A review by leelulah
Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics by Andrea Dworkin
1.0
A more accurate rating would be 1.5 stars.
This book is a series of speeches, and as such, it's a mixed bag that repeats itself at some points. Most of the things she blames male sexuality for, are incorrect understandings of religion (for example, I don't think that Deuteronomy 21, 10-14 reads as a justification for rape... on the contrary, the fact that the woman cannot be sold if she rejects him, forbids slavery and profit) even on the part of the men who professed them, or things that religion outright condemns, such as certain psychological schools. There's no mention of Islam, although there is a mention of their practices.
It's also worth highlighting that she does not seem to believe in the myth of an original matriarchy, but still believes outrageous things as rape being the foundation for marriage, and with no evidence, presents it as a ever growing epidemic while she says that there is no substantial proof to claim that women are better than they were many years ago.
There are historical errors (Columbus did not discover that the Earth was round, even Greeks knew it before him, the involvement of the Spaniards in the slave trade wasn't as big compared to other nations such as Portugal and the US, St. Thomas Aquinas denied women being defective men no less than 5 times in the Summa Theologica), and I'd have to research more to debunk her "nine million" murdered Inquisition number that does not seem a trustworthy statistic.
She does good to dismantle the claim that the first wave feminists were racist, and to challenge specific things of how we see men and women, this polarity of (absolute) weakness vs. strength, (absolute) fear vs. courage, (absolute) powerlessness vs. power. I'm not sure her solutions are all that liberating: for her claim that women must reclaim their abilities to nurture life, she fails by advocating abortion. It's just not consistent. I'm also wondering how she can quote Beauvoir as a trustworthy source at all, if she had contempt for lesbians.
Her refusal to "equality" based on imitation of the "male model" has its fallacies, but it's still interesting to think about in relation with liberal feminism and contains some good elements.
Most of these speeches were given right before the explosion of queer theory, so I'm wondering how she'd have modified them with that in consideration, especially for the troubling bits of the program against rape that she proposes, like "lowering the unrealistic age of consent" or "eliminate corroboration as a need for conviction" (p. 43). Even if some rape cases are hard to prove, they can be proven: just look at the Nassar case. Yes, it went on for years and a victim alone is already too many, but jailing an innocent man is the equivalent of leaving a rapist run free.
And even though she denounces a "masculinist" everything, she thinks men are capable of collaborating in this women led revolution, even by standing at the sides.
This book is a series of speeches, and as such, it's a mixed bag that repeats itself at some points. Most of the things she blames male sexuality for, are incorrect understandings of religion (for example, I don't think that Deuteronomy 21, 10-14 reads as a justification for rape... on the contrary, the fact that the woman cannot be sold if she rejects him, forbids slavery and profit) even on the part of the men who professed them, or things that religion outright condemns, such as certain psychological schools. There's no mention of Islam, although there is a mention of their practices.
It's also worth highlighting that she does not seem to believe in the myth of an original matriarchy, but still believes outrageous things as rape being the foundation for marriage, and with no evidence, presents it as a ever growing epidemic while she says that there is no substantial proof to claim that women are better than they were many years ago.
There are historical errors (Columbus did not discover that the Earth was round, even Greeks knew it before him, the involvement of the Spaniards in the slave trade wasn't as big compared to other nations such as Portugal and the US, St. Thomas Aquinas denied women being defective men no less than 5 times in the Summa Theologica), and I'd have to research more to debunk her "nine million" murdered Inquisition number that does not seem a trustworthy statistic.
She does good to dismantle the claim that the first wave feminists were racist, and to challenge specific things of how we see men and women, this polarity of (absolute) weakness vs. strength, (absolute) fear vs. courage, (absolute) powerlessness vs. power. I'm not sure her solutions are all that liberating: for her claim that women must reclaim their abilities to nurture life, she fails by advocating abortion. It's just not consistent. I'm also wondering how she can quote Beauvoir as a trustworthy source at all, if she had contempt for lesbians.
Her refusal to "equality" based on imitation of the "male model" has its fallacies, but it's still interesting to think about in relation with liberal feminism and contains some good elements.
Most of these speeches were given right before the explosion of queer theory, so I'm wondering how she'd have modified them with that in consideration, especially for the troubling bits of the program against rape that she proposes, like "lowering the unrealistic age of consent" or "eliminate corroboration as a need for conviction" (p. 43). Even if some rape cases are hard to prove, they can be proven: just look at the Nassar case. Yes, it went on for years and a victim alone is already too many, but jailing an innocent man is the equivalent of leaving a rapist run free.
And even though she denounces a "masculinist" everything, she thinks men are capable of collaborating in this women led revolution, even by standing at the sides.