition, and w h e n you
elim inate the condition, you elim inate the fu n ction that the person
has created for him self. T h e ultim ate goal o f fem inism is to m ake
fem inism unn ecessary. A nd th at m akes fem inism d ifferen t from
o th e r political m ovem en ts in this co u n try .
C o n n ected w ith forced sex is forced pregn an cy. A s a radical
fem inist, one is co n stan tly accused of m an y things: h atin g m en, for
instance, but also not k n o w in g a n yth in g. People say, well, if you on ly
k n e w this you w ou ld n 't think that. I think that I m ust be the o nly
w o m an alive w h o at o v e r the age o f th irty has been taken aside by
people, radical people, kindly people, so that th ey could explain to m e
h ow the sperm unites w ith the egg so that I could understand the
basis of sexuality and reproduction and w h y this system in w hich w e
now live is essential for our continued survival. So w hat can you do?
W hen people keep telling you that you don't understand som ething,
you have to try to understand it. So I tried to understand it, and it led
to an astonishing conclusion: because w hen the sperm and egg unite
there is the possibility o f fertilization and a baby can be born, it doesn't
m atter w h eth er the sex act w as volun tary or involuntary. T h e
pregnancy does not depend on the consent of the w om an to sex; it
only depends on the act taking place, the act of intercourse. Th en look
at w hat w e know about w om en and forced sex. W e kn o w that
possibly fifty percent of married w om en are or have been battered.
We kn o w that rape is endemic, that incest is endem ic. W e kn o w that
w om en get pregnant a lot, all the time. W e kn o w that w om en are
blamed fo r their pregnancies w hen th ey w an t to term inate them; w e
k n o w that w om en are held responsible for sex all the time w h eth er
they are responsible or not. W e k n o w that all the responsibility for
the child will ultim ately rest on the w om an. She will feed it, she will
clothe it, she will decide through her behavior w h eth er the child lives
or dies. She is the one w h o will be responsible for the child's life.
I am not going to talk about reproductive rights now; I w ant to talk
about abortion, only abortion. Killing is central to it: the killing that
takes place in forced sex. T h e killing is in sex that is forced, and every
single syn on ym for sex in this society says so. All the w ords. Killing
me softly; violation: all the w ords that have to do w ith sex are hostile
w ords, dangerous words, so-called dirty words. T h e w ord vagina
m eans sheath. All the pornographic im agery has to do w ith hostility:
and there are w eapons, knives, the use o f the penis as a w eapon. W e
didn't do this; fem inists didn't do this. W e are not responsible for
creating it, but w e are m aking people face it. So the practical reality is
that as long as sex is forced on w om en, w om en m ust have the right to
abortion, absolutely, no m atter w h at it m eans, no m atter w h a t you
think it m eans.
A bortion is also ideologically central to understanding w om en's
condition. W hat abortion m eans to w om en is the absolute righ t to
control the reproductive functions of o u r o w n bodies. T h ere are
o th er reproductive rights w e need: not to be sterilized against o ur will
as is happening system atically in som e populations because o f race
and class (sex being the precondition). B ut abortion is the sym bol o f a
w o m a n s life: and that is because w h en abortion w a s criminal in this
co u n try, w o m en died in h u ge nu m bers, and w o m en died horrible,
horrible deaths. D eath by criminal abortion w a s death by torture.
D eath by putrefaction. G a n g ren o u s death. D ra w n -o u t bleeding-to-
death. T h at is w h at it w as like and that is w h y the w o m en w h o lived
th ro u gh it will n ever give up on the stru ggle for the total
decrim inalization o f abortion, free fun ding, the absolute availability
of safe abortion for all w o m en . W hich brings us to m on ey. N o w
w o m en w ith m on ey g et abortions w h en th ey w a n t them and w o m en
w ith o u t m on ey do not. W om en as a class are poor. W om en w h o w o rk
earn fifty-six to fifty-n ine cents on the dollar to w h a t m en g et for
com parable w ork. T h ese figu res are im portant. T h e y really m atter.
W om en g et 100 percent of the pregnancies, bu t o n ly half the dollar.
O n e o f the reasons that w o m en are kept in a state o f econom ic
d egradation — because t h a t 's w h a t it is fo r m ost w o m e n — is because
that is the best w a y to keep w o m en sexu ally available. W e can also
talk about the w a y capitalism is organized , the w a y m ultinationals
w o rk , the w a y cheap labor is exploited by exploiting all kinds o f people
on the basis o f race and class; bu t the fact o f th e m atter is th at w h e n
w o m en are econom ically dependent, w o m en are sexually available.
W om en have g o t to sell se x — at hom e, at w o rk; and som e w o m en
only h ave sex to sell because th ey a re kept illiterate and untrained and
because w o m en are paid so little fo r "h o n est" w o rk a n y w a y .
System atic econom ic debasem en t tu rn s e v e ry w o m an in to a w o m an
w h o can be b ou ght, a w o m an w h o will be b o u gh t, and it is b etter to be
a w o m an w h o has a high m arket value.
Instead o f h aving a direct relationship to real w o rk , and being able
to g o o u t and earn m on ey (and h avin g the sam e econom ic and political
responsibilities for the econom ic system and its exploitation o f
w o rk ers in general that m en have) w o m en w o rk fo r pittances and
b arter sex. Equality across sex m eans equal blessings and equal
responsibilities, including equal econom ic and political responsibilities
fo r the econom ic system . Equal pay fo r equal w o rk w o u ld m ean, too,
th at w o m en w o u ld begin to break a w a y sexu ally fro m m en in a w h o le
host o f w ays. T h is has n othing to do w ith being straigh t o r being gay.
It has n oth in g to do w ith an y o f the propaganda against the w o m e n s
m o vem en t that says w e hate m en, w a n t to d estro y them , castrate
th em — I can't even think o f all the things w e are supposed to w ant to
do to them once w e can do w h a tever w e w ant. Every w om an lives
w ith a knife in her kitchen; every w om an can do w h at she w ants right
now . But the assertion o f independence is a lot m ore com plex, isn't it?
It really m eans that you have to take som e responsibility for you r life,
and a lot of w om en's problem s are tied up w ith the enforced
dependence on m en that w e are forced to develop. Som e of that is
expressed in sexual neediness; som e o f it is expressed in self
denigration. And even if none of that applies, the fact o f the m atter is
that if you w an t to be an econom ically solvent w om an in this society,
you had damn well better be attached to a m an— if not in you r hom e,
then in the workplace. Som ew h ere. If you don't have that connection
som ew h ere you are in a lot of trouble.
T h e econom ic exploitation of w om en as a class m eans that w e have
to sell sex and that m akes us, as a class, not irrationally view ed as
prostitutes by m en w h eth er they call us prostitutes or not. A lot of
the law s that w e deal w ith are based on the assum ption that a w om an
will sell herself to anyon e for anything. If you have a gro u p of people
w h o are poor enough, the likelihood is that th ey will, and m any
w om en are poor enough. W hen you have endem ic sexual harassm ent
in the workplace, it is based on the presum ption that the w om an is
there as a sexual being and is by h er nature som e kind of a
p rostitu te— she will give sex for m on ey or she will give sex for
em ploym ent. T h at is part o f w h at she is for. T h at is part of w h at she
is.
In M inneapolis on D ecem ber 12 and 13, 1983, the M inneapolis C ity C ouncil held
hearings that established the centrality of pornography in sexual abuse as experienced
by w om en along the w hole continuum of forced and hostile sex acts imposed classically
on fem ales. T h e proof is n ow all in one place, and it is irrefutable
It is a total non sequitur to me, but som e people feel that w e are left
w ith questions about freedom of speech. Som e people think that
questions about freedom of speech are a logical political response to
w hat I have just said about harm . T h ey do not mean the freedom of
speech of the victims; they mean the freedom of speech of the porno
graphers. Say som ething about pornography and som ebody says,
"w h at about freedom of speech? " Well, w hat about freedom of
speech? W ho has it? Who has it? W here does it begin? I say it begins
w ith the incest victim; I say t h a t 's w h ere it begins. It begins w ith that
child w h o is captive in that hom e w h o cannot say no. O r freedom of
speech m ight begin on a pool table in N e w Bedford: freedom of
speech m ight begin w ith the w om an gang-raped on the pool table in
public. Her freedom of speech: did she have any? A bou t six w eeks
before that gang rape took place, Hustler had precisely, precisely, the
sam e gan g rape. It w as in the January issue: on a pool table, in the
sam e kind o f bar, everyth ing in that lay-out is w h a t happened in that
bar. Coincidence? A copy-cat rape? W e n o w have as part o f o ur social
fabric and virtual public policy the public celebration o f rape. People
go to films to celebrate rape. People say that the fact that Linda
M archiano, w h o w as kn ow n as Linda Lovelace, w as beaten and raped
and forced to make Deep Throat doesn't m atter. Deep Throat is m ore
im portant. Deep Throat is speech. W e need Deep Throat, right? T h e fact
that som eone w as held in captivity and terrorized in order to make
the film is not supposed to diminish the im portance o f the film to our
freedom . M aybe free speech begins w ith Linda M archiano.
T h e First A m endm ent w as w ritten by w hite m en w h o w ere
literate and w h o ow ned land. M an y o f them ow ned slaves and m any
of them ow ned w om en. It w as illegal to teach slaves to read o r w rite,
and none o f them w orried about the First A m endm ent. T h e First
A m end m ent w as w ritten by those m en because literacy and
ow nership of property w ere linked. Literacy w as a sign o f upper-class
pow er. T h e First A m endm ent w as w ritten to preserve that pow er.
N o w it protects a d ifferent kind o f pow er, a m ore vu lgar pow er. It is
not an aristocratic power. It is the pure p o w er o f m oney. It is the
pimp's pow er. T hat is w h at it does now . It does not em p o w er w om en.
It does nothing for us w h en w e w rite o u r books, w h en w e sing our
songs. It w as never intended to, and if w e're concerned about
freedom o f speech, w hat w e have to do is to find a w a y to get it.
Fem inists have asked— just pro fo rm a — the A C L U (A m erican C ivil
Liberties Union) to help us. W e've said, 'lo o k , w o m en are excluded
historically and econom ically from a n y possible participation in this
media w orld that costs so m uch m on ey. A n d so are blacks. A nd so are
Hispanics. A nd so are o th er dispossessed people in this co u n try. W hat
about o u r righ ts to speech? H o w do w e g et th e m ? " T h e A C L U
defen ds the corporations. T h e y defen d N B C ; th ey d efen d the o w n e rs
of n ew sp apers to print w h a t th ey w an t. T h e y do not d efend y o u r
right o r m y right to be heard in those places. T h e y defen d the righ ts
o f the ow ners to decide w h a t will o r will n ot be said. W e need a political
approach to civil liberties in this co u n try — not a liberal, sentim ental,
nonsensical approach. W h ere is p o w er? W h o has it? W h o has
freed om o f expression ? W hat does it m ean? W h at does it am o u n t to?
H o w does it w o rk out in real life? W ho does the State com e d o w n on
and w h y ? A nd w h o are the people so dispossessed that the State
doesn't even w o r ry about them ? The State con trols those
dispossessed people in o th e r w ays. I say to yo u as a w rite r and as a
w o m an that literacy, w ritin g a book, speaking h ere before y o u , are
signs o f trem en dou s privilege. T h ese are not co m m o n righ ts w e can
all exercise.
W e all w a n t to think o f o u rselves as individuals. W e all w a n t to
think that o u r qualities m ake a d ifferen ce in the w o rld , and it is a
brutal thing to find o u t that because y o u 're a w o m an , o r because
y o u 're black, o r because yo u 're Jew ish, o r because y o u are a n y th in g
else, because o f y o u r condition o f birth, certain exp ression s o f
individuality are closed o ff to you.
M an y w o m en rebel against fem inism because m an y w o m en thin k
w e are the o n es insisting th at th eir full h u m an u niqu en ess can n ot be
exp ressed because th ey are w o m en . W e are the brin gers o f the
terrible m essage. W e fo u n d this out by being w o m e n in th e w orld . W e
w a n t to ch an ge it. T h is is not a condition im posed by a political
m ovem en t. T h is is a condition im posed b y m ale su prem acy. T h a t is
w h a t w e w a n t to ch ange, so that each individual can be h erself, need
not co n form to a definition o f h er fu n ctio n and a definition o f h er
bo dy and a d efinition o f her w o rth that has n o th in g w h a tso e v e r to do
w ith h er personally. S o m etim es, th o u g h , the political m o v em en t
against m ale su p rem acy is co n fu sed w ith m ale su p rem acy itself, as if
w e're the o n es w h o are telling y o u , "becau se y o u are w o m e n , y o u 're
going to have to do this and this and this. " W e're reporters. W e re
telling you that because you re w o m en you live in this world I'm
describing, and that the only w a y to do anyth in g about it is to take
som e political responsibility for its existence and to w o rk collectively
together, which never m eans the abandonm ent o f you r integrity as
individuals. It also never m eans the abandonm ent of com m on sense
or com m on decency. If it does, there is som ething w ro n g w ith the
w a y you are going about organizing against w h at it is t h a t 's upsetting
you and m aking you angry and exploiting you and h urting you.
T h ere is nothing that fem inists w an t m ore than to becom e
irrelevant. W e w ant the end of the exploitation of w om en; but as long
as there is rape— as long as there is rape— there is not going to be any
peace or justice or equality or freedom . Y ou are not going to becom e
w hat you w an t to becom e or w h o you w an t to becom e. Y ou are not
going to live in the world you w an t to live in. And so you have to
organize an agenda. I don't have an agenda. M y agenda is everyth in g I
can think of, everything I think o f doing, all the time: m ovem ent,
m ovem ent, physical and intellectual and political confrontations with
power. Y ou have to w rite the picket signs, march, scream, yell, w rite
the fucking letters. It's you r responsibility to you rselves and to o th e r
w om en.
T h ere is one thing that is not practical, and it's the thing I believe in
m ost, and that is the im portance o f vision in the m idst o f w h at has to
be done, never forgetting for one m inute the w orld that you really
w an t to live in and h o w you w an t to live in it and w h at it m eans to you
and h o w much you care about it— w h at you w an t for yourselves and
w h at you w an t for the people that you love. E veryw h ere in this
co u n try n o w people are told to be com placent because change is
impossible. C h an ge is not impossible. It is not impossible. M an y
things have to be changed in the world. It is n o w time to change the
condition o f w om en, finally and absolutely and for all time. T h at is m y
agenda, and I thank you fo r listening.
Margaret Papandreou:
An American Feminist in Greece
W
m il it a r y
An acronym for the Panhellenic Socialist M ovem ent, the party Founded by Andreas
Papandreou.
w a s a farm er there. He w a s o bviously trying to u n d erstan d these
things. A nd he raised his hand a fterw ard and he said, "But you said I
should stay hom e w ith the baby. " He put his hands o ut, like this, you
kn ow : "H o w could I hold that baby, I mean w h a t could I— ? " He w as
stru gglin g to understand h o w he could hold a baby. He couldn't
fath om it. So there's a wall.
A.D.: W hat do y o u hope for, realistically, organ izin g w o m en in the
n ext decade?
M.P.: First o f all, I hope to raise the level o f consciousness on this
w h o le issue. A n d I think this is being done. From then on, I believe as
w o m en understand the sources o f their oppression, th ey understand
also their need to stru gg le against it. T h a t m eans th ey will unite m ore
and m ore, join som e kind o f g ro u p — th ey don't h ave to join ours.
W hat I'd like to see is that th ey g et active w ith organizations. T h at,
then, is a m ovem ent. I believe that this is happening and I believe that
it is g ro w in g — D u rin g this visit to the States I am goin g to the
United N ation s w h e re o u r g o v ern m en t represen tative th ere is going
to sign the international resolution fo r the abolishm en t of
discrim ination against w o m en , w h ich the fo rm er G reek g o v e rn m e n t
refused to ratify and sign . t So w e h a ve accepted a kind of
international fra m e w o rk for the w h o le question o f discrim ination
against w o m en .
T h e changing o f attitud es and traditions will be a long, long thing,
and to m e that's the m ost difficult o f all. I don't expect to see it in m y
lifetim e. But legally w e can do som e th in gs now— and w e will do them .
This was a speech given at the Midwest Regional Conference of the National
Organization for Changing Men in the fall of 1983 in St Paul, Minnesota.
One of the organizers kindly sent me a tape and a transcript of my speech. The
magazine of the mens movement, M ., published it. I was teaching in
Minneapolis. This was before Catharine MacKinnon and I had proposed or
developed the civil rights approach to pornography as a legislative strategy. Lots
of people were in the audience who later became key players in the fight for the
civil rights bill. I didn't know them then. It was an audience of about 500 men,
with scattered women. I spoke from notes and was actually on my way to
Idaho— an eight-hour tripeach way (because of bad air connections) to give a one-
hour speech on A rt— fly out Saturday, come back Sunday, cant talk more than
one hour or you'll miss the only plane leaving that day, you have to run from the
podium to the car for the two-hour drive to the plane. Why would a militant
feminist under this kind of pressure stop off on her way to the airport to say hi to
500 men? In a sense, this was a feminist dream-come-true. What would you say
to 500 men if you could? This is what I said, how I used my chance. The men
reacted with considerable love and support and also with considerable anger.
Both. I hurried out to get my plane, the first hurdle for getting to Idaho. Only one
man in the 500 threatened me physically. He was stopped by a woman
bodyguard (and friend) who had accompanied me.
In Seattle, a judge ordered the police force to enforce laws against "domestic
violence," i.e. wife-battery. As a result, police began arresting any wom an w h o fought
back or resisted marital rape. O n e wom an was arrested because she had scratched her
husband's face when he tried to force sex on her. T he police claim they have no choice:
if they m ust enforce these laws that they do not w ant to enforce, they m ust enforce
them against any spouse w h o commits any act of violence. This is one example of how
the legal system w orks to make reform s meaningless and wom en's rights ludicrous.
United States), m ore rarely prosecuted, and convictions are unusual
and unlikely. T h is is because juries v ie w the w o m an as responsible for
the sex act, no m atter h o w abu sive it is. T h e w o m a n s sexual h isto ry is
explored to convict h e r o f being w anton: any sexual experience is
used to sh o w that h er n atu re is responsible fo r w h a t happened to her,
not the m an w h o did it.
T h e right to rape as a m ale righ t o f dom inance is n ever the issue in
rape cases. H istorically, rape w a s considered a crim e against th e m an
to w h o m the w o m an belonged as chattel: h er husband or h er father.
In her husband's house, she w a s private property. In her fath er's
h ouse, she w a s a virgin to be sold as such to a husband. Rape w a s
rath er like stealing a car and sm ashin g it in to a tree. T h e value o f the
p rop erty is hurt. If th e w o m an w a s already dam aged g oo d s— not
private en o u g h as p rop erty before the rapist g o t hold o f h er— or if she
consented (a corpse could m eet the legal standard fo r co n sen t in a
rape case)— th en the p u tative rapist w a s not responsible fo r h er lo w
value and he w o u ld not be convicted o f rape. T h e w o m an as a
separate hu m an being w ith righ ts o v e r h er o w n body does not exist
under traditional rape law s. T h a t is w h y fem inists w a n t rape law s
changed: so th at rape is a crim e against the w o m an raped, not her
keeper. T h e d ifficu lty in accom plishing this is unpleasantly simple:
the injuries o f rape to a h u m an being are self-evident; but th e injuries
o f rape to a w o m an are not injuries at all— th ey are sexual ev e n ts that
she probably liked, even initiated, no m atter h o w badly she is h u rt,
w o m en being w h a t w o m en are.
In try in g to understan d violence against w o m en , one m u st
con sisten tly look at h o w law s w o rk , not at w h a t th ey say, to see
w h e th e r th ey in fact fu rth e r violence against w o m en , regulate it (for
instance, by establishing som e conditions u nd er w h ich violence is
condoned and o th ers u nd er w h ich it is discouraged), o r stop it. U nder
male dom ination, law virtually a lw ays fu rth e rs or regu lates violence
against w o m en by keepin g w o m en su bordin ate to m en, a llo w in g or
en cou ragin g violence against at least som e w o m en all the tim e, and
holding w o m en responsible fo r the violence done to us w ith its
doctrinal insistence th at w e actually p rovoke violence and g e t sexual
pleasure fro m it.
The fem inist fig h t against violence against w o m en is also
necessarily a fig h t against m ale law: because th e w a y the law really
w o rk s— in rape, battery, prostitution, and incest— w om en are its
victim s.
T h e state, then, keeps w om en available to m en for abuse— that is
one of its functions. T h e dom inance of men over w om en through
violence is not an u nfortu n ate series o f accidents or m istakes but is
instead state policy, backed by police pow er.
N ew experim ental research in the United States show s that films show ing extrem e
and horrific violence against wom en that are not sexually explicit sexually stimulated
nearly a third of the men w h o watched them. T h e films are called "splatter" films. T h ey
are made from the point of view of the killer as he stalks a female victim. She ends up
splattered. T he researchers told me that they could not construct a film scenario of
violence against w om en that did not sexually stimulate a significant percentage of male
viewers.
access to it is limited, because ev ery form o f sexual abuse is implicated
in it and it is implicated in ev ery form o f sexual abuse; and it is
apprehended by m en as pure pleasure.
In the United States, perhaps th ree-qu arters o f the w o m en in
p orn ography are incest victim s. W om en are recruited th ro u gh being
raped and beaten. Forced sex is filmed; so is torture, g an g rape,
battery; and the film s are used (as blackm ail, sexual hum iliation, and
threat) to keep n e w w o m en in prostitution. O n ce season ed /
prostitu tes are used in film s as th eir pim ps d eterm ine. Rapes o f
w o m en w h o are not prostitutes, not ru n a w a y children, not on the
streets to stay, are film ed and sold on the com m ercial po rn ograp h y
m arket. P orn o graph y has actually introduced a profit m otive into
rape. W om en in po rn ograp h y are penetrated by anim als and objects.
W om en are urinated on and defecated on. All of these th in gs are done
to real w o m en in porn ograph y; then the po rn ograp h y is used so that
these acts are com m itted against o th er real w o m en .
T h e w o rth lessn ess o f w o m en as h u m an beings is en tirely clear
w hen it is understood that p o rn o g rap h y is a form o f m ass
en tertain m en t, in the U nited States n o w gro ssin g an estim ated eight
billion dollars a year. M en , the prim ary con su m ers of po rn ograp h y,
are entertain ed b y th ese acts o f sexual abuse.
T h e lives o f w o m en are circum scribed by the terrorism of
p orn ograph y, because it is the distilled y e t en tirely trivialized terro r of
rape, b attery, incest, tortu re, and m u rd er— w o m en are objects, not
hum an, assaulted and h u rt, used in sex, because m en w a n t and like
sexual dom inance. P orn o g rap h y is the p rostitu tion of th e w o m en in
it, and it is a m etaphysical definition o f all w o m en as w h o re s b y
nature; so it is also the te rro r o f being bo rn to be used, traded, and
sold. T h e substance o f this terro r— its details, its am biance— is the
pleasure, is the en tertain m en t, fo r the m en w h o w atch . It is hard to
im agine h o w m uch th e y hate us.
It is also difficult to u nderstand how absolutely, resolutely
in d ifferen t to o u r rights th ey are. Y e t these m en w h o like to see us
* All quotes from Burke are from Reflections on the Revolution in France (1789).
superseded in im portance the rights of existing g overn m en ts. T h e se
theorists "have w ro u g h t under-grou nd a m ine that will blow up, at
one grand explosion, all exam ples o f antiqu ity, all precedents,
charters, and acts o f parliam ent. T h e y have 'rig h ts of m en/ A gain st
these there can be no prescription: against these no arg u m en t is
b in d in g ... I have noth ing to say to the clu m sy subtilty o f their
political m etaphysicks. " In B u r k e s m ore agile m etaphysics, h ered itary
rights w ere transm itted th ro u gh a h ered itary cro w n because th ey
had been before and so w ou ld co ntinu e to be. B urke provided no basis
for evaluating the quality or fairness of the rights o f "th e little platoon
w e belong to in society" as opposed to the rights o f o th er little
platoons: to adm it such a necessity w ould not be loving o u r little
platoon en ough. T h e h ered itary cro w n , B urke su ggests, restrains
dictatorship because it gives the king obeisance w ith o u t m aking him
figh t fo r it. It also inhibits civil conflict o ver w h o the ruler will be. T h is
is as close as B urke g ets to a su bstan tive explanation of why righ ts and
m on archy are inextricably linked.
Liberties are described as property: "an entailed inheritance, " "an
estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom , w ith o u t a n y
referen ce w h a te v e r to a n y o th er m ore general or prior righ t. " T h e
feudal righ t to p rop erty is in fact the unim peachable right, and
liberties are seen to depend on the secu rity o f prop erty. A lo n g w ith
prop erty, appropriate liberties are passed from gen eratio n to
generation: liberties apportioned by o n e s relationship to p rop erty.
T h is is the essen ce o f a stable social order. A n y freed om that w o u ld
challenge or d estroy the prim acy and sanctity o f inherited p rop erty
w as freedom outside the bounds o f "m anly, m oral, regulated lib erty. "
Burke noted that in the N ational A ssem b ly "liberty is a lw ays to be
estim ated perfect as p rop erty is rendered in secu re. " His o w n view
w as the opposite.
Religion w a s instru m ental in keeping a society civilized, w ell-
ordered, m oral. M orality w as in fact an acceptance o f the social o rd er
as G o d -given . T h e atheism of the French revolution aries and natural
rights philosophers w as perverse, an aberration: "W e k n o w , and it is
o u r pride to k n o w , that m an is by his co n stitu tio n a religious anim al;
that atheism is against, not only o u r reason but o u r instincts; and that
it cann ot prevail lo n g . " T h e institutional ch u rch provided occasions
for som ber expression s of acquiescence: and the institutional ch u rch
w as the vehicle of a m orality that w as both absolute and congruent
w ith the existing social order. B u rk e s religion had nothing to do with
the com passionate side of m orality; it had to do w ith p ow er and
m oney. In a special fren zy of repugnance he insisted that the
Jews— through the French R evolution— w ere attem pting to destroy
the C h u rch o f England. M ore com m only, he likened the despised
French rabble to Jews. T h e religion Burke upheld w as the religion of
A nglo-Saxon pow er, the religion of king and property.
Implicit in all the above positions and explicitly articulated as such
w as B u rk es contem pt for dem ocracy. D em ocracy, he held, w as
syn on ym ous w ith tyrann y or led inevitably to it. In dem ocracy he
discerned true oppression. " O f this I am certain, " he w ro te, "that in a
dem ocracy the m ajority o f citizens is capable of exercising the m ost
cruel oppressions upon the m inority. " C ru el oppressions did not
trouble him if th ey w ere exercised on a m ajority by a well-dressed,
elegant m inority ("To make us love our cou ntry, o ur co u n try ough t
to be lovely"). He objected to the m ajority itself, not its num bers so
m uch as its nature: "w hat sort of a thing m ust be a nation o f gross,
stupid, ferocious, and, at the sam e time, poor and sordid barbarians,
destitute of religion, honour, or m anly pride, possessing nothing at
present, and hoping for nothing h ereafter? " His view of M arie
A n toin ette had a d ifferent tone: "I th ou ght ten thousand sw ords
m ust have leaped from the scabbards to aven ge even a look that
threatened her w ith insult. " Equality m eant that "a king is but a man,
a queen is but a w o m an , " w hich w as even m ore degrading than it
w ould seem on the surface because "a w om an is but an animal; and an
anim al not of the highest order. " Equality then w as particularly bad
luck for a queen. Equality also m eant that "the m urder of a king, or a
queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only com m on hom icide. " Equality
m eant the end o f the w orld as Burke kn ew it, the end o f king, church,
property, and entailed liberties, the end o f "m anly" pride and "m anly"
liberty. But Burke w as a shade too pessimistic. "M an ly" pride and
"m anly" liberty have survived every revolution so far. Equality has
not yet destroyed all Burke's w orld.
T h e Right has not changed m uch since Burke w ro te. It still defends
au th o rity, hierarchy, property, and religion. It still abhors egalitarian
political ideas and m ovem ents. It still doesn't like Jews.
In the United States there n ever w as a king, but there w e re m any
obvious su rrogates in w h o m im perial p o w er w as vested: from
slaveholder to husband. T o d ay the au th o rity the Right d efends is the
"m an ly" au th o rity o f the President, the P entagon, the FBI and C IA ,
police p o w er in general, the m ale religious leader, and the husband in
the m ale-dom inated fam ily. T h e O ld R ight w as co n ten t to defend the
"m an ly" au th o rity o f the m ilitary, the police, oligarchal racist
legislators, a stron g (even if corrupt) ch ief execu tive, and the U S A as a
su perpow er. It took m ore privatized expressions of "m an ly" a u th o rity
en tirely for granted. T h e N e w R ight, w h ich arose in reaction to the
W o m e n s M ovem en t, is distinguished from the O ld R igh t by its
political m ilitancy on so-called social issu es— w o m e n s rights,
abortion, and hom osexu ality, fo r instance. T h e N e w R igh t has
particularly em phasized the im portance o f the a u th o rity o f the
husband and the androcentric church. A u th o rity itself is seen as male,
and the rebellion o f w o m en th reaten s au th o rity as such w ith
dissolution. In N e w R ight logic, an y w eaken in g o f the h u sb a n d s
a u th o rity o ver the w ife is a w eaken in g o f au th o rity per se, a
w eak en in g o f the a u th o rity of the nation and the institutions that
properly g o v e rn it.
In the U nited States, the h ierarch y the R ight defen ds is rich o ver
poor, w h ite o ver black, m an o ver w o m an . T h e re is a freq u en tly
articulated belief that social inequality sim ply exp resses natural or
G o d -g iven differences; that h ierarch y is unchangeable. It is
freq u en tly argued that those w h o w a n t equality w a n t to ch ange "th e
n atu re o f m an . " Stalin's m ass m urders are freq u en tly pointed to as
the logical co nsequ ence o f tryin g to forge a classless society, a society
that repudiates h ierarchy.
C lass as such fu n ction s d ifferen tly in the United States than it does
in England. In the U nited States there is no feudal history. T h e re are
no aristocrats. O n e can n ot be titled in the U nited States and also be a
citizen. T h ere is great m obility from class to class: both u pw ard and
d o w n w a rd . C h a n g e o f class can occu r in a generation. M o n ey and
p rop erty d eterm ine class, individual to individual: it is not a statu s
passed on from gen eratio n to generation; it is not necessarily familial.
M o n e y and p rop erty ch a n g e hands w ith m ore fluidity and freq u en cy
than in co u n tries w ith a feudal history. T h e ruling class in th e U nited
States, the small n u m b er o f fam ilies w h o control m ost o f the real
w ealth, has no relationship at all to kings or landed aristocracy: these
people are ruthless, self-m ade m erchants w h o are pow erful because
th ey control capital; they have no cultural, em otional, genetic, or
historical claim to being elite or noble. In the United States people do
not habitually becom e w h a t their parents w ere. People m ove
frequently, so there is little sense of influence being handed dow n.
In the United States race fixes one's "class" status m ore certainly
than any oth er factor. V irulent w hite suprem acy determ ines that
black unem ploym ent passes from generation to generation: also
inherited are illiteracy, poverty, isolation in ghettos, and life lived on
the m argins o f survival. T h e w h ite middle class is h uge, encom pass
ing about eighty percent of w hites. M ovem en t into it is not difficult
(compared w ith any analogous m ovem ent in England or Europe) for
w hites. "M iddle class" is determ ined by m on ey m ore than by kind of
labor— though this could be argued. O n e could say that m any
w orking-class m en (especially skilled laborers) tend to have middle-
class children (monied, educated). Blacks do not have this same
mobility: and there is a black lumpen, at a dead end o f possibility, w h o
inherit despair in an oth erw ise vigorous society. It is not possible to
o verstate h o w racist the so-called class structure in the United States
actually is.
In the United States, the Right's defense o f property includes, for
instance, the recent cam paign to keep the Panama C anal as United
States property. T he R ight sees United States econom ic and military
im perialism as a necessary defense of United States property
interests— w h eth er the property is V iet Nam or El Salvador. T h e
United States has property w h ere the United States does business,
w h e rev er that is. O il that the United States needs rests on United
States property w h erev er it happens to be. Europe is United States
property if the United States w an ts to base missiles there. A n y place
the Soviets are— including any barren rock in A fg h an istan — is United
States property w aiting to be rescued from foreign invasion. United
States property includes the m ultinational corporation, the factory,
and the sw eatshop. W om en and children are also property: fenced in,
guarded, frequ en tly invaded.
