Famous for her outspoken positions on a range of issues from male-on-female violence, to rape and sexual intercourse, Dworkin’s uncompromising stance brought fierce criticism not only from liberals, concerned at her attempts to pass laws against pornography, but from feminists.
I remember my grandmother handing me her book, Woman Hating on or around 1982. It never occured to me until now that it was pretty progressive for her to do that but, I digress.
In her days our culture’s morays about sexuality were much, much different then they are now. Things weren’t as “free love” as we tend to believe from those times. No matter how bad things may seem from a gender equity standpoint, it doesn’t hold a candle to Averagetown USA in late 60’s and early 70’s. The way that men treated women and that women regarded themselves would make us blush. It’s not quite as bad as seeing black and white pictures of “Whites Only” signs from the past, but nearly. That is when and where she got her start on these topics. I’ve always considered her to be one of the kind of voices that takes an astonishingly far-flung stand on a particular issue and that some, or moderate movement toward it is the real intent.
I have and will always believe that people like her “throw themselves on their swords” regularly in this manner. Some progress is far better than none. There were once a great deal of people that did similar things. They stopped wars, began to end state sanctioned racism, and change the system from the outside. Those are rare individuals. I have always believed she was one of them.