Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women

Dworkin's analysis of the banality of misogyny worldwide is absolutely brilliant. She is truly a gifted writer. Her essays on the tragedy of the Nicole Brown murder case are eloquent and powerful. Her discovery of "holocaust porn" in Israel shows that even a "cynic" like Dworkin can be once again stunned with disbelief at the level of inhumanity women are subjected to globally. Like anyone who subscribes to the radical idea that women are human beings, i.e. feminism, her work will be vilified, misrepresented (anti-first amendment, anti-sex, anti-male, blah blah blah...), trivialized, etc. But to those with an open mind and an open heart and an appreciation for fine writing, Life and Death will not dissapoint.

If I were to try to find fault with this book (and I would have to try hard to do so) it would be a certain degree of repetition. This is a fault of the format rather than the writing, since these articles were all previously published and not written in the context of this book, and there is some inevitable overlap.None-the-less the repetition perhaps forms part of the message. For one thing the events described by Dworkin aren't just happening, they are happening again and again and again. The repetition of the reports in our newspapers, the repetition of battering and rapes as experienced by victims, and the repetition of the memories, which become banal without ever losing their edge is this book's subject matter, and to repeat these accounts without ever becoming boring is sheer brilliance.There is also the repetition known to anyone who has ever been a victim of sexual abuse and tried to talk about it; the repetition of stating facts that should have people out on the streets rioting if anything does, and finding that somehow they don't matter that much.If you talk about it you just learn how commonplace it is as people, especially women, tell you of similar experiences. Dworkin learnt how commonplace it was so now she tells us that as well as her own experiences.You begin to feel lucky in comparison; it only happened once, no bones were broken, you can walk down the street without a panic attack, whatever advantage you personally have.Elsewhere Dworkin has written "Everything that didn't happen to you -- I apply this to myself as part of the way that I survive -- everything that didn't happen to you is a little slack in your leash. You weren't raped when you were three, or you weren't raped when you were 10."It is perhaps here that much of the opposition to Andrea Dworkin's work probably lies, because none of us want to believe these things are so commonplace, even those of us who have been forced by experience to do so. It would be a great pity if some readers thought this book was over-the-top, or a merely focused on a few isolated cases. While some people still want to believe that Dworkin is some sort of "special case" in her experiences there will be many people who will resist this book as exaggeration. I wish it were. Dworkin is exact in her writing.Dworkin deserves to go down in history for framing anti-pornography theory in terms of civil rights in such a way as made all talk of censorship irrelevant. We would expect anything she does afterwards to pale in comparison, but it doesn't. This book is a wonderfully compassionate piece of writing and should be read by pretty much everyone.

Once again, Dworkin rubs our face in reality. This excellent book should be required reading.

Rarely do books come along that have the power to enthrall, shock, and stir every woman, every where. "Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women", a collection of speeches and essays by Andrea Dworkin has the power to do so. No matter what your gender, age, social class, ethnicity, sexual preferance, religion, or political party, this book is a necessity since violence is a major threat to all women. Right from the start, Dworkin reminds us that women have not "come a long way, baby" and that we should not measure the progress of women by their presence in the job market, but by the amount of violence inflicted on women. Using this standard, it is obvious from the book that women still have many struggles ahead to reach full equality and respect, which cannot be achieved simply via laws. Through her own sickening and disheartening experiences, to the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, Dworkin's priority is to show that violence against women is not accidental and that men who commit this violence commit a political act because violence keeps women scared, weak, and dependent. She states that the political system which rules this country is dominated by men and that these men in power "protect any man's violence against any woman" (65); statements such as this one, which some may find farfetched, are common throughout the book and although you may not agree with them, they force you to reflect. Dworkin discusses the epidemic that faces half of all married women today, domestic violence, and provides the best detailed account that I, a crisis worker at a battered women's shelter, have ever read. When women are terrorized, beaten, and killed in their homes, when home is a prison, there is no safe place for women. Dworkin declares that we must retaliate against violent men by making the legal system, the media, and society tougher on them and has the courage to say that "if the law won't do anything, you must do something" (125). Much of the book concentrates on Dworkin's "specialty", pornography, and it is difficult to dismiss anything she says on this subject considering her past works such as "Pornography: Men Possessing Women", and her fight to develop an antipornography civil rights ordinance with Catherine MacKinnon. You will not view pornography in the same context once you read the first hand accounts of women in the pornography business, how men do act out pornography, and how soldiers in the Serbia rape/death camps make their own pornographic films by torturing and raping women for the camera. Dworkin successfully shows what pornography truly is; not an expression of "free speech", but a dehumanizing, devastating, humiliating, "woman-hating atrocity" (76). "The world of pornography is real- not ideas," she states, and "women's lives become pornography" (70). Her arguement causes one to question how and why the 10$ million a year pornography industry is legally protected. She also discusses the subj