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A review by leelulah
Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin
1.0
I'm glad this wasn't my introduction to Dworkin.
In this work, she's obviously under the influence of Allen Ginsberg (whom she later denounced for being a pedophile), Margaret Murray's unscientific claims, Shulamith Firestone, and even cites Dr. Money's work.
Here, she has the audacity to call gender 'visible sex' and call the human species 'multisexed'. TRAs will point to this as her trans-friendly era, I can tell. But there are also serious concerns of her former partner rewriting her work to suit this agenda. Yet, none of this erases this is quite disastrous for a first book.
Mentions to the 'erotic impulses of children', thinking sexual difference is constructed... I wasn't expecting a kind relationship to religion but she cuts way less slack than she'd do with Jews in the future. It's kind of strange to watch her go giddly on the idea of witches, or seriously believe that Medievals truly equated sexual intercourse with Jews to bestiality, or even argue that bestiality and pedophilia are somewhat vestiges of a past, more natural and humane society aware of the inherent erotic relationship to other beings.
I can't honestly process the high ratings this possesses on this site. Obviously, there are good parts such as the critique of polarity in male-female relationships, where Jungian is exposed in its 'eternal conflict' mindset, and that of pornography, even of sadomasochism as sort of a subvertion of mystical tradtion, by calling it akin to demonic posession.
I am disappointed, but I suppose it's worth engaging. I've also read somewhere that she disowned parts of this book later in life and I can see why, I should have done the same.
In this work, she's obviously under the influence of Allen Ginsberg (whom she later denounced for being a pedophile), Margaret Murray's unscientific claims, Shulamith Firestone, and even cites Dr. Money's work.
Here, she has the audacity to call gender 'visible sex' and call the human species 'multisexed'. TRAs will point to this as her trans-friendly era, I can tell. But there are also serious concerns of her former partner rewriting her work to suit this agenda. Yet, none of this erases this is quite disastrous for a first book.
Mentions to the 'erotic impulses of children', thinking sexual difference is constructed... I wasn't expecting a kind relationship to religion but she cuts way less slack than she'd do with Jews in the future. It's kind of strange to watch her go giddly on the idea of witches, or seriously believe that Medievals truly equated sexual intercourse with Jews to bestiality, or even argue that bestiality and pedophilia are somewhat vestiges of a past, more natural and humane society aware of the inherent erotic relationship to other beings.
I can't honestly process the high ratings this possesses on this site. Obviously, there are good parts such as the critique of polarity in male-female relationships, where Jungian is exposed in its 'eternal conflict' mindset, and that of pornography, even of sadomasochism as sort of a subvertion of mystical tradtion, by calling it akin to demonic posession.
I am disappointed, but I suppose it's worth engaging. I've also read somewhere that she disowned parts of this book later in life and I can see why, I should have done the same.