Religion is fundam entalist, orthodox, essential to the Right's
political agenda. T h e m oral order and the social order are supposed to
m irror each other: authority, hierarchy, and prop erty are G od -given
values, not to be com prom ised by secular hum anists, atheists, or
liberals w h o have perverse ideas about equality. In the United States,
religion is a political arm o f the N e w Right. A ntiabortion political
action is organized in churches; g ay rights legislation is d efeated by
religious leaders organ izin g against sin; equal rights legislation for
w o m en is opposed on theological grou n d s. T h e husband is likened to
C h rist, and legislation is introduced in the United States C o n g re ss to
see that the simile becom es en forceable public policy. Battered
w o m en are called "ru n a w a y w iv es" w h en th ey do get a w a y and are
denounced for being insufficiently subm issive: escape is im m oral.
Sexually harassed w o m en are faulted fo r not being "v irtu o u s. "
D epictions o f m en and w o m en in school books are supposed to
co n form to fundam entalist dicta fo r m en and w om en: the w ife is to be
sh o w n in the full splendor o f her d om esticity. T h e fam ily is intended
to be a feudal unit in this political passion play: and religion is a
fu n dam ental and politically effective tool in this program of dom estic
repression and social control.
In the United States, the R ight is especially concerned w ith
opposing equality as a social goal. It stands against w h a t M arg aret
Papandreou has called "th e dem ocratic fam ily, " a fam ily not based on
the subordination of w o m en but instead on equality, cooperation, and
reciprocity. It stands against all program m atic effo rts to achieve racial
and econom ic equality. It stands against sex equality as idea and as
practice. It seeks to d estro y a n y m ovem en t, program , law , discourse,
o r sentim en t that w ou ld end, injure, or u nderm ine m ale dom inance
o v e r w o m en .
T h e co n tem p o rary R ight in the U nited States is B u rke th ro u gh and
th rou gh : au th o rity, h ierarchy, prop erty, and religion are w h a t it is
for; d em ocracy is w h a t it is against. It is eig h te e n th -ce n tu ry
co n servatism alm ost w ith o u t revision. Except. Except that it has
m obilized w o m en , w hich B u rke did not do in the eigh teen th cen tu ry.
Except that it has succeeded in o rgan izin g w o m en into rig h t-w in g
activists. Except that it has succeeded in g ettin g women as women
(w om en w h o claim to be acting in the interests of w o m en as a group)
to act e ffectively in behalf o f m ale a u th o rity o ver w o m en , in behalf of
a h ierarch y in w h ich w o m en are su b servien t to m en, in beh alf of
w o m en as the righ tfu l p rop erty o f m en, in beh alf of religion as an
expression o f tran scen den t m ale su prem acy. It has succeeded in
gettin g w om en to act effectively against their o w n dem ocratic
inclusion in the political process, against their o w n civil equality,
against any egalitarian conception of their o w n w orth. This book
accepts a fairly orthodox definition o f righ t-w in g values and ideas (as
outlined in this preface) and asks w h y w om en are prom oting those
values and ideas, since the auth ority they are defending consistently
degrades them , the hierarchy th ey are defending puts them on the
bottom , the right to property they are defending deprives them of full
hum an standing, the religion th ey are defending insists that they
m ust subject them selves to petty and often violent tyranny, and the
equality they oppose is the only rem edy. W h y do right-w ing w om en
agitate for their o w n subordination? H o w does the Right, controlled
by m en, enlist their participation and loyalty? And w h y do right-w in g
w om en tru ly hate the fem inist struggle for equality?
O n e fem inist w riter has called this book "a subtle discourse on
com plicity. " T h e com plicity is not limited to w om en on the organized
Right. A prem ise o f this book is that righ t-w in g w om en are w om en
w h o accept the legitim acy o f sex hierarchy, male authority, and
w om en as property in any w a y no m atter w h at th ey call them selves.
T h e sam e definition o f "righ t-w in g" obtains fo r m en. T h e question
then m ay w ell be: can anyone find the Left?
A ndrea D w orkin
N e w Y ork C ity
February 1983
T HE NEW
T E R R O R I S M
This is the first speech I ever gave that dealt exclusively with the subject of
pornography. Maybe seventy-five students heard it at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst in the dead of winter, early 19 7 7. They mobilized on
the spot to demonstrate against the pornography being shown on campus: a film
advertised in the school newspaper (see T h e P o w e r o f W o rd s for more
information about this newspaper) that had been brought on campus by a man
who had just been arrested for beating the woman he lived with. Do you know
how badly she had to be hurt for him to be arrested back in 19 77? I gave this
speech on lots of college campuses and in every case students organized to do
something about pornography after hearing it. In December 1 9 7 8 , 1 gave it at a
conference at the New York University Law School. A news story in T h e N ew
Y o rk T im e s noted that people rose to their feet, many crying, and that one
famous civil liberties lawyer walked out, refusing to listen. After that, within the
month, T h e N ew Y o rk T im e s published two editorials quoting from this
speech and denouncing feminists for being "overwrought"and "strident." I wrote
a response (see F o r M e n , F reed o m o f S p e e c h ; F o r W o m e n , S ile n ce
P lease) but T h e N ew Y o rk T im e s refused to publish it. According to the
reporter who wrote the news story, it became T im e s policy not to cover
newsworthy events involving feminists opposing pornography because such
coverage would "hurt the First Amendment." We were pretty effectively
boycotted by the T im e s , the so-called newspaper of record. We know a lot more
now about how pornography hurts women, why it is so pernicious; but this speech
was a conceptual breakthrough that helped change the terms of the argument.
The new terms mobilized women to action.
l l t h r o u g h h u m an history, there h ave been terrible, cruel
A w rongs. T h ese w ro n gs w ere not com m itted on a small scale.
T h ese w ro n g s w ere not rarities or oddities. T h ese w ro n gs have raged
o ver the earth like w in d-sw ept fires, m aim ing, destroying, leaving
hum ans turned to ash. Slavery, rape, torture, exterm ination have
been the substance o f life for billions of hum an beings since the
beginning o f patriarchal time. Som e have battened on atrocity w hile
oth ers have suffered from it until they died.
In any given time, m ost people have accepted the cruellest w rongs
as right. W hether through indifference, ignorance, or brutality, m ost
people, oppressor and oppressed, have apologized for atrocity,
defended it, justified it, excused it, laughed at it, or ignored it.
T h e oppressor, the one w h o perpetrates the w ro n g s for his ow n
pleasure or profit, is the m aster inventor of justification. He is the
magician w ho, out of thin air, fabricates w ondrous, imposing,
seem ingly irrefutable intellectual reasons w hich explain w h y one
grou p m ust be degraded at the hands of another. He is the conjurer
w h o takes the sm oking ash o f real death and turns it into stories,
poem s, pictures, w hich celebrate degradation as life's central truth.
He is the illusionist w h o paints m utilated bodies in chains on the
interior canvas of the im agination so that, asleep or aw ake, w e can
only hallucinate indignity and outrage. He is the m anipulator of
psychological reality, the fram er of law, the engineer of social
necessity, the architect o f perception and being.
T h e oppressed are encapsulated by the culture, laws, and values of
the oppressor. T h eir behaviors are controlled by law s and traditions
based on their presum ed inferiority. T h e y are, as a m atter of course,
called abusive nam es, presum ed to have low or disgusting personal
and collective traits. T h e y are alw ays subject to sanctioned assault.
T h e y are surrounded on ev ery side by im ages and echoes of their ow n
w orthlessness. Involuntarily, unconsciously, not know in g anything
else, th ey have branded into them , burned into their brains, a
festering self-hatred, a virulent self-contem pt. T h ey have burned out
o f them the militant dignity on w hich all self-respect is based.
O ppressed people are not subjugated or controlled • by dim
w arnings or vague threats of harm . T h eir chains are not m ade of
shadow s. O ppressed people are terrorized— by raw violence, real
violence, unspeakable and pervasive violence. T h eir bodies are
assaulted and despoiled, according to the will of the oppressor.
T h is violence is a lw ays accom panied by cultural assau lt—
propaganda disguised as principle o r know led ge. T h e p u rity o f the
" A ry a n " or C aucasian race is a favo rite principle. G en etic inferiority is
a favorite field o f know led ge. Libraries a re full of erudite texts that
prove, beyond a sh ad ow o f a doubt, that Jews, the Irish, M exicans,
blacks, h om osexuals, w o m en are slime. T h ese eloquent and
resou rcefu l proofs are classified as psychology, th eology, econom ics,
philosophy, history, sociology, the so-called science o f biology.
Som etim es, often , th ey are m ade into stories or poem s and called art.
D egrad ation is dignified as biological, econom ic, o r historical
necessity; or as the logical consequence o f the repulsive traits or
inh eren t lim itations o f the ones degraded. O u t on the streets, the
propaganda takes a m ore vu lga r form . Signs read "W h ites O n ly " or
"Jews and D o g s N o t A llo w ed . " H isses o f kike, nigger, qu eer, and
pussy fill the air. In this propaganda, the victim is m arked. In this
propaganda, the victim is targeted. T h is propaganda is the glo ve that
co vers the fist in an y reign o f terror.
T h is propaganda does not o n ly sanction violence against the
designated group; it incites it. T h is propaganda does not only threaten
assault; it prom ises it.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims to protect rights, political dissenters,
and the vitality of political and creative discourse. The organization, in my view,
is exceptionally corrupt, a handmaiden of the pornographers, the Nazis, and the
Ku Klux Klan. Only the pornographers give them lots of money. The Nazis and
the Klan they help on principle. It's their form of charity work. I didn't
understand this in 1981. I thought something was wrong but I wasn't exactly
sure what. I wrote this piece to try to raise a real debate about the values and
tactics of the ACLU . Forget it, folks. The A C L U is immune to criticism because
virtually none gets published— none on the Left. I couldn't get this piece published
but I did get some mean— even handwritten— letters from left, progressive, and
libertarian editors expressing their disgust with my "contempt" for free speech.
Speech is what I do; it ain't free; it costs a lot. This piece has never been published
before.
This is especially about the boys of the Sixties, boys my age, who fought against
the Viet Nam War. The flower children. The peaceniks. The hippies. Students
fora democratic society. Weatherboys. Draft resisters. Draft dodgers. Draftcard
burners. War resisters. Conscientious objectors. Yippies. We women fought for
the lives of these boys against the war machine. They fight now for pornography.
In demonstrations we said: " Bring the War Home." The war is home.
I
When they arrived at the place God had pointed out to him, Abraham built
an altar there, and arranged the wood. Then he bound his son Isaac and
put him on the altar on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand
and seized the knife to kill his son.
Genesis, 22:9-10
M central place for death, let its rancid smell contam inate
ev e ry dim ension of w h a tev er still survives. M en especially love
m urder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they com m it it. T h e y
em brace m urder as if life w ith o u t it w ould be devoid of passion,
m eaning, and action, as if m urder w ere solace, stilling their sobs as
th ey m ourn the em ptiness and alienation o f their lives.
M ale history, rom ance, and adven tu re are stories of m urder, literal
or m ythic. M en o f the right justify m urder as the instrum ent of
establishing or m aintaining order, and men o f the left justify m urder
as the in stru m ent o f effectin g insurrection , a fter w hich th ey justify it
in the sam e term s as m en on the right. In male culture, slow m urder is
the heart of eros, fast m urder is the heart o f action, and system atized
m urder is the heart o f h istory. It is as if, long, long ago, m en m ade a
coven an t w ith m urder: I will w o rsh ip and serve you if you will spare
me; I will m urder so as not to be m urdered; I will not b etray you, no
m atter w h a t else I m ust betray. M u rd er prom ised: to the victor go the
spoils. T his coven an t, sealed in blood, has been renew ed in ev ery
generation.
A m o n g m en, the fear o f being m urdered causes m en to m urder.
T h e fathers, w h o w an ted their o w n likeness lifted from the th igh s of
laboring w o m en , w h o w an ted sons, not d au gh ters, at som e point
recogn ize that, like w retch ed K in g M idas, th ey h ave g o tten their w ay.
T h ere before them are the sons w h o are the sam e as th ey, sons w h o
will kill for pow er, sons w h o will take e v ery th in g from them , sons
w h o will replace them . T h e sons, clay sculpted but not yet fired in the
kiln, m ust kill or be killed, depose the tyra n t or be gro u n d to dust, on a
battlefield o r u nder his feet. T h e fath ers are the divine architects of
w a r and business; the sons are a sacrifice of flesh, bodies slaughtered
to redeem the dim inishing virility o f the aging o w n e rs o f th e earth.
In A m erika, the m ost recent sacrifice o f the sons w as called V iet
N am . A s A brah am obeyed the G od created to serve his o w n deepest
p sych osexual needs, raised the knife to kill Isaac w ith his o w n hand,
so the fath ers o f A m erika, in obedience to the State created to serve
th em , sated th em selves on a blood feast o f m ale you n g.
T h e sons w h o w e n t w e re obedient apprentices to the fath ers. W ar
had fo r them its m ost ancient m eaning: it w ou ld initiate them into the
co ven an t w ith m urder. T h e y w ou ld appease their terrible fa th ers by
su bstitu tin g the dead bodies o f o th er sons fo r their o w n . Each son of
an o th er race that th ey killed w ou ld stren g th en th eir alliance w ith the
fath ers o f their o w n . A n d if th ey could also m u rd er w ith o u t being
m urdered and kill in th em selves w h a te v e r still sh u n ned m urder, then
th ey m ight h ave the fa th e r s blessing, be heir to his dom inion, ch an ge
in m idlife fro m son to father, becom e one o f the p o w e rfu l ones w h o
ch o reograp h w a r and m anipulate death.
T h e sons w h o did not g o declared o u trigh t a w a r o f rebellion. T h e y
w ou ld rou t the fath er, van quish him , hum iliate him, d estroy him.
O v e r the grave of the fresh killed father, feeding on the new cadaver,
w ould flo w er a brotherhood of you n g virility, sensual, w ith ou t
constraint, and there w ould be w a r no m ore.
Still, this innocence kn ew terror. T h ese rebels had terror m arked
indelibly in their flesh — terror at the treachery o f the father, w h o had
had them sanctified, adored, and fattened, not to crow n them king of
the w orld, but instead to m ake them ripe fo r slaughter. T h ese rebels
had seen them selves bound on the altar, knife in the father's hand
com ing tow ard them . T h e father's cru elty w as aw esom e, as w as his
m am m oth pow er.
II
Noah, a tiller of the soil, was the first to plant the vine. He drank some of
the wine, and while he was drunk he uncovered himself inside his tent.
Ham, Canaans ancestor, saw his father's nakedness, and told his two
brothers outside. Shem and Japheth took a cloak and they both put it over
their shoulders, and walking backwards, covered their father's nakedness;
they kept their faces turned away, and did not see their father's nakedness.
When Noah awoke from his stupor he learned what his youngest son had
done to him. And he said: "Accursed be Canaan. He shall be his brothers'
meanest slave."
Genesis, 9:20-25
You must not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your
father's nakedness.
Leviticus, 18:8
You must not uncover the nakedness of your fathers sister; for it is your
father's flesh.
Leviticus, 18:12
IV
In A m erika, a fte r the V iet N am w ar, this happened.
T h e rebellious sons w e re no lon ger carefree boys, w ildly flushed by
the d iscovery o f th eir penises as in stru m en ts o f pleasure. T h e y had
seen the m u rd er spaw ned b y the fath ers com in g tow ard them ,
pu rsu ing them , en com passing them . T h e y had been chasten ed and
hardened, stu nn ed and fixed in the m em ory o f a single horror: th e
fath er had bound th em on the altar; the father's hand, clutching the
knife, w as com in g tow ard them .
T h e rebellious sons had g o tten older. T h eir penises too had aged,
experienced im potence, failure. T h e capacity of the nin eteen-year-old
boy to fu ck at will w a s no lo n ger theirs.
T h e rebellious sons, as the fath ers m ight h a ve prophesied, had
experienced a n o th er loss, a consequ ence o f th eir prideful sacrilege:
th ey had profaned the penis b y u n co verin g it, ripping fro m it the
effectiv e protection of m ystery and taboo; those colonialized by it had
seen it w ith o u t m ystification , experienced it raw , and th ey had
organ ized to d estroy its p o w er o ver them . T h e sons, vain and
narcissistic, did not recognize or respect the revolutionary militance
o f the w om en: they kn ew only that the w om en had left them,
abandoned them , and that w ith ou t the supine bodies of w om en to
firm up the earth under them , they had no w h ere to put their feet.
