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Original poster

I'm sure many of you would have already seen/hear Dworkin's rape speech.....

88 replies

thefinerthingsinlife · 01/05/2011 17:49

here

I've never heard about it before. I came across it as Jenson mentions it in his book.

WOW! This women speaks with passion.

OP posts:
snowmama · 02/05/2011 09:51

Missing you have made a massive leap by associating the right not to be raped with being protected from life.

That women should be able to go out about their business, work, mothering,relationships without the threat of violence or rape - just as men do every day - is really not a big ask at all

SardineQueen · 02/05/2011 09:33

The speech that is linked on this thread is powerful and moving, and not bonkers in any way.

missingfriends when you say "gender equality doesn't mean protection of women from all ills" do you mean that feminists are wrong to object to rape?

InmaculadaConcepcion · 02/05/2011 09:31

she doesn't understand that gender equality doesn't mean protection of women from all ills

Where does Andrea Dworkin say that gender equality = protection of women from all ills?

Cutting rape (in its various forms) out of the equation wouldn't prevent women from suffering misfortune, would it?

Missingfriendsandsad · 02/05/2011 09:27

Also she doesn't understand that gender equality doesn't mean protection of women from all ills - that just a perversion of the victorian and edwardian idea that femininity should be a protected gender onto whom no wrong is done.

Missingfriendsandsad · 02/05/2011 09:24

i'm sorry to differ, but I have a copy of 'intercourse' and it really is the ravings of a mad woman, not the balanced arguments of a real study of gender. Its an interesting perspective, in the same way reading mein kampf is eye-opening, but it doesn't stop her being a raving paranoid nutter.

snowmama · 02/05/2011 09:21

It is so obvious, and put into context heartbreaking. It is so important to keep (re)reading..

Where I am just stumped (and angry), is that I can get my head my head around tactical (liberal feminist?) interventions to individual issues/problems, but I don't know what we can do on a strategic (radical feminist?) way to cause such a paradigm shift that no rape for 24 hours anywhere is even a concievable reality.

Original poster
thefinerthingsinlife · 02/05/2011 08:31

I think you hit the nail on the head there Inmaculada

OP posts:
InmaculadaConcepcion · 02/05/2011 07:55

...another thing about equality is that it cannot coexist with rape. It cannot. And it cannot coexist with pornography or with prostitution or with the economic degradation of women on any level, in any way. It cannot coexist, because implicit in all those things is the inferiority of women.

I think that answers a lot of the questions asked in numerous threads on this board about porn and prostitution. It's so obvious really, isn't it?

Original poster
thefinerthingsinlife · 01/05/2011 20:33

Same here Sardine (Although mine's only an access to HE course). I've got her pornography book sat on the table to read next, after I've finished Jenson's book.

OP posts:
yama · 01/05/2011 20:26

Great speech. Have to run just now but will be back later.

SardineQueen · 01/05/2011 20:12

When I've finished my OU course I have a fucking monstrous book list to get through... Grin

This has encouraged me to put Andrea Dworkin at the top!

HandDivedScallopsrgreat · 01/05/2011 19:58

I too have never read anything of hers. An amazing speech. It must have been very powerful to hear it live.

SardineQueen · 01/05/2011 18:19

Thanks for posting this thefinerthings. Despite my constant blatherings on this board I have to admit that I have never read anything of hers before. I am very glad that I now have Smile