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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
So true, depending 💯. I really enjoyed the chapters on feminine evil and witchcraft. I’m definitely going to read more about the history of women’s connection to nature: how it was manipulated to be seen as “evil” as the church turned against paganism and herbalism.
fast-paced
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
While I am really glad I read this, this was definitely an exercise for me in understanding the value of a person's opinions even if I do not necessarily agree with their stances on every single thing. andrea dworkin had some...rather questionable...stances in both this book and just throughout her life in general that I do not agree with. That being said, I do appreciate her completely uncensored sort of radical feminism and I do think that the publication of this book was important and necessary. it's also pure radical feminism, before that term was co-opted by transphobic people, and it's nice to see that the radical feminist movement, at least at one time, was open to the existence of transgender people.
The thing that stuck with me most in this book was the section on chinese footbinding. Specifically how young girls were told by their mothers, as young as seven years old, to start footbinding. The tiny foot was viewed as beautiful and feminine and even more attractive because of its intrigue; men never wanted to actually see the heinous work that went into the creation of the tiny foot, it was a shameful act to be seen washing the foot, seeing the thing for what it was, a painful mutilation, took the intrigue and beauty out of it. But it was seen as masculine to have big, regular-sized, functional feet. Women with tiny feet were more attractive, more feminine, better at sex, better wives, because of their feet. Dworkin describes this piece of chinese history as a sexual fetish that became normalized and widespread, and goes on to talk about how many unnatural things that women are made to do in our current society, for the sake of femininity, hygiene, and beauty, can really just be looked at as sexual fetishes that have been ingrained in our society. The exact same thought patterns, of women not complying with an unnatural beauty standard being unhygienic, masculine, and unattractive, can be seen for women who do not make their bodies entirely hairless or wear makeup every day.
Andrea Dworkin can also just be incredibly funny at times in a way that caught me off guard, but in a world where so many core works in feminist studies are written in a horrifically academic and unaccessible way, I really appreciated Dworkin's bluntness and her direct intention to display her ideas simply and fully. I was never afraid to pick up this book and I think that is how to best get through to the public and more feminist and gender theorists should learn from this. Also that was accentuated by the afterword of this book, which was dworkin crashing out about her publisher not allowing her to publish this book without punctuation and capitalization. love that.
The thing that stuck with me most in this book was the section on chinese footbinding. Specifically how young girls were told by their mothers, as young as seven years old, to start footbinding. The tiny foot was viewed as beautiful and feminine and even more attractive because of its intrigue; men never wanted to actually see the heinous work that went into the creation of the tiny foot, it was a shameful act to be seen washing the foot, seeing the thing for what it was, a painful mutilation, took the intrigue and beauty out of it. But it was seen as masculine to have big, regular-sized, functional feet. Women with tiny feet were more attractive, more feminine, better at sex, better wives, because of their feet. Dworkin describes this piece of chinese history as a sexual fetish that became normalized and widespread, and goes on to talk about how many unnatural things that women are made to do in our current society, for the sake of femininity, hygiene, and beauty, can really just be looked at as sexual fetishes that have been ingrained in our society. The exact same thought patterns, of women not complying with an unnatural beauty standard being unhygienic, masculine, and unattractive, can be seen for women who do not make their bodies entirely hairless or wear makeup every day.
Andrea Dworkin can also just be incredibly funny at times in a way that caught me off guard, but in a world where so many core works in feminist studies are written in a horrifically academic and unaccessible way, I really appreciated Dworkin's bluntness and her direct intention to display her ideas simply and fully. I was never afraid to pick up this book and I think that is how to best get through to the public and more feminist and gender theorists should learn from this. Also that was accentuated by the afterword of this book, which was dworkin crashing out about her publisher not allowing her to publish this book without punctuation and capitalization. love that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault
informative
informative
reflective
fast-paced
(4.5 stars) some pages i really had no idea what she was actually on about ie referring to fairies as a neolithic race of humans (lol) and the page on incest which was very ???, but overall some really interesting chapters and ideas , so much in the chapters on Chinese foot-binding and the witch trials that i had no idea of beforehand. And it's amazing how much she essentially predicted and was so on the mark about despite writing in the 70's, for things you may have expected to have been more aged. ie some lovely points about the science of biological sex not being binary(not only gender), & on transsexuality eg;
"Since we know very little about sex identity, and since psychiatrists are committed to the propagation of the cultural structure as it is, it would be more premature and not very intelligent to accept the psychiatric judgment that transsexuality is caused by faulty socialisation. More probably transsexuality is caused by a faulty society." ,
"By changing our premises about men and women, role-playing, and polarity, the social situation of transsexuals will be transformed, and transsexuals will be integrated into community, no longer persecuted and despised."
For a somewhat short book (183 pages) she managed to cover a huge range of topics and despite being written now 50 years ago, doesn't actually feel too aged? First Andrea Dworkin book i've actually managed to finish but i'm halfway through Pornography-men possessing women, and once i finish that it may likely be my favourite over this one, as far more in depth, but we'll see.
"Since we know very little about sex identity, and since psychiatrists are committed to the propagation of the cultural structure as it is, it would be more premature and not very intelligent to accept the psychiatric judgment that transsexuality is caused by faulty socialisation. More probably transsexuality is caused by a faulty society." ,
"By changing our premises about men and women, role-playing, and polarity, the social situation of transsexuals will be transformed, and transsexuals will be integrated into community, no longer persecuted and despised."
For a somewhat short book (183 pages) she managed to cover a huge range of topics and despite being written now 50 years ago, doesn't actually feel too aged? First Andrea Dworkin book i've actually managed to finish but i'm halfway through Pornography-men possessing women, and once i finish that it may likely be my favourite over this one, as far more in depth, but we'll see.
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
challenging
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced