“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence...Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.” Andrea Dworkin pic.twitter.com/ZJwHZeR5hh
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 25, 2023
March 26, 2023
J.K. Rowling quotes Andrea Dworkin.
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60 comments:
Shut up, terf. Trans women are more woman than you'll ever be.
Why does this whole sorry episode remind me of Frollo wanting to murder Esmeralda, the object of his desire whose affection can't be returned?
I'm willing to bet that most feminists under the age of forty have never heard of Dworkin.
"to the moon, Alice"
>“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence<
It is generally a mistake to take much stock in what the loony misandrist, Andrea Dworkin, says when it comes to men. The claim in that sentence - which she has exactly backward - is a prime case in point. The notion of words as violence is completely owned by the Left, which includes most feminists, as well as many other women. Men know what constitutes actual violence.
I guess we're supposed to recognize the photo. Something to do with "Posie Parker".
"Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty."
Not sure what she means by "control". But it is note-worthy that she regards insults and contempt as "threats". I suppose a case can be made that one should not insult people, 'though it won't be made by me. But there are lots and lots of people who deserve contempt, and should be treated with it. Lots and lots and lots of them.
This is the kind of defense Gwyneth Paltrow is offering to avoid liability in the civil damages / ski collision lawsuit that's being held right now in Utah. Gwyneth has testified that (a) the plaintiff skiied into her (he claims otherwise) and (b) she immediately thought it was some kind of sexual assault because her skiis were forced apart and she heard groaning.
Kind of an interesting story about Gwyneth. Long after the news about him broke, it was reported that Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassing her and so she sent her then-boyfriend Brad Pitt to warn him off. I think there's a compelling female empowerment lesson in that. Always have a man around to do the heavy lifting.
The big guy in the photo looks a lot like Andrea.
It turns out that the taller individual in the photo was Andrea Dworkin. This was a photo of Andrea making the quoted statement.
"I think there's a compelling female empowerment lesson in that. Always have a man around to do the heavy lifting."
Are you suggesting that Paltrow should have handled Weinstein herself? Sometimes a fish needs a bicycle.
Although it occurs to me, that if Pitt actually told Weinstein to lay off, and Weinstein did -- if -- then it likely has more to do with Pitt's star power than his musclepower. Pitt was one of the few people in Hollywood that Weinstein might not be able to ruin. LA is full of people who could have broken his arm. In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised none of them did.
That enraged man looks exactly like Andrea Dworkin. Is that the joke? Or is it actually Ms. Dworkin? What am I missing?
I really admire J.K. Rowling but I feel lost here...
I'd say Andrea's been hanging around with the wrong men then.
Ice, my thoughts entirely.
Andrea Dworkin was an original terf. She felt they negated women.
Back in the 80s she wrote a lengthy essay on The Story of O. She was against it. In the course of the essay, she excerpted many of the "good" parts in full. It was a sort of pornagraphic Cliff notes?
Why do women like violent porn so much? (O, 50 shades, Anne rice etc) Dworkin was upset that they did.
John Henry
Yet feminists depend on the benevolence of the vast majority of men to put up with their bullshit however silly and/or harmful it may be.
The Ayatollahs managed feminism overnight after the Shah was deposed.
Since it was posted with no clarifying comment, I'm going to assume this is an excellent use of visual irony. It's got to be Andreas Dworkin yelling in a crowd of protestors. Geez I never heard of her before, but Google image is your friend. Didn't Carrie Fisher strangle her already tho, in Return of the Jedi?
J.K. is approaching legendary status; snarky, rich, cute, and a redhead.
What's not to like?
And vice versa. In recent years, plenty of women react to men's words as if they were acts of violence, and some women react to men's words with acts of violence. However things were in the past, nowadays it's a matter of proportions and degrees, not of absolutes.
Posey Parker is a British anti-trans activist. I came across the name yesterday in reference to disturbances in New Zealand and assumed that Posey was a militant trans activist. In any case, the name is a clever pun.
If you substitute “trans women” for “men,” it makes sense. Especially when you see this:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-shameful-persecution-of-posie-parker-in-new-zealand/
Also, Rowling is experiencing this herself with all the transhate reaction to her words. I listened to the podcast of the Witch Trials of JK Rowling episode where they read some of the responses she gets. They all involved using penises as weapons against women. Extremely misogynistic. More and more I see the trans movement as a movement to eliminate women.
"J.K. is approaching legendary status; snarky, rich, cute, and a redhead.
What's not to like?"
You forgot: Billionaire - a quality attractive to some people.
"...it was reported that Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassing her and so she sent her then-boyfriend Brad Pitt to warn him off."
So, on behalf of GP, Brad Pitt sent Harvey the message that ONE woman, and only one, was off limits?
What a hero.
“Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence"
Define "often." Supply measures. Lefty women react to men's words as violence--see Stanford. Normie men around normie women: never.
"Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt"
But not as much control, violence, insults and contempt men have experienced from other men. Check crime stats.
“The claim in that sentence - which she has exactly backward - is a prime case in point. The notion of words as violence is completely owned by the Left, which includes most feminists, as well as many other women. Men know what constitutes actual violence.“
I kinda think that’s the point, though.
A transwoman = man
Only, a woman- now.
Anyway- not a level playing field and it makes more sense in my head. More like: don’t piss a transwoman off or you’ll be playing 32pick up. W/your teeth.
Scarier than a blind mole-rat!
masculinism
"The Karen" is a woman and while her violence may not be a pop in the snoot it is still violence.
Hmmm. I've seen countless videos of Leftist womyn screaming, cursing and threatening white males. Because they are endangering the empty-headed clown lady's life and all those with mental illness by simply affirming basic biology.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
If only Dean Steinbach had been there to stunningly and bravely to protect Posie Parker's right to free expression by justifying the vicious passions of the mob.
Is that a man circled in red - or a tranny? Whatever "they" are, they look gross.
Anyway, men don't look on female speech as "Violence" but they sometimes react violently to speech. That's because most men will only take so much verbal abuse before they react physically. That's why you had duels, and still have fight-fights. Of course, Dworkin grew up in an urban leftwing culture where men didn't fight duels, they fought with their mouths. So, maybe she couldn't tell the difference.
BTW, Some Women think they can say ANYTHING to men, without any blowback. And that's not always the case. Sads for them.
In fairness to Dworkin, she might not have been yelling at the lady, or even angry with her. Stills are very imperfect in this way.
Unfortunately, it appears that JK mistakenly used a photo of a guy who was running interference for Posey protecting her from the mob of bug-eyed trans supporters.
More the point, Andrea Dworkin was a particularly ugly specimen, both physically and substantively. A really nasty piece of work.
- Krumhorn
Wait a minute, I thought "Dworkin" was a J.R.R. Tolkien character, not Rowling?
rcocean,
That's actually Andrea Dworkin herself, unless they found a double for her.
Your point is one I was going to make, but take a hell of a lot further.
I think it is correct to say that most women conduct their conflicts with words and political infighting. This is why so many women create totally toxic leadership environments around themselves, because they simply cannot operate any other way. Men tend to conduct their conflicts with physical fights, and once they've established "might makes right", that settles down. I've met many a guy who met their best friend through having had a fight with them, and twenty years later, they're still thick as thieves.
Ever see a woman like that? I can't think of any, off hand. It's all pretty much life-long enmity, even between mothers and daughters. The male and female mind simply do not operate alike in these regards, and there's probably some evolutionary psychological basis for why that we could rationalize.
The other thing here that I think a lot of folks miss out on with regards to the trans phenomenon is this. Women tend to overwhelm men with volume and word skills in arguments; most of conflict these days ain't physical, which isn't acceptable any more, so when women offer offense and vicious words in place of physical violence, men are basically unarmed. You can't effectively fight the verbal abuse, you can't hit her (which, in a lot of cases, if a male offered up similar "fighting words", he'd get his ass kicked), and most men are essentially defeated before they start.
Sooooo... The trans guys invading women's spaces? LOL... Look at it like the tables being similarly turned on women. The men are now weaponizing women's sexuality, against them. Which would be horribly funny, were it not so horribly destructive.