T h e v e ry earth beneath them betrayed them , turned to quicksand or
dust.
T h e sons, dispossessed, did have a choice: to bond w ith the fathers
to crush the w om en or to ally them selves w ith the w om en against the
tyran n y o f all phallic pow er, including their ow n.
T h e sons, faithful to the penis, bonded w ith the fathers w h o had
tried to kill them . O n ly in this alliance could they m ake certain that
th ey w ould not again be bound on the altar fo r sacrifice. O n ly in this
alliance could th ey find the social and political p ow er that could
com pensate them for their w anin g virility. O n ly in this alliance could
th ey gain access to the institutionalized brute force necessary to
reven ge them selves on the w om en w h o had left them.
T h e perfect vehicle for forging this alliance w as pornography.
T h e fathers, no strangers to pornography, used it as secret ritual.
In it they intoned chants of w orship to their o w n virility, som etim es
only a m em ory. T h ese chants conjured up a prom ised land w h ere
male virility never w aned, w h ere the penis in and of itself embodied
pure pow er. T h e fathers also used porn ography to m ake m oney. In
their system , secret vice w as the alchem ists gold.
U sing the rhetoric of the you ths th ey no longer w ere, the sons
claimed that porn ography w as pleasure, all the w hile turning it to
profit. Proclaim ing a creed o f freedom the sons made and sold im ages
o f w o m en bound and shackled. Proclaim ing the necessity and dignity
o f freedom , the sons made and sold im ages of w om en hum iliated and
m utilated. Proclaim ing the u rgen t h on or of free speech, the sons used
im ages o f rape and tortu re to terrorize w om en into silence.
Proclaim ing the absolute integrity o f the First A m endm ent, the sons
used it to brow beat w o m en into silence.
T h e sons w a n t their share o f the father's empire. In return, they
o ffe r the fath er this: n ew aven ues o f m aking m oney; n e w m eans of
terrorizin g w o m en into subm ission; n ew m asks to protect the penis.
T h is time, the sons will m ake the m asks. T h e cloth will be liberal
jargon about censorship; the thread will be such pure violence that
w o m en will avert their eyes.
T h e sons have already allied them selves w ith one sector of
fa th ers— organized crim e. Still spouting anticapitalist, liberationist
platitudes, th ey h ave not hesitated to becom e the filth th ey denounce.
T h e o th er fath ers will follo w suit. T h e secret fear o f incestuous
rape is still w ith them , and it is intensified by the recognition that
these sons h ave learned to turn pleasure to profit, profligacy to
pow er.
In p orn ograph y, the rebellious sons h ave discovered the keys to the
kingdom . Soon th ey will be sitting on the throne.
For Men, Freedom of Speech;
For Women, Silence Please
forced w ithdraw al, th ey argue that fem inists really m ust shut up
about porn ography— w h at it is, w h a t it m eans, w h at to do about
it— to protect w h a t th ey call "freedom of speech. " O u r "strident" and
"o v erw ro u g h t" antagonism to pictures that sh o w w om en sexually
violated and hum iliated, bound, gagged, sliced up, tortured in a
m ultiplicity o f w ays, "offen ds" the First A m endm ent. T h e enforced
silence o f w om en th rough the centuries has not. Som e elem entary
observation s are in order.
T h e C o n stitu tio n o f the United States w as w ritten exclusively by
w h ite m en w h o o w n ed land. Som e o w n ed black slaves, male and
fem ale. M an y m ore ow n ed w h ite w o m en w h o w e re also chattel
T h e Bill o f R ights w a s n ever intended to protect the civil or sexual
rights o f w o m en and it has not, except occasionally by accident:
The Equal R igh ts A m en d m en t, w h ich w ou ld , as a polite
a fte rth o u g h t, exten d equal protection under the law such as it is to
w o m en , is not y et part o f the C o n stitu tio n . T h ere is good reason to
d ou bt that it will be in the foreseeable fu tu re.
T h e g o v ern m en t in all its aspects— legislative, execu tive, judicial,
en fo rce m en t— has been com posed alm ost exclu sively o f m en. Even
juries, until v e ry recently, w e re com posed alm ost en tirely o f m en.
W om en h a ve had virtually n o th in g to do w ith eith er form u latin g or
applying law s on obscenity o r a n yth in g else. In the arena o f political
pow er, w o m en h ave been e ffectively silenced.
Both law and p o rn og rap h y express m ale contem p t fo r w o m en :
th ey h ave in the past and th ey do n ow . B oth express en d u rin g m ale
social and sexual values; each attem pts to fix m ale beh avior so that
the su prem acy o f the m ale o v e r the fem ale w ill be m aintained. T h e
social and sexu al valu es o f w o m en are b arely discernible in the cu ltu re
in w h ich w e live. In m ost instances, w o m en h ave been deprived o f the
o p p o rtu n ity even to fo rm u late, let alone articulate o r spread, values
that contradict those o f th e male. T h e attem pts that w e m ake are
both punished and ridiculed. W om en o f su prem e stren g th w h o h ave
lived in creative opposition to the m ale cultural values o f th eir day
h ave been w ritten o u t o f h isto ry — silenced.
Rape is w idespread. O n e characteristic o f rape is that it silences
w o m en . L aw s against rape h ave not functioned to protect the bodily
in tegrity o f w o m en ; instead, th e y h ave punished som e m en fo r using
w o m en w h o belong to som e o th er m en.
B attery is w idespread. O n e characteristic o f b attery is that it
silences w o m en . L aw s against b a ttery h a ve been, in their application,
a m alicious joke.
T h e re is not a fem inist alive w h o could possibly look to the m ale
legal system fo r real protection fro m the system atized sadism o f m en.
W om en fig h t to refo rm m ale law , in the areas o f rape and b a ttery for
instance, because so m eth in g is b etter than nothing. In general, w e
figh t to force the law to reco gn ize us as the victim s of the crim es
com m itted against us, but the resu lts so far h ave been paltry and
pathetic. M eanw hile, the men are there to counsel us. We m ust not
dem and the conviction of rapists or turn to the police w hen raped
because then w e are "prosecutorial" and racist. Since w hite men have
used the rape law s to imprison black m en, w e are on the side of the
racist w h en w e (wom en of any color) turn to the law. T h e fact that
m ost rape is intraracial, and m ore prosecution will inevitably mean
the greater prosecution o f w hite m en fo r the crim es they com m it, is
supposedly irrelevant. (It is, of course, suddenly very relevant w hen
one recognizes that this argum ent w as invented and is being
prom oted by w hite men, significantly endangered for perhaps the
first tim e by the anti-rape m ilitancy o f w o m en . ) W e are also
counselled that it is w ron g to dem and that the police enforce already
existing law s against battery because then w e "sanction" police en try
into the hom e, which the police can then use for o th er purposes.
Better that rape and battery should continue unchallenged, and the
law be used by som e m en against o ther men w ith no reference to the
rightful protection of w om en. T h e counsel o f men is consistent:
m aintain a proper— and respectful— silence.
Male counsel on pornography, especially from leftist law yers, has
also been abundant. We have been told that pornography is a trivial
issue and that w e m ust stop w asting the valuable time of those
guarding "freedom of speech" by talking about it. We have been
accused of trivializing fem inism by our fu ry at the hatred of w om en
expressed in pornography. W e have been told that w e m ust not use
existing law s even w h ere they m ight serve us or invent n ew ones
because w e will inevitably erode "freedom of speech"— but that the
use of violence against pu rveyors o f pornography or property w ould
not involve the same hazards. O th ers, less hypocritical, have
explained that w e m ust not use law; w e m ust not use secondary
boycotts, a civil liberties N o-N o (since w om en do not, w ith rare
exceptions, consum e pornography, w om en cannot boycott it by not
buyin g it; other strategies, constituting secondary boycotts, w ould
have to be used); w e m ust not, o f course, dam age property, nor do w e
have the right to insult or harass. W e have even been criticized for
picketing, the logic being that an exhibitor of porn ography m ight cave
in under the pressure w hich w ould constitute a dangerous precedent.
T h e m en h ave counselled us to be silent so that "freedom of speech"
will survive. T h e only lim itation on it will be that w om en simply will
not h ave it— no loss, since w o m en h ave not had it. Such a lim itation
does not 'o ffe n d " the First A m en d m en t o r male civil libertarians.
T h e First A m en d m en t, it should be noted, belongs to those w h o
can bu y it. M en h ave the econom ic clout. P ornograp h ers have
em pires. W om en are econom ically disadvantaged and barely have
token access to the media. A d efen se o f p o rn ograph y is a d efen se of
the brute use o f m on ey to en cou rage violence against a class of
persons w h o do not h a v e— and h ave n ever had— the civil rights
vou ch safed to m en as a class. The g ro w in g p o w er of the
p orn ographers significantly dim inishes th e likelihood that w o m en
will ev er experience freed om o f a n y th in g — certainly not sexual self-
determ ination , certain ly not freed om o f speech.
T h e fact o f the m atter is that if the First A m en d m en t does not
w o rk fo r w o m en , it does not w o rk. W ith th at prem ise as principle,
perhaps th e good law yers m igh t vo lu n tarily put a w a y the d irty
pictures and fig u re out a w a y to m ake freed om o f speech the reality
for w o m en that it already is fo r the literary and visual pimps. Y es,
th ey m ight, th ey could; bu t th ey will not. T h e y h ave th eir priorities
set. T h e y k n o w w h o co u n ts and w h o does not. T h e y k n o w , too, w h a t
attracts and w h a t really offen ds.
Pornography and Male Supremacy
1981
This speech was given at a conference of women law students and lawyers held at
Yale University Law School in March 1980. In it I discuss throat rape briefly,
for the first time. Gloria Steinem and I each had independent sources that had
seen women dead in hospital emergency rooms from this kind of rape. They would
not come forward. I agonized about whether to talk about throat rape at all.
Gloria had written an article that said women were being raped this way, but it
hadn't been published yet. I did say it, citing it to Gloria's forthcoming article. I
can't tell you how horrible it was— the night before— to try to figure out whether
in discussing this new rape one somehow had a role in spreading it. One has to
tell women. Otherwise only the rapists know about it. But in an exploitative
society, to bring a new form of rape into the spotlight is a sickening responsibility.
I had been raped this way, and s o l felt especially responsible and especially sick.
This piece has never been published before.
N ote that the fem ale quickly learns to love w h a t is done to her: in
fact, she becom es greedy. T his th em e is im portant. In pornography, a
w om an is forced, she is horribly hurt; and the greater the force and
the m ore terrible the pain, the g reater is her sexual desire and
gratification. She becom es greed y fo r m ore pain, m ore force, m ore
abuse, because that is her true nature. A n y behavior or attitude on
h er part that is not greed for pain and force is presented as pretense or
sexual ignorance.
Neil M alam uth and James C h eck , tw o psychologists at the
U n iversity o f M anitoba in Canada, have isolated w h a t they call "the
belief in victim pleasure" as an essential factor in the arousal of the
male. ("Penile T u m escen ce and Perceptual R esponses to Rape as a
Function of V ictim s Perceived R eactions, " June 1979, p. 21.
M an u script. ) T h eir stu d y is but one of a host o f n ew and
conscientious studies that do d em on strate a significant connection
b etw e en exp o su re to po rn ograp h y and aggression against w om en.
A ccordin g to M alam uth and C h eck , "[th e male] subjects w e re
considerably m ore sexually aroused to a rape depiction in w h ich the
victim w as perceived b y the rapist to becom e involu ntarily sexually
aroused than w h en she co n tin u o u sly abhorred the assau lt. " (pp.
2 0 -21) A lso, m en w h o believed in victim pleasure w e re m ore likely to
w a n t to rape, to report that th ey w ou ld rape if th ey could be certain of
not being cau gh t or punished. M alam u th and C h e ck point o u t that
this inform ation is especially significant because n u m erou s studies
h ave sh o w n that m an y actual rapists believe that their victim s did
experience pleasure no m atter h o w badly th ey w e re hurt.
In all p o rn ograp h y, the "belief in victim pleasure" is fun dam ental
and o verw h elm in g . P orn o grap h y effectiv ely en cou rages and pro
m otes rape by en cou ragin g and prom otin g this belief, this lie, about
the pleasure o f the victim in being forced and hurt. T h e pin-ups are
foreplay; th ey sh o w the w o m an w ith the open invitation. T h e rest of
p o rn og rap h y sh o w s w h a t she invites: bondage, pain, and acts of
forced sex inseparable from acts of ex tre m e brutality. N ow
p o rn og rap h y sh o w s w o m en loving and adorin g th roat rape; n o w
increasing n u m bers o f real w o m en m ay be d yin g from it.
W om en m istakenly think that p o rn og rap h y is largely built on the
good girl/bad girl or the M ad onna/w hore them e. W ith rare
excep tions, it is not. It is built on the w h o re/w h o re them e. N o
p ostu rin g of the fem ale ultim ately contradicts h er g ree d y desire to be
used and h u rt. T h e sexual insatiability o f the fem ale m eans that she
cann ot really be abused, no m atter w h a t is d one to or w ith her. A b u se
m eans the m isuse o f som eone. T h e abused person is credited w ith
h avin g a will, an ethic, o r rights that h ave been violated. T h e fem ale
cann ot be abused so long as the use m ade o f h e r is sexu al w ith in the
m ale valu e system , because h er pu rpose on this earth is to be used
sexu ally and h er fu n dam en tal n atu re as defined by m en requires
ra p e, bondage, and pain. This sexual insatiability also m eans that the
male m ust use, and is alw ays justified in using, any form of
dom ination in order to control the female. O th erw ise her sexuality
will d evour him.
T h ere is pornography in which the w om an is sadistic. This type of
pornography illustrates for men the consequences of losing control
o ver w om en. In such pornography, a male falls prey to a sadistic
w o m an — w h o has w hip in hand and spiked heels planted firm ly in his
scrotum — because o f a failure o f m asculinity on his part. T h e text
often suggests that perhaps he is a faggot, or, even w orse, that in a
w eak m om ent he has sim ply failed to be cruel en ough. Such a failure
m akes him vulnerable in the literal sense o f the w ord, m eaning
subject to assault. T h e sadistic w om an punishes him for not being
sufficiently male. In the end, a really m asculine man inevitably
m anages to rape and beat the h eretofore uppity w om an, and he does
so w ith such stunning brutality that she finally learns her proper
place. T h e sadistic w om an is often labeled a fem inist, an A m azon, or a
W om en's Libber. She, too, in the end, loves being raped and
hum iliated and hurt. T h e independent w om an, the fem inist w om an,
the professional w om an, and, of course, the lesbian w om an, are all
sh ow n to be sh rew s w h o are tru ly happy only in captivity and w h o
are sexually fulfilled only through force, pain, and unrelenting penile
penetration.
W hich brings me, rather reluctantly, to the politics of the penis.
W om en cannot discuss pornography as if w e are all just plain folks, as
if a sex caste system based on the centrality and superiority o f the
penis did not exist.
In pornography, the penis is characterized as a weapon: sw ord,
knife, scissor, gun, pistol, rifle, tank, various instrum ents o f torture,
steel rod, cattle prod; and all these w eapons are used in place of the
penis or in conjunction w ith the penis. A n y th in g is used as a penile
w eapon that can be used, including telephones, pistol hair dryers,
bottles, dildos, live snakes, and so forth . T h e w om an 's sex organs are
characterized as dirty and sm elly and treacherous, w hich apparently
justifies the disgust and contem pt implicit in ram m ing all th ese things
into her. W hile male poets and psychologists obsessively conjure up a
sentim ental return to the w om b, m en's porn ography su ggests a
m ilitary assault, the w o rst excesses o f police brutality, o r the kind of
annihilation associated w ith racist and im perialist program s of
exterm ination.
M en, not fem inists, h ave assigned this value to the penis. T h e y
control the language and the porn ography, and this valuation of the
penis is evident in ev ery area of m ale culture, not only in
porn ograph y. In the com m onplace vocabu lary o f both rom ance and
sex, conqu est and possession are central. T h e penis conqu ers and
possesses; the penis distinguishes the m ale con qu eror from the
fem ale conquered.
