threadybeeps's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful and painful and too brief. I still have a million questions. My first impulse is to read everything else she wrote in succession, but I don't think my heart could take it.
imlothmelui's review
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Sexism, and Pedophilia
Moderate: Racism, Rape, Child abuse, Antisemitism, Classism, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Religious bigotry
Minor: War, Incest, Racial slurs, Torture, and Abortion
leelulah's review against another edition
3.0
This book definitely changed my outlook on Dworkin. I had no idea what she endured, and although I wasn't likely to espouse the classic arguments against her, I had given up on the angry tone of Right Wing Women, thinking she wasn't for me. Now, I don't agree with her in all she has said, but had she dug a bit deeper, probably there'd have been something interesting coming up.
Her life is surely very sad and one gets to understand, as she promises, why does she think the way she does. Her love of music, her academic interests, her disenchanment with the left, her failed marriage, they're all a part of this person we made ourselves a caricature of, because we're scared of the words "radical feminist".
I still disagree with the core tenets of her political beliefs (abortion as pro-woman, namely; or her antiprison crusade), but there is some honesty in her breaking away from pacifism and the need of women to stand up against what's being done to them.
The parts that put me off had to do with her lack of care for policemen, but I guess those are basic leftist points. If you can see brutalized women as human, sure you can see brutalized men as such too.
Her life is surely very sad and one gets to understand, as she promises, why does she think the way she does. Her love of music, her academic interests, her disenchanment with the left, her failed marriage, they're all a part of this person we made ourselves a caricature of, because we're scared of the words "radical feminist".
I still disagree with the core tenets of her political beliefs (abortion as pro-woman, namely; or her antiprison crusade), but there is some honesty in her breaking away from pacifism and the need of women to stand up against what's being done to them.
The parts that put me off had to do with her lack of care for policemen, but I guess those are basic leftist points. If you can see brutalized women as human, sure you can see brutalized men as such too.
azuoliukas_wordpress_com's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Rekomenduoju.
Ilgesnė apžvalga bus netrukus (tikiuosi).
Ilgesnė apžvalga bus netrukus (tikiuosi).
riannonwolf's review against another edition
5.0
Andrea Dworkin writes candidly and aggressively about her own life and the issues many women (and folks of other marginalized genders) have faced. Sometimes she says wild, outlandish things, and sometimes she says them in a purposefully inflammatory way.
But there is some real, deep vulnerability in this memoir. It moved me in ways I didn't expect, and made me think about what it is I value and what it is I want to change.
But there is some real, deep vulnerability in this memoir. It moved me in ways I didn't expect, and made me think about what it is I value and what it is I want to change.
jetsilver's review
4.0
I loved this. I would have given it five stars apart from the sudden short burst of trans*-hatred at the end of the book. Disappointing.
I do love Dworkin's style, though; her passion and her way with words and her uncompromising attitude. This memoir is a fast read, made up of short snapshots of her life. It's Dworkin, so I wouldn't call it an easy read, given that her work was in confronting horrific abuse of herself and so many others. But it's engaging and wonderful as well as horrible and, yes, heartbreaking.
I do love Dworkin's style, though; her passion and her way with words and her uncompromising attitude. This memoir is a fast read, made up of short snapshots of her life. It's Dworkin, so I wouldn't call it an easy read, given that her work was in confronting horrific abuse of herself and so many others. But it's engaging and wonderful as well as horrible and, yes, heartbreaking.
yashd94's review
4.0
"I decided to write on pornography because I could make the same points-show the same inequities- as with prisons. Pornography and prisons were built on cruelty and brutalization; the demeaning of the human body as a form of punishment; the worthlessness of the individual human being; restraint, confinement, tying, whipping, branding, torture, penetration, and kicking as commonplace ordeals. Each was a social construction that could be different but was not; each incorporated and exploited isolation, dominance and submission, humiliation, and dehumanization. In each the effort was to control a human being by attacking human dignity. In each the guilt of the imprisoned provided a license to animalize persons, which in turn led to a recognition of the ways in which animals were misused outside the prison, outside the pornography. Arguably (but not always), those in prison had committed an offense; the offense of women in pornography was in being women. In both prisons and pornography, sadomasochism was a universal dynamic; there was no chance for reciprocity or mutuality or an equality of communication.
In prison populations and in pornography, the most aggressive rapist was at the top of the social structure. In prison populations gender was created by who got fucked; so, too, in pornography. It amazed me that in pornography the prison was recreated repeatedly as the sexual environment most conducive to the rape of women.
The one difference, unbridgeable, intractable, between prisons and pornography was that prisoners were not expected to like being in prison, whereas women were supposed to like each and every abuse suffered in pornography."
In prison populations and in pornography, the most aggressive rapist was at the top of the social structure. In prison populations gender was created by who got fucked; so, too, in pornography. It amazed me that in pornography the prison was recreated repeatedly as the sexual environment most conducive to the rape of women.
The one difference, unbridgeable, intractable, between prisons and pornography was that prisoners were not expected to like being in prison, whereas women were supposed to like each and every abuse suffered in pornography."