To a degree, I think that what's driving a lot of this crap is that the feminine extremists have taken things too far with denigrating and displacing men. The Lia Thomas phenomenon? That's happening because said individual is a nobody as a male; as a trans male, they're powerful, and they have the added benefit of getting back at women that have made them feel weak and unvalued. The whole thing, I suspect, is probably down to Lia Thomas not being successful as a male, not being able to attract the sort of women they wanted, and soooo... In a psychologically twisted manner, they're getting back at the girls.
And, because they've successfully weaponized the "feminine way of conflict", they're winning.
(cont)
In other words, I am beginning to think that a lot of the "trans phenomenon" is happening precisely because women have become so much more successful and effective at displacing men. Which may, in fact, be something that exists only in the minds of the unhealthy men who do things like Lia Thomas has done, but I think it is a contributory factor.
It's a lot like all the fake Indians and blacks you have out there, these days: If white supremacy were really a thing, then you wouldn't see crazy white women posing as ethnic minorities. Similarly, if "male supremacy" were really a thing, then you wouldn't have all these Lia Thomas types showing up, posing as women...
Weirdly, I think it's all tied in together with how far we've gone overboard with "change" in society. Rachel Dolezal and Lia Thomas may well be grifters, but I think that a part of what goes into what they're doing is because they've internalized all the hatred on the supposed formerly "supremacist" demographic that they're part of. All they're doing is joining the winning side; Rachel Dolezal gets told she's evil just because she's white like all the bad people from history, so what does she do? "Oh, I'm not white... I'm black; I'm one of the good guys..."
Lia Thomas is doing the same thing, I suspect.
At the root of it all? The reformers went too far, and started demonizing people who had nothing to do with all the old abuses, but are still getting beaten up on because they happen to look like the people who perpetrated all those supposed abuses...
"Why do women like violent porn so much? (O, 50 shades, Anne rice etc) Dworkin was upset that they did."
I don't think it is accurate to describe "The Story of O", 50 Shades, or the various works of Anne Rice as "violent". "Consensual non-consensuality" comes closer to it. "I am chaste. I'm only having sex with you because you forced me to. That's the deal. And of course, I'm so desirable that you really couldn't help yourself."
It's interesting, John Henry, that you mention that essay or book chapter. I remember it too. Dworkin was a frustrating person whose condemnation of men went way, way too far, but she was a good writer and said some pretty fair and interesting things.
I think she hated what the feminist movement was becoming even more than she hated "the patriarchy." There were also men she loved and admired. She was in some ways conservative and definitely prescient in seeing where vanguard activism was heading and why it would be bad for women. I wish she had lived longer. She might have surprised us.
All sorts of genders, not only male, can threaten violent consequences. Usually supposed to be done via social tech grounded in laws and their legitimate enforcement. These days a woman can effectively threaten just as well as a man but perhaps at some instinctual level it's more credible coming from big XY-chromed physical brutes in spite of the growing irrelvance of those attributes.
It's weird that Dworkin in the quote appears to complain about men treating words as violent and then herself groups all kinds of merely verbal things (contempt, insults, 'control' possibly - not sure what that is as distinct from dominance) alongside violence as 'dominance'. The category of things that can be used to establish+hold dominance is useful to consider but her purpose seems to be to claim that it's especially male+violent, which doesn't seem true now. In any case, since it's not tautological she would need to have provided supporting evidence+reasoning, which I would need to see. Maybe there are people who respect Dworkin as an authority but this Rowling message seems mostly targeted at invested old-school feminists.
Well, the tweet is gone, removed or banned. In any case, despite falling for many bad and incoherent ideas and radicals, Dworkin worked harder than anyone to expose Bill Clinton and support his victims. When she was in possession of her senses, she could talk circles around most critics. But Sebastian, you are right: her identity politics blinded her to the humanity and sacrifices of men.
"Dworkin was a frustrating person whose condemnation of men went way, way too far, but she was a good writer and said some pretty fair and interesting things."
Eh. She was no Valerie Solanas.
This trans thing has to be a psy-op.
Who’s behind it?
Althouse still has a feminism tag. That's like keeping a bustle and high-button shoes in the closet just in case.
