Name: Woman Hating
Rating: 3.0625 (8 reviews)
ISBN: 9780452268272

Andrea Dworkin

Woman Hating

These fairy-tale mothers are mythological female figures. They define for us the female character and delineate its existential possibilities. When she is good, she is soon dead. In fact, when she is good, she is so passive in life that death must be only more of the same. Here we discover the cardinal principle of sexist ontology - the only good woman is a dead woman. When she is bad she lives, or when she lives she is bad. She has one real function, motherhood. In that function, because it is active, she is characterized by overwhelming malice, devouring greed, uncontainable avarice.

She is ruthless, brutal, ambitious, a danger to children and other living things. Whether called mother, queen, stepmother, or wicked witch, she is the wicked witch, the content of nightmare, the source of terror.

it’s bittersweet to reflect upon a path long traversed and examine it with eyes already knowing. it’s angering to remember that even fifty years later, we are still no more than willing participants to a familiar damnation.

is how brutal and honest dworkin is. she is not here to lie to you, to make the truth somehow sweeter to taste and softer to swallow. her words are as ugly and violent as the abuse she discusses, each one serving to remind you that hatred runs deep and it is cruel and no one can save you from it. that being said, its order was somewhat questionable, inconsistent, incoherent, and perhaps even a little fantastical. the fairies, for one—neolithic pygmy populations of european folklore, relatively passive and dendrophilic people who lived in tiny holes on the mountainside until their displacement; the notion of authentic witch covens and their real magic, serving as the origin for the accusations of supposed satanic witches who were murdered by the catholic church; her examination of the categories that make up how we taxonomically define human sex, and her assertion that humans must therefore be multi-sexed rather than sexually dimorphic. the latter i can excuse, given that it was the 1970s and we knew less about human sexuality than we do now.

my favorite passages include her examinations of literary frameworks rooted in the deliberate patriarchal doctrines of the ‘woman’ role: woman as perpetrator of evil and malice due to her own selfish greed in childhood stories; woman as sexual subordinate, designed to crave punishment and penetration—both which are synonymous in the context of 1950s sadomasochistic erotica despite the delusion that the label of “sex slave” is somehow empowering and divine; woman as condemner, the mother of sin, created from a bent rib and thus damned to suffer (Genesis 3:16) for the crime of spousal disobedience; woman as thief, as sexual exploiter of men and their virility—the murderer responsible for men’s orgasmic death. 

an important, enlightening read that still holds true in modern age.

it’s bittersweet to reflect upon a path long traversed and examine it with eyes already knowing. it’s angering to remember that even fifty years later, we are still no more than willing participants to a familiar damnation.

what i’ve always liked about woman hating is how brutal and honest dworkin is. she is not here to lie to you, to make the truth somehow sweeter to taste and softer to swallow. her words are as ugly and violent as the abuse she discusses, each one serving to remind you that hatred runs deep and it is cruel and no one can save you from it. that being said, its order was somewhat questionable, inconsistent, incoherent, and perhaps even a little fantastical. the fairies, for one—neolithic pygmy populations of european folklore, relatively passive and dendrophilic people who lived in tiny holes on the mountainside until their displacement; the notion of authentic witch covens and their real magic, serving as the origin for the accusations of supposed satanic witches who were murdered by the catholic church; her examination of the categories that make up how we taxonomically define human sex, and her assertion that humans must therefore be multi-sexed rather than sexually dimorphic. the latter i can excuse, given that it was the 1970s and we knew less about human sexuality than we do now.

my favorite passages include her examinations of literary frameworks rooted in the deliberate patriarchal doctrines of the ‘woman’ role: woman as perpetrator of evil and malice due to her own selfish greed in childhood stories; woman as sexual subordinate, designed to crave punishment and penetration—both which are synonymous in the context of 1950s sadomasochistic erotica despite the delusion that the label of “sex slave” is somehow empowering and divine; woman as condemner, the mother of sin, created from a bent rib and thus damned to suffer (Genesis 3:16) for the crime of spousal disobedience; woman as thief, as sexual exploiter of men and their virility—the murderer responsible for men’s orgasmic death. 

an important, enlightening read that still holds true in modern age.

i can’t lie she was making very valid points but a quick google told me she was a zionist so….

mary

Pavonini

This one's a real mixed bag, I thought. Her strengths definitely lie in literary analysis and interesting writing. She's spot on when she talks about witch hunts and foot-binding. What she often excels at is presenting horrific facts in quite a dispassionate fashion, which for me increases their impact. 

The "facts" about fairies... well, I'll have to read up on what was accepted at the time, but right now I have no idea where she got that from. I found the second half of the book started to break down a bit with the sections on "androgyny". I'm not entirely sure why she decided to defend bestiality, but it's not a choice I would have made. I wasn't sure about the scientific material she used. I think Disorders of Sexual Development (DSDs) (intersex conditions) are becoming better understood now, and deserve a more rigorous approach and a whole book (to deal with scientific, ethical, social issues and present opposing theories). 

This was her first book, so I'm not sure what I was expecting - obviously someone so full of fire would be dynamic and changing during her life. What's interesting about reading her writing chronologically is hopefully I'll see the various changes over time (vs. seeing them in random contradictory excerpts). This is definitely worthwhile in building up a fuller picture of Dworkin, but it's not my favourite work of hers.

Woman Hating

Reviews

Highlights