P orn ography does not exist to effect som eth in g as va g u e as so-
called erotic interest or sexual arousal; it exists specifically to provoke
penile tum escen ce o r erection. In m ale-suprem acist culture and in
m ale-suprem acist sexuality, the penis is a carrier o f aggression, a
w eapon, the standard-bearer of m ale identity, the p roo f and the
m easure o f m asculinity.
T h e use o f the penis to con qu er is its norm al use. In the m ale
system , rape is a m atter o f d egree. T h e w ise m en of the cu ltu re posit
that the male, properly developed, is essen tially sadistic in his
sexuality, the fem ale m asochistic in hers. So-called norm al sex occurs
w h e n the norm al sexual aggression of the m ale m eets the norm al
m asochism of the fem ale not in an alley. M ale con qu est o f the fem ale is
constru ed to be norm al and properly com m onplace. In this co n text,
p o rn ograp h y does not express a deviant value system . O n the
co n trary, it both expresses and prom otes the valu es and ethics o f
m ale su p rem acy— that system based on the prim acy o f the im perial
penis. T h e penis in p o rn ograp h y is the penis in rape is the penis in sex
is the penis in history.
W om en cann ot discuss p o rn og rap h y as if the p h otograph s o f
fem ale genitalia exist fo r som e o th e r purpose than to enable m en to
experience the p o w er of the penis. W om en cann ot discuss
p o rn og rap h y as if antagonism , hostility, aggression , and a conviction
o f su perio rity w e re absent fro m the penile p o w e r experienced by m en
on view in g depictions o f fem ale genitalia. W om en cann ot discuss
p o rn o g rap h y as if the penile p o w er experienced by m en on view in g
depictions o f w o m en splayed, tied up, being fucked, being h u rt, m eant
noth ing. W om en cann ot discuss p o rn ograp h y as if it existed apart
fro m male su prem acy, in w h ich th e penis is the d eterm in an t of
superiority. W om en can n ot discuss p o rn og rap h y as if it existed apart
from the sexual colonization of the fem ale, in w hich the penis is the
prim ary instrum ent of conquest and aggression. W om en cannot
discuss pornography as if the penis w ere not still being used on a
m assive scale as a w eapon against w om en.
For centuries w om en as a class have rem ained basically
unresponsive to the penis as a pu rveyor of sexual pleasure. Those
unpoliticized w o m en — m ore often called frigid or prudes— you kn ow
the litany o f epithets— understand that the issue is not their pleasure
but their conquest. He takes her; he takes a w ife.
I said that I w as som ew hat reluctant to address this issue at all. It is
not an easy thing to do. Feminists have been vilified for introducing
the subject o f the penis as a necessary political issue. A n exam ple of
the kind of insult that greets our raising of this issue is this unsigned
passage from the M arch Playboy— you k n o w Playboy, that pro-
w om an, pro-fem inist m agazine:
For the past decade, the penis has been getting a lot of bad press. One
feminist wrote derisively: "We can stimulate ourselves or be stimulated by
other women as well as men can stimulate us, because that unique male
offering, the phallus, is of peripheral importance, or may even be
irrelevant to our sexual satisfaction. " Well, sit on my face, bitch. (Playboy,
"Books," vol. 27, no. 3, March 1980, p. 41)
I have sex with my girlfriend often and we both enjoy it. However,
something is missing. I want her to talk dirty. I want her to say things like:
"I want to feel your giant cock in my pussy!" or "Cram your prick in and
screw me!" We love each other very much and I've tried talking to her. I
know she would do it if she could, and she wants to talk dirty, but when
she tries, nothing comes out of her mouth and she gets upset with herself.
What can we do?
Playboy's a n s w e r is this:
Obviously, your girlfriend thinks that love means never having to say
Cram your prick in and screw me!" She should be reminded o f her civic
duty. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression— verbal, if
not physical. (We have a hard time separating the two.) ("The Pla y b o y
Advisor," Playboy, vol. 27, no. 3, March 1980, p. 51)
T h ese tw o passages from Playboy— "W ell, sit on m y face, bitch"and
"C ram y o u r prick in and screw m e! "— provide an an atom y o f the
situation. T h e coercion of the fem ale is centered on g ettin g h er to
h ave phallocentric sex. Fem inists challenge the politics, the ethics,
even the efficacy o f this sexual institution, and the a n sw er is "W ell, sit
on m y face, bitch. " In this sam e value system , the First A m en d m en t
m eans that the w om an , a n y w om an , had better be prepared to say
w h a te v e r the male w a n ts to hear, especially that w h ich enables him
to h eighten his sense o f penile pow er. A nd m ost im portant, his First
A m en d m en t m eans that his right to d eterm ine h er verbal expression
is inseparable from his right to determ ine h er physical expression.
A s m ight be expected, porn ographers also m anipulate the im age of
the fem inist: she is the sadistic w o m an w h o m u st be tam ed, the
expendable w o m an w h o can be viciously insulted even as the m e n s
m agazine professes its advocacy o f w o m en 's rights, the vicious prude
w h o is castrating in h er hatred o f m en and sex. She is also, by
im plication, the lesbian w o m an w h o a rro gan tly believes that sexual
gratification does not depend on the penis. In p orn ograph y, w o m en
h ave sex to g eth er to excite and please the m ale. Forcing w o m en to
h ave sex to g eth er is one m eans o f hum iliating w om en. T h e real
lesbian, w h o has sex w ith w o m en w ith o u t referen ce to the m ale or to
the penis, is view ed by the p orn ograph ers as an implacable en em y.
T h e goal o f p o rn ograp h y, finally, is to uphold and stren g th en m ale
sexual prerogatives; to perpetu ate and en erg ize m ale sexual values
and practices based on the su prem acy o f the penis, based on
sexualized aggression and hostility to the fem ale.
W h at w e learn from p o rn ograp h y is that this is the v e ry value
system w e m u st d estro y if w e are to be free. A nd as th e Playboy
advisor m akes clear, w o m en will n ever h ave freed om o f physical or
verbal expression so long as love or sex m eans h avin g to say "C ram
y o u r prick in and screw m e! " W e will n ever h ave freed om o f speech so
lon g as it m eans h avin g to say "C ra m y o u r prick in and scre w m e! "
R igh t n o w , "C ra m y o u r prick in and screw m e! " rep resen ts the
su m m it o f sexual and verbal freed om fo r w om en . Fem inists are the
dissen ters from this m ale-suprem acist value system . W e are the ones
w ith d ifferen t ideas, political ideas, su b versive ideas. Y et the en e rg y of
the civil liberties la w y ers as w ell as the po rn ograp h ers in th ese last
fe w years has g on e into sh u ttin g us up. T h eir a rg u m e n t is that w h e n
w e address male sexual hegem on y as expressed in and perpetuated by
porn ography— w h eth er w e do it th rou gh speaking or dem onstrating
or w ritin g— w e are endangering the speech of others. T h eir
suggested solution is that w e shut up. But our survival depends on
untangling this knot o f forced sex, o f male pleasure, o f rape as
entertainm ent and delight, of sex as hostility, of abuse as normalcy.
T h e necessity is to end the sexual colonialization of w om en.
N o w I com e back to the fact that you are law yers and legal w orkers.
W hat can you do?
First, ev ery single victory gained for w om en in the areas of rape,
battery, sexual harassm ent, lesbian rights, and reproductive rights
w o rks to establish som e expression of fem ale sexual integrity. Every
single advance in these areas w o rks to lessen the pow er of
pornographers, w h o thrive in an environ m en t w h ere the sexual
victim ization o f w om en is com m onplace and u tterly m ainstream .
Second, ev ery legal victory that results in the econom ic
em pow erm en t of w om en also dim inishes the sexual stranglehold
that men have on w om en. Economic dependence on men m eans
sexual exploitation by m en. Economic em pow erm ent m eans that
w om en do not have to barter in sex. Economic em pow erm ent w ould
m ean that poor and desperate w om en w ould not be forced to turn to
the pornographers fo r w ork.
Third, w om en m ust gain real access to the media in this country, to
com m unication, to the means of speech. We do not have a cultural
dialogue on sexual or social values: w e have a perpetual male
m onologue. T h e very existence o f porn ography derives from the
male m onopoly on speech: the centuries-old m onopoly on literature,
philosophy, science, social science, the unm itigated male control of
ideas and o f sexual ideology. P ornograph y as such could not exist in
an egalitarian society; it would not have developed as a quasi-sexual
institution if w o m en had been real participants in the form ulation of
values, if w o m en had had the p o w er to express ideas. Every area of
culture and com m unication is m ale-dom inated and m ale-controlled.
M ake no mistake: p o w er and w ealth are required to exercise freedom
of speech. In sim pler days, before films and television and
m ultinational com m unications n etw orks, w om en w ere kept illiter
ate. W om en are still th ree-qu arters o f the w o r ld s illiterates. But
w o m en are also silenced by being kept poor and being kept out. T h e
porn ographers thrive on fem ale intellectual and creative silence and
insignificance. T o fight the influence and to challenge the very
existen ce o f the porn ograph ers, you m ust find w a y s to d estroy the
m ale m onopoly on com m unications media.
Fourth, in the next several years, fem inist activists will be on the
streets d em on stratin g against porn ographers. U naccountably, there
will be w idespread vandalism against p o rn o g rap h y — against displays
o f po rn ograp h y and at points o f distribution. D efend these activists.
Fifth, in the n ext several years, fem inist w riters and activists are
likely to experience severe police h arassm en t— conspiracy charges,
police brutality, and the like. T h e police do not g o a fter porn ograph ers
w h en it is w o m en w h o are protesting; th ey g o after the w o m en .
D efen d the w o m en .
Sixth , speak out. D o not be silent or passive on the issue of
p orn ography. C o n fro n t, challenge. If necessary w alk out of fo ru m s in
w h ich yo u are insulted or threatened or treated like dirt. Especially do
not allow y o u r m ale peers in y o u r profession to define the issues for
you, to b ro w b ea t you, to talk y o u d o w n , to treat y o u as if yo u are
stupid because you refu se to accept the depiction o f sexual violence
against w o m en as cute or m eaningless or exciting or necessary. K eep
track o f the relationship of y o u r m ale colleagues to cases o f rape and
b a ttery in particular: do th ey understand the crim es? do th ey abuse
the victim s to d efend the crim inals? do th ey system atically defend
accused rapists w h o m th ey k n o w to be g u ilty? are th ey active, not
passive, in using their resou rces and talents in the interests o f w o m en
o r do th e y system atically m ake sure to be on the o th er side? D o not
allo w these issues to g o undiscussed o r undefined. In y o u r o w n w o rk
fo r w o m en , dare to take cases that m ake y o u r male colleagues sick to
death.
S even th , d efend prostitu tes, but do not allow yo u rself to be used to
defen d p rostitu tion as an inevitable social institution, one th at m u st
exist in perp etu ity because, a fter all, t h a t 's h o w people are, especially
that's h o w w o m en are.
Eighth, do n ot take m on ey from the P layboy Foundation. Playboy
m agazine has launched o n e o f the m ost sophisticated antifem inist
cam paigns e v er devised. Each m on thly issue m ou n ts a n e w attack on
fem inists w h o challen ge the sexu al su prem acy o f the m ale. T h e
Playboy Foundation hands out pim ps m oney. Pimps do not give aw ay
anyth in g out o f the goodness o f their hearts. T h e Playboy em pire is
raw male pow er, pimp power. O th e r fem inists will pay for w h at you
take.
N inth, in the next decade, along w ith the rapid spread of
pornography, violence against w om en will increase. D o not allow
those w h o com m it or endorse that violence to get a w ay w ith it— be
th ey individuals, organized crim e, police, or law yers.
T en th , if a w a y does not exist, invent one.
A s law yers, perhaps right n o w you cannot do more. But you are
also, a fter all, w om en. I hope to see you ou t on the streets getting
yo u r asses busted w ith the rest o f us.
Silence Means Dissent
1984
Feminists took over the stage at the conference to dem onstrate for reproductive
rights and lesbian rights, the denial of those rights being (in com m on with
pornography) sexual colonization.
She w en t to the police; they didn't do anything. She w en t to som e
people w h o k n e w the man; they didn't do anything. N othing,
nothing, nothing. T h at is typical. W hat he said to her w hen he tied
her up, after having raped her and having started photographing her
w as, "Sm ile or 111 kill you. I can get lots of m oney fo r pictures of
w o m en w h o smile w h en they're tied up like you . "
I w a n t you to think about the w a y w om en smile. I w an t you to
think about it every m inute of every day, and I w a n t to suggest to the
m en in this audience, in particular, that you had better be afraid of
w o m en w h o learn to smile at you that w ay.
Against the Male Flood:
Censorship, Pornography,
ana Equality
1985
Early in 1 9 8 4 , 1 was asked to write an essay on the civil rights law recognizing
pornography as sex discrimination that Catharine A . MacKinnon and I had
conceived and the Minneapolis City Council had passed on December 30, 1983.
A chief-editor, a student (all law school reviews are edited by students), went to
considerable effort to persuade me to do this, especially promising no interference,
his quid pro quo for no money and a tiny circulation. I worked for many months
on my essay and then the boy-editor, who had lost his manners in the interim,
refused to publish it unless I took out points, themes, connections, insights,
sentences, and paragraphs. I had a screaming fight with this boy in his early
twenties who told me what I could and couldn't say as a writer. I refused to change
it; he refused to publish it. Women law students at Harvard took pity on me, and
this essay was published in the H arv ard W o m e n s Law Jo u rn a l late spring
1985. They were pretty intrusive too. I made changes I regret. Why did I have to
run this gauntlet to get this essay into print? Misogyny, stupidity, and the
arrogance of children aside, this editing business has gotten out of hand; it has
become police work for liberals.
To s a y w h a t o n e t h o u g h t — th a t w a s m y little p r o b le m — a g a in s t th e
p r o d ig io u s C u r r e n t ; to fin d a s e n te n c e th a t c o u ld h o ld its o w n a g a in s t th e
m a le flo o d .
V ir g in ia W o o lf
I w a n t to s a y r ig h t h e r e , th a t th o s e w e ll- m e a n in g fr ie n d s o n th e o u ts id e
w h o s a y th a t w e h a v e s u f fe r e d th e s e h o r r o r s o f p ris o n , o f h u n g e r s trik e s
and forcible feeding, because we desired to martyrise ourselves for the
cause, are absolutely and entirely mistaken. We never went to prison in
order to be martyrs. We went there in order that we might obtain the
rights of citizenship. We were willing to break laws that we might force
men to give us the right to make laws.
Emmeline Pankhurst
1. Censorship
e n s o r s h ip is a re a l th in g , n o t a n a b s t r a c t idea o r a w o r d t h a t
C ca n b e u s e d t o m e a n a n y t h in g a t all.
In ancient Rom e, a censor w as a m agistrate w h o took the census (a
count o f the male population and an evaluation of property for the
purpose o f taxation done ev ery fifth year), assessed taxes, and
inspected m orals and conduct. His po w er o ver conduct cam e from his
p o w er to tax. For instance, in 403 B C , the censors Cam illus and
Postim ius heavily fined elderly bachelors fo r not m arrying. T h e
p o w e r to tax, then as now , w as the p o w er to destroy. T h e censor,
using the police and judicial pow ers o f the state, regulated social
behavior.
A t its origins, then, censorship had nothing to do w ith striking
d o w n ideas as such; it had to do w ith acts. In m y view , real state
censorship still does. In Sou th Africa and the Soviet Union, for
instance, w riting is treated entirely as an act, and w riters are view ed
as persons w h o engage in an act (writing) that by its very nature is
dangerous to the continued existence o f the state. T h e police in these
countries do not try to suppress ideas. T h e y are m ore specific, m ore
concrete, m ore realistic. T h e y go after books and m anuscripts
(writing) and d estroy them . T h e y g o a fter w riters as persons w h o
have done som ething that they will do again and they persecute,
punish, or kill them . T h e y do not w o rry about w h at people
th in k— not, at least, as w e use the w ord think: a m ental event, entirely
internal, abstract. T h e y w o rry about w h a t people do: and w ritin g,
speaking, even as evidence that thinking is going on, are seen as
th in gs people do. T h ere is a quality o f im m ediacy and reality in w h at
w ritin g is taken to be. W here police p o w er is used against w riters
system atically, w riters are seen as people w h o by w ritin g do
som eth in g socially real and significant, not contem plative or
dithering. T h erefo re, w ritin g is n ever peripheral or beside the point.
It is serious and easily seditious. I am o fferin g no brief fo r police states
w h e n I say that virtually all g reat w riters, crossculturally and trans-
historically, share this view of w h a t w ritin g is. In co u n tries like ours,
controlled by a bourgeoisie to w h o m the police are accountable,
w ritin g is easier to do and valued less. It has less im pact. It is m ore
abundant and cheaper. Less is at stake fo r reader and w rite r both. T h e
w rite r m ay hold w ritin g to be a life-or-death m atter, bu t the police
and society do not. W riting is seen to be a personal choice, not a social,
political, o r esthetic necessity fra u g h t w ith d an ger and m eaning. T h e
general v ie w in th ese pleasant places* is that w rite rs think up ideas or
w o rd s and then o th er people read them and all this happens in the
head, a vast cavern so m ew h ere n orth o f the eyes. It is all air, except
for the paper and ink, w hich are sim ply banal. N o th in g happens.
Police in police states and m ost g rea t w rite rs th ro u g h o u t time see
w ritin g as act, not air— as act, not idea; concrete, specific, real, not
insubstantial blather on a dead page. C en so rsh ip goes a fter the act
and the actor: the book and the w riter. It needs to d estroy both. T h e
cost in hu m an lives is staggerin g, and it is perhaps essential to say that
hu m an lives d estroyed m u st co u n t m ore in the w e ig h in g o f h o rro r
than books burned. T h is is m y personal view , and I love books m ore
than I love people.
C en so rsh ip is deeply m isunderstood in the U nited States, because
the fairly spoiled, privileged, frivolou s people w h o are the literate
citizens o f this co u n try think th at cen sorship is som e fo g g y e ffo rt to
suppress ideas. For them , cen sorship is not so m eth in g in itself— an
act o f police p o w er w ith discernible consequ ences to h u n ted people;
instead, it is about som ethin g abstract— the su ppressing or
controllin g of ideas. C en so rsh ip , like w ritin g itself, is no lon ger an act.
Because it is no lon ger the blatant exercise o f police p o w e r against
w rite rs and books because o f w h a t th ey do, w h a t th ey accom plish in
the real w orld, it becom es va g u e, hard to find, excep t perhaps as an
attitud e. It g ets used to m ean unpleasant, even a n g ry fro w n s of
"Well, you kn ow , it am azes m e . . . . " says dissident South African w riter Nadine
G ordim er in an interview . "I com e to Am erica, I go to England, I go to F ra n ce .
nobody's at risk. T hey're afraid of getting cancer, losing a lover, losing their jobs, being
insecure.. Its only in m y ow n cou ntry that I find people w h o voluntarily choose to
put everyth in g at risk— in their personal life. " Nadine G ordim er, Writers at Work, Sixth
Series, edited by G eo rge Plimpton (N ew York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1984), p 261
disapproval o r critiques delivered in harsh tones; it m eans social
disapproval or small retaliations by outraged citizens w h ere the book
is still available and the w riter is entirely unharm ed, even if insulted. It
hangs in the air, om inous, like the threat o f drizzle. It gets to be, in
silly countries like this one, w h a tever people say it is, separate from
any material definition, separate from police pow er, separate from
state repression (jail, banning, exile, death), separate from devastating
consequences to real people (jail, banning, exile, death). It is
som ething that people w h o eat fine food and w ear fine clothes w o rry
about frenetically, trying to find it, anticipating it w ith great anxiety,
arguin g it d ow n as if— if it w ere real— an argu m ent w ould m ake it go
aw ay; not know in g that it has a d ear, simple, unavoidable
m om entum and m eaning in a cruel w orld o f police pow er that their
privilege cannot com prehend.
2. Obscenity
In the nineteenth and tw en tieth centuries, in m ost o f W estern
Europe, England, and the United States, m ore often than not (time
ou t for Franco, for instance), w ritin g has been m ost consistently
view ed as an act w arranting prosecution w h en the w ritin g is
construed to be obscene.
T h e republics, dem ocracies, and constitutional m onarchies of the
W est, n o w and then, do not sm other w riters in police violence; they
prefer to pick o ff w riters w h o ann oy and irritate selectively w ith fairly
token prosecutions. T h e list of w riters so harassed is elegant, w hite,
male (therefore the pronoun "h e " is used th ro u gh o u t this discussion),
and rem arkably small. Being am ong them is m ore than a cerem onial
honor. A s Flaubert w ro te his brother in 1857: "M y persecution has
brou gh t me widespread sym pathy. If m y book is bad, that will serve
to m ake it seem better. If, on the o th er hand, it has lasting qualities,
that will build a foundation fo r it. T h ere y o u are! I am h ourly aw aiting
the official docum ent w hich will nam e the day w h en la m to take m y
seat (for the crim e of having w ritten in French) in the dock in the
com pany of thieves and hom osexu als. " 1 A fe w m on ths later that
sam e year, Baudelaire w as fined 300 francs fo r publishing six obscene
poem s. T h e y also had to be rem oved from fu tu re editions o f his book.
In harder, earlier days, Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent eight years as a
fu gitive a fter his Emile w as banned and a w a rra n t w a s issued fo r his
arrest. English cen sors crim inally prosecuted S w in bu rn e's Poems and
Ballads in 1866. T h e y w e re particularly piqued at Zola, even in
translation, so his English publisher, se ven ty years old, w e n t to jail for
th ree m onths. In 1898, a bookseller w as arrested fo r selling H avelock
Ellis' w o rk and received a suspended sentence. T h is list is rep resen t
ative, not exh au stive. W hile prosecution s o f w rite rs u nder obscenity
law s h ave created grea t difficulties fo r w rite rs already plagued w ith
them (as m ost w riters are), crim inal prosecution s u nd er o bscenity
la w in Europe and the United States are notable for h o w n a rro w ly
th ey reach w riters, h o w san gu ine w rite rs tend to be about the
consequences to th em selves, and h o w little is paid in the w riter's life
blood to w h a t D. H. L aw ren ce (w h o paid m ore than m ost m odern
W estern w riters) called "the cen so r-m o ro n . " 2 In S o u th A frica, one
w ou ld h ardly be so flip. In o u r w orld , th e w rite r g ets harassed, as
L aw ren ce did; th e w rite r m ay be poor o r n o t— the injury is
considerably w o rse if he is; but the w rite r is not terrorized or
tortured , and w rite rs do n o t live under a reign o f terro r as w riters,
because o f w h a t th ey do. T h e potsh ot application o f crim inal law fo r
w ritin g is not good, nice, o r right; b u t it is im portant to recogn ize the
relatively n a rro w scope and m arginal ch aracter o f criminal p rosecu
tion u nder obscenity law in particular— especially com pared w ith the
scope and ch aracter o f police-state censorship. R esisting obscenity
law does not require hyperbolic renderings o f w h a t it is and h o w it
has been used. It can be fo u g h t o r repudiated on its o w n term s.
T h e use o f o bscenity law s against w riters, h o w e v e r haphazard or
insistent, is cen sorship and it does hold w ritin g to be an act. T h is is a
unique perception o f w h a t w ritin g is, taking place, as it does, in a
liberal co n tex t in w h ich w ritin g is held to be ideas. It is the obscene
qu ality o f the w ritin g, the o bscenity itself, that is seen to tu rn w ritin g
fro m idea into act. W riting o f a n y kind or qu ality is idea, except fo r
obscene w ritin g, w h ich is act. W riting is cen sored, ev en in o u r o w n
h ap p y little land o f O z , as act, not idea.
W h at is obscenity, such that it tu rn s w ritin g, w h e n obscene, into
so m eth in g th at actually h appen s— ch an ges it from internal w ind
so m e w h ere in the elevated mind into a gen u in ely o ffen siv e and
u tterly real fart, noticed, rude, occasioning pinched fin gers on the
nose?
T h ere is the legal an sw er and the artistic answ er. A rtists have been
consistently pushing on the boundaries o f obscenity because great
w riters see w ritin g as an act, and in liberal culture only obscene
w ritin g has that social standing, that quality o f dynam ism and
heroism . G reat w riters tend to experience w ritin g as an intense and
disruptive act; in the W est, it is only recognized as such w h en the
w ritin g itself is experienced as obscene. In liberal culture, the w riter
has needed obscenity to be perceived as socially real.
W hat is it that obscenity does? T h e w riter uses w h a t the society
deem s to be obscene because the society then reacts to the w riting the
w a y the w riter values the writing: as if it does som ething. But
obscenity itself is socially constructed; the w riter does not invent it or
in any sense originate it. He finds it, kn ow in g that it is w h at society
hides. He looks under rocks and in dark corners.
T h ere are tw o possible derivations o f the w ord obscenity: the
discredited one, what is concealed; and the accepted one, filth. Anim als
b u ry their filth, hide it, cover it, leave it behind, separate it from
them selves: so do w e, going w a y w a y back. Filth is excrem ent: from
d ow n there. W e bury it or hide it; also, w e hide w h e re it com es from .
U nder male rule, m enstrual blood is also filth, so w om en are twice
dirty. Filth is w h ere the sexual organs are and because w om en are
seen prim arily as sex, existing to provide sex, w o m en have to be
covered: o ur naked bodies being obscene.
O bscen ity law uses both possible root m eanings of obscene
intertw ined: it typically condem ns nudity, public display, lewd
exhibition, exposed genitals or buttocks or pubic areas, sodom y,
m asturbation, sexual intercourse, excretion. O bscenity law is applied
to pictures and words: the artifact itself exposes w h at should be
hidden; it show s dirt. T h e hum an body, all sex acts and excretory acts,
are the dom ain o f obscenity law.
But being in the dom ain o f obscenity law is not enough. O n e m ust
feel alive there. T o be obscene, the representations m ust arouse
prurient interest. Prurient m eans itching or itch; it is related to the
Sanskrit fo r he burns. It m eans sexual arousal. Judges, law m akers, and
juries have been, until very recently, entirely male: em pirically,
prurient m eans causes erection. T heologian s have called this sam e
quality o f obscenity "venereal pleasure, " holding that "if a w o rk is to
be called obscene it m ust, o f its nature, be such as actually to arouse or
calculated to aro u se in the v ie w e r o r reader such venereal pleasure. If
the w o rk is not o f such a kind, it m ay, indeed, be vulgar, d isgusting,
crude, unpleasant, w h a t y o u w ill— but it will not be, in the strict sense
w h ich Canon L aw obliges us to apply, obscen e. " 3 A secular
philosopher o f po rn ograp h y isolated the sam e qu ality w h en he w rote:
"O b sce n ity is o u r nam e fo r the uneasiness w h ich upsets the physical
state associated w ith se lf-p o ssessio n ..."4
T h ro u g h o u t h isto ry, the m ale has been the standard fo r obscenity
law : erection is his venereal pleasure or the u neasiness w h ich upsets
the physical state associated w ith his self-possession. It is not
surprising, then, that in th e sam e period w h en w o m en becam e jurors,
law yers, and ju d ges— bu t especially jurors, w o m en h avin g been su m
m arily excluded fro m m ost juries until perhaps a decade ago —
obscen ity law fell into disuse and disregard. In ord er fo r obscenity law
to h a ve retained social and legal co h erence, it w ou ld h ave had to
recogn ize as part o f its standard w o m en 's sexual arousal, a m ore
subjective standard than erection. It w ou ld also h a ve had to use the
standard o f penile erection in a social en viro n m en t that w a s no lon ger
sex-segregated , an en viro n m en t in w h ich m ale sexual arousal w ould
be subjected to fem ale scru tiny. In m y view , the presence o f w o m en in
the public sphere o f legal decision-m aking has done m ore to
underm in e th e efficacy o f obscen ity law than a n y self-conscious
m ovem en t against it.
T h e act th at obscenity recogn izes is erection, and w h a te v e r
produces erection is seen to be o bscen e— act, not idea— because of
w h a t it m akes happen. T h e m ale sexual response is seen to be
in vo lu n ta ry, so th ere is no experientially explicable division b etw e en
the m aterial th at causes erection and the erection itself. T h a t is the
logic o f obscen ity law used against im portan t w rite rs w h o have
pushed against the borders o f the socially-defined obscene, because
th e y w a n ted w ritin g to h ave that v e ry quality o f being a socially
recogn ized act. T h e y w an ted the inevitability o f the response— the
social response. T h e erection m akes the w ritin g socially real from the
society's point o f view , not fro m the w riter's. W h at th e w rite r needs is
to be taken seriou sly, by an y m eans necessary. In liberal societies, only
o bscen ity law com prehen d s w ritin g as an act. It d efines the natu re
and quality o f the act n a r ro w ly — not w ritin g itself, b u t producing
erection s. Flaubert apparen tly did produce them ; so did Baudelaire,
Zola, Rousseau, Law rence, Joyce, and N abokov. It's that simple.
W hat is at stake in obscenity law is alw ays erection: under w hat
conditions, in w h at circum stances, how , by w hom , by w h at materials
men w an t it produced in them selves. M en have made this public
policy. W hy th ey w ant to regulate their o w n erections through law is
a question of endless interest and im portance to feminists.
N evertheless, that they do persist in this regulation is simple fact.
T h ere are civil and social conflicts over h o w best to regulate erection
th rou gh law, especially w h en caused by w ords or pictures.
A rgu m en ts am ong m en notw ithstanding, high culture is phallo-
centric. It is also, using the civilized criteria of jurisprudence, not
infrequen tly obscene.
M ost im portant w riters have insisted that their o w n uses of the
obscene as socially defined are not pornography. A s D. H. Law rence
w rote: "But even I w ould censor genuine pornography, rigorously. It
w ould not be d ifficu lt.. .. [Y]ou can recognize it by the insult it o ffers,
invariably, to sex, and to the hum an spirit." 5 It w as also, he pointed
out, produced by the underw orld. N abokov saw in pornography
"m ediocrity, com m ercialism , and certain strict rules o f narration.. ..
[A]ction has to be limited to the copulation o f cliches. Style, structure,
im agery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. " 6 T h ey
k n ew that w h at they did w as different from pornography, but they
did not entirely k n o w w h at the difference w as. T h e y missed the heart
o f an empirical distinction because w ritin g w as indeed real to them
but w om en w ere not.
The insult that pornography offers, invariably, to sex is
accomplished in the active subordination of w om en: the creation of a
sexual dynam ic in w hich the pu ttin g-dow n of w om en, the
suppression o f w om en, and ultim ately the brutalization of w om en, is
w h at sex is taken to be. O bscenity in law, and in w h at it does socially,
is erection. Law recognizes the act in this. P ornography, h o w ever, is a
broader, m ore com prehensive act, because it crushes a w hole class of
people th ro u gh violence and subjugation: and sex is the vehicle that
does the crushing. T h e penis is not the test, as it is in obscenity.
Instead, the status o f w om en is the issue. Erection is implicated in the
subordinating, but w h o it reaches and h o w are the pressing legal and
social questions. P ornography, unlike obscenity, is a discrete,
identifiable system of sexual exploitation that h u rts w om en as a class
b y creating inequality and abuse. T h is is a n ew legal idea, but it is the
recognition and nam ing o f an old and cruel injury to a dispossessed
and coerced underclass. It is the sound o f w o m en 's w o rd s breaking
the lon gest silence.
3. Pornography
In th e U nited States, it is an $8-billion trade in sexual exploitation.
It is w o m en turned into su bhu m ans, beaver, pussy, body parts,
genitals exposed, buttocks, breasts, m ou th s open and th roats
pen etrated, covered in sem en, pissed on, shitted on, h u n g from light
fixtu res, tortured , m aim ed, bleeding, d isem bow eled, killed.
It is som e creatu re called fem ale, used.
It is scissors poised at the vagina and objects stuck in it, a smile on
the w o m an 's face, h er to n gu e h an gin g out.
It is a w o m a n bein g fucked by dogs, horses, snakes.
It is e v e ry to rtu re in e v e ry prison cell in the w o rld , done to w o m en
and sold as sexual en tertain m en t.
It is rape and g an g rape and anal rape and th ro at rape: and it is the
w o m an raped, asking fo r m ore.
It is the w o m an in the picture to w h o m it is really happening and
the w o m en against w h o m th e picture is used, to m ake them do w h a t
the w o m an in the picture is doing.
It is the p o w er m en h ave o v e r w o m e n turn ed into sexual acts m en
do to w o m en , becau se po rn ograp h y is the p o w er and the act.
