Huh.

Andrea Dworkin has, apparently, died. I learnt this from Susie Bright's blog, and I'm glad that I got the news from someone who had a solid perspective on her instead of the usual knee-jerk "Dworkin is a castrating bitch" summary.

Which is not to say that I agreed with all or even most of Ms. Dworkin's stances. She often made me, the queen of "can't we all just along?", quite nervous. Still, every revolution needs its radicals and its fringe shouters to draw attention to issues that most people never even thought of and to fucked-up situations that were considered the norm. I appreciated her ferocity in the times I felt as if every male I knew figured that women had acheived parity within the system and that I should stop complaining about sexism.

I did not appreciate how her blunt statements were often used as a cudgel to make more centrist women back away from feminism. "Look at Dworkin! She says penetration is rape and says she is a feminist! Therefore, every feminist is a man-hating bitch!" I did not understand how she did not turn her scathing view on those people.

Still, she had valuable things to say, and for that I appreciated her. RIP, Ms. Dworkin.