Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership. Andrea Dworkin More Quotes by Andrea Dworkin More Quotes From Andrea Dworkin One of the reasons that women are kept in a state of economic degradation- because that's what it is for most women- is because that is the best way to keep women sexually available. Andrea Dworkin degradation feminist way There is no place on earth, no day or night, no hour or minute, when one is not a Jew or a woman. Andrea Dworkin outsiders earth night Men are distinguished from women by their commitment to do violence rather than to be victimized by it. Andrea Dworkin violence men commitment For a mother the project of raising a boy is the most fulfilling project she can hope for. Andrea Dworkin projects mother boys Feminist art may... though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme... should we call it 'joy'? Andrea Dworkin ambition imagination art The argument between wives and whores is an old one; each one thinking that whatever she is, at least she is not the other. Andrea Dworkin marriage wife thinking By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air. It is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Andrea Dworkin women elements air We as women know that there are no disembodied processes; that all history originates in human flesh; that all oppression is inflicted by the body of one against the body of another; that all social change is built on the bone and muscle, and out of the flesh and blood, of human creators. Andrea Dworkin body history blood Biological Superiority: The World's Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea. Andrea Dworkin dangerous world ideas Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. Andrea Dworkin real running art Women, for centuries not having access to pornography and now unable to bear looking at the muck on the supermarket shelves, are astonished. Women do not believe that men believe what pornography says about women. But they do. From the worst to the best of them, they do. Andrea Dworkin women bears believe I'm a radical feminist, not the fun kind. Andrea Dworkin radical-feminism feminist fun [I]n the male sexual lexicon, which is the vocabulary of power, erotica is simply high-class pornography: better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer. As with the call girl and the streetwalker, one is turned out better but both are produced by the same system of sexual values and both perform the same sexual service. Andrea Dworkin vocabulary girl class Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation.... The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover. Andrea Dworkin sacrifice integrity love I also had nightmares. Somehow all the feelings I didn't feel when each thing had actually happened to me I did feel when I slept. Andrea Dworkin nightmare feelings feels The creative mind is intelligence in action in the world. Andrea Dworkin creative mind world Undernourished, intelligence becomes like the bloated belly of a starving child: swollen, filled with nothing the body can use. Andrea Dworkin intelligence intelligent children Writing is alchemy. Dross becomes gold. Experience is transformed. Pain is changed. Suffering may become song. The ordinary or horrible is pushed by the will of the writer into grace or redemption, a prophetic wail, a screed for justice, an elegy of sadness or sorrow. ... There is always a tension between experience and the thing that finally carries it forward, bears its weight, holds it in. Without that tension, one might as well write a shopping list. Andrea Dworkin pain writing song The cultural institutions which embody and enforce those interlocked aberrations-for instance, law, art, religion, nation-states, the family, tribe, or commune based on father-right-these institutions are real and they must be destroyed. Andrea Dworkin real father art The traditional flowers of courtship are the traditional flowers of the grave, delivered to the victim before the kill. The cadaver is dressed up and made up and laid down and ritually violated and consecrated to an eternity of being used. Andrea Dworkin cadavers down-and flower