I don't think it is accurate to describe "The Story of O", 50 Shades, or the various works of Anne Rice as "violent". "Consensual non-consensuality" comes closer to it. "I am chaste. I'm only having sex with you because you forced me to. That's the deal. And of course, I'm so desirable that you really couldn't help yourself."
Am I the only one to ever hear of the term "bodice -rippers" used to refer to a genre of female literature often called "romance novels"?
"Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence...Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty.” - Andrea Dworkin
Oh BULLSHIT (see there I'm reacting!) But it is still bullshit.
Blogger Jupiter said...
I don't think it is accurate to describe "The Story of O", 50 Shades, or the various works of Anne Rice as "violent".
There might be a better word to describe whipping, forcible oral/anal/vaginal sex, bondage, forced subservience etc than violent. I could not and still can't think of one.
Yes, it was consensual in the sense that O, and Beauty (Ann Rice) and the woman in 50 shades could say "stop" at any time. Or at least somewhat consensual on the woman's part.
It is still pretty violent consensual or not.
John Henry
Posie Parker aka Kelly Jay Keen is a woman who fights against the Trans lunacy and has been threatened by the "transwoman" lobby and persecuted and harassed by the UK police for refusing to declare that Frankenwomen are women. Most commenters here should be supporting her 100%.
Back in the 80s when I subscribed to libertarian mags like Liberty, Reason, Freeman and others there was a Canadian woman who wrote a lot about domestic violence. Wendy something. She wrote about other stuff as well and was always worth reading.
One of the things I learned about domestic violence was that it was not really male on female. Women were just as likely to engage in violence against men. Since most unarmed woman is unlikely to inflict much harm on most men, women tended to use a weapon. Men, for various reasons were generally reluctant to report it.
Female on male violence, with a weapon, was considered comical and a running gag, pretty much weekly, in popular comics. Maggie beating Jiggs with a rolling pin, Loweezy banging on Snuffy Smith with a cast iron skillet, Ms Dithers hitting Mr Dithers (in Blondie) with an umbrella and others.
And not just brandishing, as Ralph did with his fist "To the moon, Alice! To the moon!" The physical contact was often the actual punch line.
The umbrella in real life would have been annoying. The skillet or the rolling pin, applied as illustrated to Snuffy's or Jiggs' head would have been life threatening or fatal.
Wendy also looked at gay and lesbian live-in relationships. The level of violence between gay and lesbian partners is about the same between M-F couples.
She is not the only one who wrote about it. Just the first one I remember reading.
The key is that it is domestic violence, a problem of living together. The sex or sexual preference of the aggressor and victim don't seem to matter.
Tina,
I am almost embarrassed to admit but I have read way more of Andrea Dworkin than anyone should.
It also seemed like you never found Dworkin without another equally rabid woman called McKinnon(?)
Both were batshit crazy, it seemed to me. Both were usually interesting to read.
One of my first encounters with the pair (in print) was in the 80s when they were raising hell about a week long "womyn's" camp. ISTR in Michigan but could be wrong. The camp was an opportunity for women to gather, howl at the moon and talk about how badly they had been mistreated by men.
Some M>F trannies wanted to attend and Dworkin and the organizers wanted to keep them out. The trannies were making a big stink. The organizers said the camp was only for "womyn born womyn"
At the time, I did not realize there was any other kind, really. I knew about Christine Jorgansen and a couple others but had never realized it was a thing. In the end, I think, the actual women got their way.
Original TERFs, perhaps.
John Henry
"The umbrella in real life would have been annoying. The skillet or the rolling pin, applied as illustrated to Snuffy's or Jiggs' head would have been life threatening or fatal."
That's nothing compared to what the Roadrunner used to do to the Coyote. Of course, the Coyote really was asking for it.
The tweet has been deleted, but as I recall, Dworkin was a singularly unattractive, obese, and shrill examplar of the farthest fringe of the second-wave feminist movement.
It was surely her that Rush Limbaugh had in mind when he coined (or at least popularized) the word "feminazi", and described feminism as primarily a movement to provide ugly single women with access to the mainstream of society. Very ungenerous characterizations, to be sure, but with much more than a grain of truth.
How amusing to see that even such as she are no longer radical enough for today's Left.
I suppose you are right, that "consensual" does not entail "nonviolent". To my mind, the difference between force and violence is that the latter causes physical damage. And whipping certainly causes damage, so I guess it is, indeed, violent.
Nonetheless, I don't believe the readers of 50 Shades would find it equally stimulating if he just knocked her out and threw her down a flight of stairs.
"Back in the 80s when I subscribed to libertarian mags like Liberty, Reason, Freeman and others there was a Canadian woman who wrote a lot about domestic violence. Wendy something. She wrote about other stuff as well and was always worth reading."
Wendy McElroy
For that quote, I would defy anyone to find a single example of those in my life of 70 years. Anyone can cherry pick information from bad men. I do not cherry pick information about bad women to generalise to the whole.
Blogger Mason G said...
Wendy McElroy
Yup. I knew it was Mc something but just could not call it to mind.
John Henry
Why is it that so many young women want to be choked during sex? I mean, they ask for it. "Choke me, daddy!" That is SO cringe (the "Daddy" part). To me, forceful, consensual sex is fine inasmuch as both participants want to do it. But there exists submissive women (and men, but I won't go there) and women that want to specifically have violent sex that HURTS them. Anal without lube or without taking steps to prevent pain. I'm not talking about porn, either. Even before "50 Shades", I 've had women who have asked me to tie them up for sex. Now I was a Boy Scout, but that's TMI.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
FWIW, my view is that the oftentimes extreme reaction of transwomen to J.K.Rowling is just another case of toxic masculinity.
John Henry: Never did like Wendy McElroy much, because I think pro-sex feminism was a very slippery slope to the non-optional celebration of transgender, throuple, daily-special sexual identity bullshit we're warping young girls with today, as it also weirdly created the campus-feminist policing of men by claiming girls just want to have random sex with boys. So it failed in every direction, and the only thing it birthed was the vile silk-stocking Judith Butler types demanding that we eliminate heterosexual womanhood because the mere existence of such women (yet, not men) prevents the creation of universal genderqueer theythemism.
Makes you long for a good old-fashioned lesbian just whinging about shaving her legs.
You just can't ignore human nature or the history of revolutions. Luckily, nobody can understand a damn thing Judith Butler is saying.
I had to slog through a lot of MacKinnon and Dworkin. My quotidian brain couldn't follow MacKinnon's legal somersaults. Abstract legal theory should be locked in the ivy tower to limit contagion. I do miss some of the Seventies feminists. Phyllis Chesler wrote some good books, especially warning about radical Islam.
Y'know... Vis-a-vis the "crazy white woman posing as something else" issue, I can't honestly think of any cases I ever heard of, from back in the day, wherein there were "crazy white woman" equivalents claiming to be black... I mean, when you could have actually been taken up and sold as a slave, were you to claim being black, people weren't too enthusiastic about claiming that crap. That ought to tell us something.
The other question I've got is this: Given the propensity that various tribes had for adopting in all sorts of people that weren't "their kind", what the hell does that do to their descendants? What're the implications, there?
Say you're looking at a descendant of Quanah Parker; his mother was Cynthia Ann Parker, a captive white woman who assimilated fully into the Comanche tribe. Would she be held to be an "authentic Indian", or not? If not, why not? Should her descendants be accepted as "authentic Indian", or should we think of them the same way we think of Sacheen Littlefeather, a poseur extraordinaire?
There were a lot of whites who found the Native American way of life congenial, and preferred it. You go back to colonial times, and you'll find countless examples of whites "going native" and joining the tribes, particularly if they were from lower stratums of society like indentured servants. You look at that, and the question becomes "just what the hell is an Indian, anyway...?"
Maybe Elizabeth Warren is telling us a truth, in a way: Indian is a state of mind. Apparently.
"... Most women have experienced enough dominance from men—control, violence, insult, contempt—that no threat seems empty."
You're doing it wrong.
That said, men, women, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus. #WarOfTheWorlds #HateLovesAbortion
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