jha@lfcs.edinburgh.ac.uk (Jamie Andrews) (02/27/90)
Travis: >Also, Andrea Dworkin's "Pornography" is being reissued with a new >introduction by the author. She discusses events in the 1980's, >including the history surrounding her and Catherine Mackinnon's >anti-pornography statute in Minnesota. Apparently, she has not >mellowed since the late 1970's. > >Has anyone reading this list ever spoken to her, or heard her lecture? I attended a lecture by Andrea Dworkin in 1985. She really is an amazing speaker -- besides her physical presence, she had the audience in the palm of her hand and was very sensitive to their reactions. For instance, at one point she made her usual disparaging remark about male homosexuality (that it was "antiwoman"), and upon hearing the mixed reaction from the crowd (some boos, some scattered applause) immediately dropped that line of discussion. She is a really great rhetorician. The only person I can think of who compares with her on that score is Stephen Lewis, a Canadian politician/diplomat who is one of the great orators of our time. I can tell that if anyone went to that lecture with some sympathy for her views, they would have been much more convinced by the end of it. Unfortunately, I don't agree with her radical views on pornography or rape, so I was less than enthralled all the time. I asked her a question at the end (about what men who supported feminism could do, besides completely agreeing with her) and she answered with great conviction and sincerity. (Unlike Mary Daly, for instance, who refuses to take questions from men and prefers them to be excluded from her talks.) --Jamie. jha@lfcs.ed.ac.uk