It is the conditioning o f erection and orgasm in m en to the
p o w erlessn ess o f w o m en : o u r in ferio rity, hum iliation, pain, torm ent;
to us as objects, things, or com m odities fo r use in sex as servan ts.
It sexu alizes inequality and in doing so creates discrim ination as a
sex-based practice.
It perm eates the political condition o f w o m en in society by being
the su bstan ce of our inequality h o w e v e r located— in jobs, in
education, in m arriage, in life.
It is w o m en , kept a sexual underclass, kept available for rape and
b a ttery and incest and prostitu tion.
It is w h a t w e are u n d er m ale dom ination; it is w h a t w e are for under
m ale dom ination.
It is the heretofore hidden (from us) system of subordination that
w o m en have been told is just life.
U nder male suprem acy, it is the syn on ym fo r w h at being a w om an
is.
It is access to our bodies as a birthright to men: the grant, the gift,
the perm ission, the license, the proof, the prom ise, the m ethod, h o w
to; it is us accessible, no m atter w h at the law pretends to say, no
m atter w h at w e pretend to say.
It is physical injury and physical hum iliation and physical pain: to
the w om en against w h om it is used after it is made; to the w om en
used to m ake it.
A s w ords alone, o r w ords and pictures, m oving or still, it creates
system atic harm to w o m en in the form of discrimination and physical
hurt. It creates harm inevitably by its nature because of w h at it is and
w h a t it does. T h e harm will occur as long as it is made and used. T h e
nam e of the next victim is u n kn ow n , but everyth in g else is know n.
Because of it— because it is the subordination of w om en perfectly
achieved— the abuse done to us by any hum an standard is perceived
as using us fo r w h at w e are by nature: w om en are w hores; w om en
w a n t to be raped; she provoked it; w om en like to be hurt; she says no
but m eans yes because she w an ts to be taken against her will w hich is
n ot really h er will because w h a t she w an ts underneath is to have
an yth in g done to her that violates or hum iliates or h urts her; she
w a n ts it, because she is a w om an , no m atter w h at it is, because she is a
w om an; that is h o w w om en are, w h at w om en are, w h at w om en are
for. T h is view is institutionally expressed in law. So m uch for equal
protection.
If it w e re being done to hum an beings, it w ould be reckoned an
atrocity. It is being done to w om en. It is reckoned fun, pleasure,
en tertainm ent, sex, som ebody's (not so m eth in gs) civil liberty no less.
W hat do you w a n t to be w h en you g ro w up? Doggie G irl? Gestapo Sex
Slave? Black Bitch in Bondage? Pet, bunny, beaver? In dream s begin
responsibilities, 7 w h eth er one is the dream er or the dream ed.
4. Pornographers
M ost o f them are sm all-tim e pimps or big-tim e pimps. T h e y sell
w om en : the real flesh-and-blood w o m en in the pictures. T h e y like the
excitem ent o f dom ination; th ey are g reed y for profit; they are sadistic
in their exploitation of w om en; th ey hate w om en , and the
p o rn ograph y th ey m ake is the distillation o f that hate. T h e
p h otographs are w h a t they have created live, fo r them selves, for
their o w n en joym en t. T h e exch an ges of w o m en am ong them are part
o f th e fun, too: so that the fictional creatu re "Linda Lovelace, " w h o
w as the real w o m an Linda M archiano, w as forced to "d eep -th roat"
e v e ry porn ograph er h er o w n er-p o rn o g rap h er w anted to im press. O f
course, it w as the w o m an , not the fiction, w h o had to be hypnotized
so that the m en could pen etrate to the bottom o f h er throat, and w h o
had to be beaten and terrorized to g et h e r com pliance at all. T h e
finding o f n e w and terrible thin gs to do to w o m en is part o f the
challenge o f the vocation: so the in ven to r o f "Linda Lovelace" and
"d eep-th roatin g" is a geniu s in the field, a pioneer. O r, as AI G oldstein,
a colleague, referred to him in an in terview w ith him in Screw several
years ago: a p im p s pimp.
Even w ith w ritten p orn ograph y, there has n ever been the
distinction b etw een m aking p o rn ograp h y and the sexual abuse of live
w o m en that is taken as a truism by those w h o approach p o rn ograp h y
as if it w e re an intellectual phen om en on . T h e M arquis de Sade, as the
w orld's fo rem o st literary porn ographer, is archetypal. His sexual
practice w a s the persistent sexual abuse o f w o m en and girls, w ith
occasional excu rsions into the abuse o f boys. A s an aristocrat in a
feudal society, he preyed w ith near im pun ity on p rostitu tes and
servan ts. T h e p o rn ograp h y he w r o te w a s an u rg en t part o f the sexual
abu se he practiced: not o nly because he did w h a t he w ro te, but also
because the intense h atred o f w o m en that fuelled the one also fuelled
the other: not tw o separate en gines, but one en gine run n in g on the
sam e tank. T h e acts o f p o rn o g rap h y and th e acts o f rape w e re w a ve s
on th e sam e sea: that sea becom ing fo r its victim s, h o w e v e r it reached
th em , a tidal w a v e o f destruction. P orn o graph ers w h o use w o rd s
k n o w that w h a t th ey are doing is both agg ressive and d estructive:
som etim es th ey philosophize about h o w sex inevitably ends in death,
the death o f a w o m an being a thing o f sexual beau ty as w ell as
excitem en t. P orn o grap h y, even w h en w ritten , is sex because of the
dyn am ism o f the sexual hatred in it; and for porn ograp h ers, the
sexual abu se o f w o m en as co m m o n ly u nd erstood and p o rn ograp h y
are both acts o f sexual predation, w h ich is h o w th ey live.
O n e reason that stopping pornographers and pornography is not
censorship is that pornographers are m ore like the police in police
states than th ey are like the w riters in police states. T h ey are the
instrum ents of terror, not its victims. W hat police do to the pow erless
in police states is w hat pornographers do to w om en, except that it is
entertain m ent fo r the m asses, not dignified as political. W riters do
not do w h at pornographers do. Secret police do. T o rtu rers do. W hat
pornographers do to w om en is m ore like w h at police do to political
prisoners than it is like anyth in g else: except fo r the fact that it is
w atched w ith so m uch pleasure by so m any. Intervening in a system
o f terror w h ere it is vulnerable to public scrutiny to stop it is not
censorship; it is the system o f terror that stops speech and creates
abuse and despair. T h e pornographers are the secret police of male
suprem acy: keeping w om en subordinate th rou gh intimidation and
assault.
5. Subordination
In the am endm ent to the H um an R ights O rdinance of the C ity of
M inneapolis w ritten by C atharin e A . M acK in non and m yself, por
nography is defined as the graphic, sexually explicit subordination of
w o m en w h eth er in pictures or in w ords that also includes one or
m ore o f the following: w o m en are presented dehum anized as sexual
objects, things, or com m odities; or w om en are presented as sexual
objects w h o enjoy pain or hum iliation; or w o m en are presented as
sexual objects w h o experience sexual pleasure in being raped; or
w o m en are presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or m utilated
or bruised or physically hurt; or w om en are presented in postures of
sexual subm ission; or w o m e n s body parts are exhibited, such that
w o m en are reduced to those parts; or w o m en are presented being
penetrated by objects or animals; or w o m en are presented in
scenarios o f degradation, injury, abasem ent, torture, sh o w n as filthy
o r inferior, bleeding, bruised, or h u rt in a con text that m akes these
conditions sexual.
T h is statu to ry definition is an objectively accurate definition of
w h a t porn ography is, based on an analysis o f the material produced
by the $8-billion-a-year industry, and also on exten sive study of the
w h o le range o f p o rn ograph y extan t from o th er eras and o th er
cultures. G iven the fact that w o m en 's oppression has an ahistorical
ch aracter— a sam eness across tim e and cu ltu res expressed in rape,
battery, incest, and p rostitu tio n — it is no surprise that porn ograph y, a
central phen om en on in that oppression, has precisely that quality o f
sam eness. It does not significantly ch ange in w h a t it is, w h a t it does,
w h a t is in it, o r h o w it w o rks, w h e th e r it is, fo r instance, classical or
feudal o r m odern, W estern or Asian; w h e th e r the m ethod o f
m an u factu re is w ords, photographs, or video. W hat has changed is
th e public availability o f po rn ograp h y and the nu m bers o f live w o m en
used in it because o f n e w technologies: not its nature. M an y people
n o te w h a t seem s to them a qualitative change in p o rn o g rap h y— that
it has g o tten m ore violent, ev en g ro tesq u ely violent, o ver the last tw o
decades. T h e ch an ge is o n ly in w h a t is publicly visible: not in the range
or preponderance o f violent po rn ograp h y (e.g., the place o f rape in
p o rn ograp h y stays constan t and central, no m atter w h ere, w h en , or
h o w the p o rn o g rap h y is produced); not in the character, quality, or
co n ten t o f w h a t the porn ograph ers actually produce; not in the harm
caused; not in the valuation o f w o m en in it, or the m etaphysical
definition o f w h a t w o m en are; not in the sexual abuse prom oted,
including rape, battery, and incest; not in the cen trality o f its role in
subordin ating w o m en . U ntil recen tly, po rn ograp h y operated in
private, w h e re m ost abuse o f w o m en takes place.
T h e oppression o f w o m en occurs th ro u g h sexual subordination. It
is the use o f sex as the m edium o f oppression that m akes the
subordination o f w o m en so distinct fro m racism or prejudice against a
g ro u p based on religion o r national origin. Social inequality is created
in m an y d ifferen t w ays. In m y view , the radical responsibility is to
isolate the m aterial m eans o f creatin g the inequality so that m aterial
rem edies can be fou nd fo r it.
T h is is particularly difficult w ith respect to w o m en 's inequality
because that inequality is achieved th ro u g h sex. Sex as desired by the
class th at dom inates w o m en is held by th at class to be elem ental,
u rg en t, necessary, ev en if o r ev en th o u g h it appears to require the
repudiation o f a n y claim w o m en m ight h ave to full h u m an standing.
In the su bordin ation o f w o m en , inequality itself is sexualized: m ade
into th e experience o f sexual pleasure, essential to sexual desire.
P ornography is the m aterial m eans of sexualizing inequality; and that
is w h y pornography is a central practice in the subordination of
w om en.
Subordination itself is a broad, deep, system atic dynam ic discern
ible in any persecution based on race o r sex. Social subordination has
fo u r main parts. First, there is hierarchy, a gro u p on top and a grou p on
the bottom . For w om en, this hierarchy is experienced both socially
and sexually, publicly and privately. W om en are physically integrated
into the society in w hich w e are held to be inferior, and our low status
is both put in place and m aintained by the sexual usage of us by men;
and so w om en's experience o f hierarchy is incredibly intim ate and
w ounding.
Second, subordination is objectification. Objectification occurs w h en
a hum an being, throu gh social m eans, is made less than hum an,
turned into a thing or com m odity, bou ght and sold. W hen
objectification occurs, a person is de-personalized, so that no
individuality or integrity is available socially or in w h a t is an
extrem ely circum scribed privacy (because those w h o dom inate
determ ine its boundaries). O bjectification is an injury right at the
h eart o f discrimination: those w h o can be used as if th ey are not fully
hum an are no longer fu lly hum an in social terms; their h um an ity is
h u rt by being diminished.
Third, subordination is submission. A person is at the bottom o f a
hierarchy because of a condition of birth; a person on the bottom is
dehum anized, an object or com m odity; inevitably, the situation of
that person requires obedience and compliance. T h a t diminished
person is expected to be subm issive; there is no longer any right to
self-determ ination, because there is no basis in equality fo r a ny such
right to exist. In a condition o f inferiority and objectification,
subm ission is usually essential for survival. O ppressed groups are
k n o w n fo r their abilities to anticipate the orders and desires o f those
w h o have p o w er o ver them , to com ply w ith an obsequiousness that is
th en used by the dom inant gro u p to justify its o w n dom inance: the
m aster, not able to im agine a hum an like him self in such degrading
servility, thinks the servility is proof that the h ierarchy is natural and
that objectification sim ply am ou nts to seeing these lesser creatures
for w h a t th ey are. T h e subm ission forced on inferior, objectified
gro u p s precisely by hierarchy and objectification is taken to be the
p roo f o f inherent inferiority and subhum an capacities.
Fourth, subordination is violence. T h e violence is system atic,
endem ic en ou gh to be unrem arkable and norm ative, usually taken as
an implicit right o f the one com m ittin g the violence. In m y view ,
h ierarchy, objectification, and subm ission are the preconditions for
system atic social violence against any g ro u p targeted because of a
condition o f birth. If violence against a gro u p is both socially pervasive
and socially norm al, then h ierarchy, objectification, and subm ission
are already solidly in place.
T h e role o f violence in subordinating w o m en has one special
characteristic co n g ru en t w ith sex as the instru m entality of
subordination: the violence is supposed to be sex fo r the w o m an
too— w h a t w o m en w a n t and like as part o f o u r sexual nature; it is
supposed to g ive w o m en pleasure (as in rape); it is supposed to m ean
love to a w o m an from h er point o f v ie w (as in battery). T h e violence
against w o m en is seen to be done not just in accord w ith som eth in g
com pliant in w o m en , but in response to som eth in g active in and basic
to w o m en 's nature.
P orn o grap h y uses each com pon ent o f social subordination. Its
particular m edium is sex. H ierarchy, objectification, subm ission, and
violence all becom e alive w ith sexual e n erg y and sexual m eaning. A
hierarchy, fo r instance, can h ave a static quality; bu t porn ograph y, by
sexualizing it, m akes it dynam ic, alm ost carnivorou s, so that m en
keep im posing it fo r the sake o f their o w n sexual pleasure— fo r the
sexual pleasure it gives them to im pose it. In porn ograph y, each
elem en t o f subordination is co n veyed th ro u gh the sexu ally explicit
u sage o f w o m en : p o rn ograp h y in fact is w h a t w o m en are and w h a t
w o m en are fo r and h o w w o m en are used in a society prem ised on the
in ferio rity o f w o m en . It is a m etaphysics o f w o m en 's subjugation: o ur
existen ce delineated in a definition o f o u r nature; o u r statu s in society
predeterm inech b y the uses to w h ich w e are put. T h e w o m an 's body is
w h a t is m aterially subordinated. Sex is the m aterial m eans th ro u gh
w h ich the subordination is accom plished. P orn o grap h y is the
institu tion o f m ale dom inance that sexu alizes hierarch y, objectifica
tion, subm ission, and violence. As such, po rn ograp h y creates
inequality, not as artifact bu t as a system of social reality; it creates the
necessity (or and the actual behaviors that constitute sex inequality.
6. Speech
Subordination can be so deep that those w h o are hurt by it are u tterly
silent. Subordination can create a silence quieter than death. T h e
w o m en flattened out on the page are deathly still, except for hurt me.
Hurt me is not w o m e n s speech. It is the speech imposed on w om en by
pim ps to cover the aw ful, condem ning silence. T h e T h ree M arias of
Portugal w e n t to jail for w riting this: "Let no one tell me that silence
gives consent, because w h o ev er is silent dissents. " 8 T h e w om en say
the pimp's words: the language is another elem ent o f the rape; the
language is part o f the humiliation; the language is part of the forced
sex. Real silence m ight signify dissent, for those reared to understand
its sad discourse. T h e pimps cannot tolerate literal silence— it is too
eloquent as testim on y— so th ey force the w ords out of the w om an's
m outh. T h e w om en say pimp's words: w hich is w orse than silence.
T h e silence o f the w om en not in the picture, outside the pages, hurt
but silent, used but silent, is staggering in h o w deep and wide it goes.
It is a silence o ver centuries: an exile into speechlessness. O n e is shut
up by the inferiority and the abuse. O n e is shut up by the threat and
the injury. In her m em oir o f the Stalin period, Hope Against Hope,
N adezhda M andelstam w ro te that scream ing "is a m an's w a y of
leaving a trace, o f telling people h o w he lived and died. By his scream s
he asserts his right to live, sends a m essage to the outside world
dem anding help and calling fo r resistance. If nothing else is left, one
m ust scream . Silence is the real crim e against h u m an ity. " 9 Scream ing
is a m an's w a y o f leaving a trace. T h e scream of a m an is never
m isunderstood as a scream o f pleasure by passers-by or politicians or
historians, nor by the torm entor. A man's scream is a call for
resistance. A m an's scream asserts his right to live, sends a m essage;
he leaves a trace. A w om an's scream is the sound of h er fem ale will
and her fem ale pleasure in doing w h a t the pornographers say she is
for. H er scream is a sound of celebration to those w h o overhear.
W om en's w a y o f leaving a trace is the silence, centuries' w orth: the
en tirely inhum an silence that su rely one day will be noticed, som eone
will say that som ething is w ro n g , som e sound is m issing, som e voice
is lost; the en tirely inhum an silence that will be a clue to hum an hope
denied, a shard o f evidence that a crim e has occurred, the crim e that
created the silence; the entirely inhum an silence that is a cold, cold
condem nation o f w h a t those w h o speak have done to those w h o do
not.
But th ere is m ore than the hurt me forced o ut o f us, and the silence
in w h ich it lies. T h e porn ograph ers actually use o u r bodies as their
language. W e are their speech. O u r bodies are the building blocks of
their sentences. W hat th ey do to us, called speech, is not unlike w h a t
K afka's H arro w m achine— "T h e needles are set in like the teeth o f a
h a rro w and the w h o le thing w o rk s som ethin g like a h arro w ,
a lth ough its action is limited to one place and contrived w ith m uch
m ore artistic skill"10— did to the condem ned in "In the Penal C olon y":
" O u r s e n te n c e d o e s n o t s o u n d s e v e r e . W h a te v e r c o m m a n d m e n t th e
p ris o n e r h a s d is o b e y e d is w r it t e n u p o n h is b o d y b y th e H a r r o w . T h is
p ris o n e r, f o r in s ta n c e " — th e o ffic e r in d ica ted th e m a n — "w ill h a v e w r itte n
o n h is b o d y : H O N O R T H Y S U P E R I O R S ! " 11
7. Equality
To get that word, male, out of the Constitution, cost the women of this
country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign; 56 state referendum
campaigns; 480 legislative campaigns to get state suffrage amendments
submitted; 47 state constitutional convention campaigns; 277 state party
convention campaigns to get suffrage planks in the party platforms; 19
campaigns with 19 successive Congresses to get the federal amendment
submitted, and the final ratification campaign.
M illio n s o f d o lla rs w e r e ra ised , m o s tly in sm all su m s , and sp e n t w ith
e co n o m ic care. H u n d re d s o f w o m e n g a v e th e a c c u m u la te d possib ilities o f
a n e n tir e life tim e , th o u sa n d s g a v e y e a r s o f th e ir liv es, h u n d re d s o f
th o u s a n d s g a v e c o n s ta n t in te re s t and su c h aid as th e y cou ld. It w a s a
c o n tin u o u s a n d s e e m in g ly e n d le ss ch a in o f a c tiv ity . Y o u n g s u ffr a g is ts w h o
h e lp e d fo r g e th e la st lin k s o f th a t c h a in w e r e n o t b o rn w h e n it b e g a n . O ld
s u ffr a g is ts w h o h elp ed f o r g e th e firs t lin k s w e r e d ead w h e n it e n d ed .
C a r r ie C h a p m a n C a t t
Fem inists have w anted equality. Radicals and reform ists have
d ifferen t ideas of w h at equality w ould be, but it has been the wisdom
o f fem inism to value equality as a political goal w ith social integrity
and com plex m eaning. T h e Jacobins also w anted equality, and the
French R evolution w as the first w a r fo u gh t to accomplish it.
C o n servatism as a m odern political m ovem ent actually developed to
resist social and political m ovem ents fo r equality, beginning w ith the
egalitarian im peratives o f the French Revolution.
W om en h ave had to prove hum an status, before having any claim
to equality. B ut equality has been im possible to achieve, perhaps
because, really, w o m en have not been able to prove hum an status.
T h e burden o f proof is on the victim .
N ot one inch of change has been easy or cheap. W e have fo u gh t so
hard and so long for so little. T h e vo te did not change the status of
w om en . T h e chan ges in w o m e n s lives that w e can see on the surface
do not chan ge the statu s o f w o m en . By the yea r 2000, w o m en and
their children are expected to be one hundred percent o f this n a tio n s
p o or. * W e are raped, battered, and prostituted: th ese acts against us
are in the fabric o f social life. A s children, w e are raped, physically
abused, and prostituted. T h e co u n try en joys the injuries done to us,
and spends $8 billion a year on the pleasure o f w a tch in g us being h u rt
(exploitation as w ell as tortu re con stitu tin g su bstan tive harm ). T h e
subordination g ets deeper: w e keep g ettin g pushed d o w n fu rth er.
Rape is an en tertain m en t. T h e co n tem pt fo r us in that fact is
im m easurable; y et w e live u n d er the w e ig h t o f it. D iscrim ination is a
euphem ism fo r w h a t happens to us.
It has plagued us to try to understan d w h y the statu s o f w o m en
does not change. T h o se w h o hate the politics o f equality say th ey
kn o w : w e are biologically destined fo r rape; G o d m ade us to be
subm issive u n to o u r husbands. W e ch an ge, but o u r statu s does not
ch an ge. L aw s change, bu t o u r statu s stays fixed. W e m ove into the
m arket place, o n ly to face th ere classic sexual exploitation, n o w called
sexual harassm ent. Rape, b attery, prostitu tion, and incest stay the
sam e in that th ey keep happenin g to us as part o f w h a t life is: even
th ou gh w e nam e the crim es against us as such and try to keep the
victim s from being d estroyed by w h a t w e cann ot stop from
happening to them . A n d th e silence stays in place too, h o w e v e r m uch
w e try to dislodge it w ith o u r tru th s. W e say w h a t has happened to us,
but new sp apers, g o v ern m en ts, the cu ltu re that excludes us as fu lly
h u m an participants, w ipe us o ut, w ipe ou t o u r speech: by refu sin g to
h ear it. W e are the tree falling in th e desert. Should it m atter: th ey are
th e desert.
T h e cost o f try in g to sh a tte r the silence is aston ish ing to th ose w h o
do it: the w o m en , raped, battered, p rostitu ted, w h o h ave so m eth in g
Notes
1. G u s t a v e F lau b e rt, Letters, tra n s. J. M . C o h e n (L o n d o n : G e o r g e W e id e n fe ld
& N ic o lso n L im ite d , 1950), p. 94.
2. D . H. L a w r e n c e , Sex, Literature and Censorship ( N e w Y o r k : T w a y n e
1953), p. 9.
P u b lis h e rs ,
3. H a ro ld G a r d in e r (S. J.), Catholic Viewpoint on Censorship (G a rd e n C ity :
H a n o v e r H o u s e , 1958), p. 65.
4. G e o r g e s B ataille, Death and Sensuality ( N e w Y o r k : B alla n tin e B o o k s, Inc.,
1969), p. 12.
5. L a w r e n c e , Sex, Literature and Censorship, p. 74.
6. Vladimir Nabokov, "Afterword," blita (New York: Berkley Publishing
Corporation, 1977), p. 284.
7. T h e a c tu a l lin e is "In d r e a m s b e g in s re s p o n s ib ility , " q u o te d b y Y e a t s a s a n
e p ig ra p h to h is c o lle ctio n , Responsibilities.
8. M a ria Isabel B a rr e n o , M a ria T e r e s a H o rta , a n d M a ria V e lh o d a C o s ta ,
The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters, trans. Helen R. Lane (New York:
Bantam Books, 1976), p. 291.
9. Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope, trans. Max Hayward (New
York: Atheneum, 1978), pp. 42-43.
10. Franz Kafka, "In the Penal Colony," pp. 191-227, The Penal Colony, trans.
Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), p. 194.
11. Kafka, "In the Penal Colony," p. 197.
12. Kafka, "In the Penal Colony," p. 203.
13. Kafka, "In the Penal Colony," p. 197.
Pornography Is A Civil Rights Issue
1986
* T h e comm issioners present were: H enry Hudson, chair; Judith Becker; Park Dietz;
James Dobson; Ellen Levine; T ex Lezar; T h e Rev. Bruce Ritter; Frederick Schauer;
Deanne Tilton.
the definition o f the ordinance w hich are all scenarios of inequality
and degradation, m ostly violence.
M S D W O R K IN : Y e s , I th in k th a t th e re a re m an y , m an y su ch
m a te ria ls th at r ig h t n o w , it se em s to m e, th a t v ir tu a lly a n y th in g
can be p ro s e cu te d u n d e r o b s c e n ity la w , and a b o u t th e o n ly th in g
th a t isn 't, w ith all re sp e ct to th e g e n tle m a n fro m N o r th C a ro lin a ,
w h o s e a cco m p lish m e n ts I am n o t d e n y in g , b u t p o rn o g r a p h y is
p re cise ly w hat o b sc e n ity la w h as not b een u sed a ga in st.
O b s c e n ity la w s h a v e tra d itio n a lly b een u sed a g a in st w o r k s o f
lite r a tu r e and so on. T h e y a re rife fo r u se a g a in st sex ed u catio n
p ro g ra m s, b e c a u se th e y a re so v a g u e , b ecau se co m m u n ity
sta n d a rd s can be c o n s tr u e d in so m a n y w a y s .
M S D W O R K I N : Y e s , th e re w o u ld be.
M R S L E V IN E : S o in so m e w a y s it w o u ld be b ro a d e r?
M S D W O R K I N : In so m e w a y s it w o u ld be b ro a d e r and in so m e
w a y s it w o u ld be n a r ro w e r.
M R S L E V IN E : Let m e a sk y o u th is — and I k n o w th at y o u are v e ry
co n ce rn ed a b o u t vi o len ce a g a in st w o m e n , as are m ost w o m e n — in
y o u r o pin ion , sh ou ld all p o rn o g ra p h y be rem o v ed , p a rticu larly the
v io le n t p o rn o g ra p h y , do y o u th in k y o u w o u ld see a direct d ro p in
v io len t crim es a g a in st w o m en ?
M S D W O R K IN : I tru ly do.
M S D W O R K IN : A s fa r as I k n o w rig h t n o w , p o rn o g ra p h y is
a b so lu te ly u n re stricte d in fed era l and sta te prisons. T h e r e w a s an
in ju n ctio n re ce n tly g o tte n b y a g ro u p o f w o m e n priso n g u a rd s in
th e S ta te o f C a lifo rn ia , b ecau se Hustler did a layout.
D R D O B S O N : T h a n k you .
C H A I R M A N H U D S O N : P ro fesso r Schauer.
D R S C H A U E R : T h a n k you.
FR RITTER: T h an k you.
C H A IR M A N H U D S O N : D r D ietz.
M S D W O R K IN : Studies o f prostitutes.
M S D W O R K IN : Y es.
M S D W O R K IN : Yes.
M S D W O R K IN : Yes.
C H A I R M A N H U D S O N : M rs Tilton.
M S T IL T O N : Sure.
M S T IL T O N : T h a n k you.
Nam ed by the pornographers and their friends after the very right-w ing Edwin
M eese, the C om m ission w as actually set up by the m oderate form er A ttorn ey G eneral,
William French Smith.
rub o ff on them . Feminism to them m eans getting success, not
fighting oppression.
H ere w e are: w eep for us. Society, w ith the acquiescence o f too
m any liberal-left fem inists, says that pornographers m ust not be
stopped because the freedom o f everyo n e depends on the freedom of
the pornographers to exercise speech. T h e w om an gagged and
hanging rem ains the speech they exercise. In liberal-left lingo,
stopping them is called censorship.
T h e civil rights law — a m odest approach, since it is not the barrel of
a g u n — w as passed tw ice in M inneapolis, vetoed tw ice there by the
m ayor. In Indianapolis, a m ore conservative city (w here even liberal
fem inists are registered Republicans), a n arrow er version w as
adopted: narrower m eans that only very violent pornography w as
covered by the law. In Indianapolis, pornography w as defined as the
graphic, sexually explicit subordination of w om en in pictures and/or
w ords that also included rape, pain, hum iliation, penetration by
objects or animals, or dism em berm ent. M en, children, and trans
sexuals used in these w a y s could also use this law. T h e law made
pornographers legally and econom ically responsible for the harm
they did to w om en. M akers o f pornography, exhibitors, sellers, and
distributors could be sued for trafficking in pornography. A n yo n e
coerced into pornography could hold the m akers, sellers, distributors,
or exhibitors liable for profiting from the coercion and could have the
coerced product rem oved from the marketplace. A n yon e forced to
w atch porn ography in their hom e, place of w o rk or education, or in
public, could sue w h o ev er forces them and any institution that
sanctions the force (for instance, a university or an em ployer).
A n y o n e physically assaulted or injured because o f a specific piece of
porn ography could sue the porn ographer for m oney dam ages and get
the porn ograph y o ff the shelves. U nder this law, porn ograph y is
correctly understood and recognized as a practice o f sex dis
crim ination. P ornography's impact on the status of w om en is to keep
all w o m en second-class: targets of aggression and civilly inferior.
T h e United States cou rts have declared the Indianapolis civil rights
law unconstitutional. A Federal Appeals C o u rt said that pornography
did all the harm to w om en w e said it did— causing us both physical
inju ry and civil in feriority— but its success in hu rting us only proved
its p o w er as speech. T h erefo re, it is protected speech. C om pared w ith
the pimps, w o m en h ave no rights.
T h e good n e w s is that the p orn ograph ers are in real trouble, and
that w e m ade th e trouble. Playboy and Penthouse are both in deep
financial trouble. Playboy has been losing subscribers, and thus its
advertisin g base, fo r years; both Playboy and Penthouse h ave lost
thousan ds o f retail ou tlets fo r th eir w a res in the last fe w years. W e
h ave cost them th eir legitim acy.
T h e bad n e w s is that w e are in trouble. T h ere is m uch violence
against us, pornography-inspired. They m ake us, o u r bodies,
p o rn ograp h y in their m agazines, and tell the norm al m en to g et us
good. W e are follow ed, attacked, threatened. Bullets w e re sh o t into
one fem inist antip orn o grap h y center. Fem inists h ave been harassed
o u t o f their hom es, forced to m ove. A n d the porn ograph ers h ave
fou nd a bunch o f girls (as the w o m en call them selves) to w o rk for
them : not the chickenshit liberals, b u t real collaborators w h o have
organized specifically to oppose the civil rights legislation and to
p rotect the p o rn ograph ers from o u r political activism — p o rn ograph y
should not be a fem inist issue, th ese so-called fem inists say. T h e y say:
P orn o grap h y is m isogyn ist b u t. . . T h e but in this case is that it
d erep resses us. T h e victim s o f p o rn o g rap h y can testify, and have,
th at w h e n m en g et derepressed, w o m en g et hurt. T h ese w o m en say
th e y are fem inists. Som e h ave w o rked fo r the defeated Equal R ights
A m en d m en t or fo r abortion righ ts or fo r equal pay or fo r lesbian and
g a y rights. B ut these days, th ey o rg a n ize to stop us from stopping the
porn ographers.
M o st o f the w o m en w h o say th ey are fem inists but w o rk to protect
p o rn og rap h y are law yers or academ ics: la w y ers like the ones w h o
w alked a w a y fro m Snuff; academ ics w h o think prostitu tion is
rom antic, an u nrepressed fem ale sexu ality. B ut w h o e v e r th ey are,
w h a te v e r th ey think th ey are doing, the o u tstan d in g fact about them
is th at th ey are ign orin g the w o m e n w h o h ave been h u rt in order to
help the pim ps w h o do the h u rtin g. T h e y are collaborators, not
fem inists.
T h e p o rn ograp h ers m ay w ell d estro y us. T h e violence against
u s— in the p o rn ograp h y, in the general m edia, am ong m e n — is
escalating rapidly and d an gero u sly. So m etim es our despair is
horrible. W e haven't given in yet. T h ere is a resistance here, a real
one. I can't tell you h o w brave and brilliant the resisters are. O r h o w
pow erless and hurt. Surely it is clear: the m ost pow erless w om en, the
m ost exploited w om en, are the w o m en fighting the pornographers.
O u r m ore privileged sisters prefer not to take sides. It's a nasty fight,
all right. Feminism is dying here because so m any w om en w h o say
th ey are fem inists are collaborators o r cow ards. Feminism is
m agnificent and militant here because the m ost pow erless w om en
are putting their lives on the line to co n fro n t the m ost pow erful men
for the sake o f all w om en. Be proud of us fo r fighting. Be proud o f us
for g ettin g so far. Help us if you can. T h e pornographers will have to
stop us. W e will not give in. T h e y kn o w that and n o w so do you.
Love,
Andrea D w orkin
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