Posted by xuli on 2006-01-12 19:57:14
Post Subject:
I'm sorry what I said touched a nerve for you, anthrogirl. I am in no way trying to defend Dworkin uncritically, or to suggest that she got it all right. (I really meant what I said when I said I thought she had misguided ideas.) I have many, many problems with her. But I also think this part of your post raises some interesting questions:
Her work was used by the Canadian censorship people to block gay and lesbian porn from Canada, and to seize books on anal health a from small gay bookstore.
How much of a responsibility do writers/thinkers have in the way their work is used? I can think of some pretty nefarious uses of, say, Judith Butler too -- I've seen scholarship where Butler's ideas are used to argue that since gender is all a social construct anyway, there's no point in feminist activism at all! How much should I hold Butler responsible for others' careless readings of her work? And how much should we hold Dworkin responsible for the fact that her work, too, has been used very carelessly in extremely misguided activism? I mean, yes, there are horrible aspects of her work. I totally agree. But you also can't single-handedly walk into Canada and start making laws right and left because "Andrea Dworkin says so." So at some point we have to look at the fact that Andrea Dworkin put forth some ideas -- many of them deeply flawed -- in a flawed society, and put back some of the responsbility for the terrible ways in which her work was used on that society.
I'm really just talking off the cuff here. I might decide tomorrow I disagree with all of this! But I think it's a really interesting issue -- to what extent we hold individual thinkers/writers accountable when their work reveals in very emblematic ways deep injustices in the culture that they are writing from. And I continue to say I haven't read Dworkin, just read people who cite Dworkin (both pro and con). But I do have a hard time with the fact that Andrea Dworkin's name will unleash more vitriol in a room full of feminists than Rick Santorum's -- and Santorum is actively making harmful laws, which Dworkin never did! I do think there's a problem there, and I don't think one has to be an apologist for Dworkin to think so.
Posted by anthrogirl on 2006-01-12 22:37:28
Post Subject:
I'm sorry what I said touched a nerve for you, anthrogirl. I am in no way trying to defend Dworkin uncritically, or to suggest that she got it all right. (I really meant what I said when I said I thought she had misguided ideas.) I have many, many problems with her. But I also think this part of your post raises some interesting questions:
Actually, it's not your fault, and I didn't at all think you were defending her. Like I said, I see her as a sad figure.
Her work was used by the Canadian censorship people to block gay and lesbian porn from Canada, and to seize books on anal health a from small gay bookstore.
How much of a responsibility do writers/thinkers have in the way their work is used?
A lot, if they were alive when people misused it, and they were warned that it could be misused. In her favor, Dworkin was upset that her work was used that way, only because she was dismayed by the i]politics of the people who used her work. She wasn't upset, so far as I can tell, by the content of their censorship- after all, she advocated censorship. McKinnon isn't at all sorry. She wishes they had gone further.
I can think of some pretty nefarious uses of, say, Judith Butler too -- I've seen scholarship where Butler's ideas are used to argue that since gender is all a social construct anyway, there's no point in feminist activism at all! How much should I hold Butler responsible for others' careless readings of her work?
Not at all, since that's what it is- careless reading. Dworkin's work wasn't carelessly read. It's quite clear- men are rapists, all porn hurts women, and so on. That's the problem- there's no nuance. During her lifetime, feminists tried to talk to Dworkin about her stance, but she wasn't interested. As for McKinnon- she's a law professor. She fully well understands civil liberties and how people can misuse people's right to them. She doesn't care, as long as it saves one woman from degradation. This is the same argument being used to keep gay lit out of schools, stop abortion, and a lot of other things.
I once had the displeasure of sitting next to one of McKinnon's law student/minions at dinner. I walked away feeling like a Jew sitting with a member of the Nazi Party in 1930- and that's not hyperbole. She sniffed at the idea of actually loking at porn. After all, she knew what it was. She told me women didn't watch porn, and she knew her Dworkin by heart. She came thisclose to calling me male-identified for saying that I had not only read porn and enjoyed it, but plenty of women had- they had read the Beauty books by Anne Rice, and romance novels. I knew this was true because I had worked in a bookstore for a while, and those novels had flown off the shelves. She essentially told me I didn't know what I was talking about. Whenever I've talked to hardcore Dworkinites, I've heard the same thing, even though not a single one has admitted to taking the time to speak to a porn producer/consumer or sex worker of any kind.
And how much should we hold Dworkin responsible for the fact that her work, too, has been used very carelessly in extremely misguided activism? I mean, yes, there are horrible aspects of her work. I totally agree. But you also can't single-handedly walk into Canada and start making laws right and left because "Andrea Dworkin says so." So at some point we have to look at the fact that Andrea Dworkin put forth some ideas -- many of them deeply flawed -- in a flawed society, and put back some of the responsbility for the terrible ways in which her work was used on that society.
No- but no one has made laws based on Judith Butler. They have made them based on Dworkin and McKinnon, in some cases with their blessing. That's what bothers me.
Going to bed now- and no, I'm not angry. It's a valid discussion. Feeling passionate about something isn't necessarily the same as being angry.
I'm really just talking off the cuff here. I might decide tomorrow I disagree with all of this! But I think it's a really interesting issue -- to what extent we hold individual thinkers/writers accountable when their work reveals in very emblematic ways deep injustices in the culture that they are writing from. And I continue to say I haven't read Dworkin, just read people who cite Dworkin (both pro and con). But I do have a hard time with the fact that Andrea Dworkin's name will unleash more vitriol in a room full of feminists than Rick Santorum's -- and Santorum is actively making harmful laws, which Dworkin never did! I do think there's a problem there, and I don't think one has to be an apologist for Dworkin to think so.
