Andrea Dworkin dies

Andrea Dworkin died last night. The list of prominent American writers that have popped their clogs in recent months is quite startling really - Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Hunter S. Thompson, Susan Sontag, and now the feminist's feminist.

If I was mad I'd think it was some kind of Republican plot! Dammit, I'll just do a Dworkin on it and say it's so and expect everyone to believe me. Anyway, here are some of her more famous quotes:

Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.

Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.

The fact that we are all trained to be mothers from infancy on means that we are all trained to devote our lives to men, whether they are our sons or not; that we are all trained to force other women to exemplify the lack of qualities which characterizes the cultural construct of femininity.

and my personal favourite:

Wild intelligence abhors any narrow world; and the world of women must stay narrow, or the woman is an outlaw. No woman could be Nietzsche or Rimbaud without ending up in a whorehouse or lobotomized.

Sleep well, girl, and don't forget to tell Yahweh what you think of him and his patriarchal rubbish!!

And here's an hilarious article by Jenny Diski in the LRB that uses Andrea Dworkin to cut a man down to size - the phrase dripping with sarcasm was born to describe this article. Shove up in the bed Maureen Dowd, Jenny Diski is my new favourite, cutting female journalist.