From: cjlee@netcom.com (Caroline Jean Lee)
Subject: Re: Dworkin (was Re: Liberty)
Keywords: Dworkin "24 hour truce"
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 10:34:49 GMT

Just curious. . .how many of the participants in this thread have
actually read some of Dworkin's more recent work? For those who
haven't, I am excerpting from her essay "I Want a 24 Hour Truce in
Which There is No Rape," from her book "Letters from a War Zone :
Writings 1976-1989.  This was a speech to the a conference of the
men's movement in 1983, and I thought that much of it was applicable
to various discussions around feminist issues floating around
soc.motss. I will type it in full if enough people ask, especialy
since the book can be hard to get.

"I have thought a great deal about how a feminist, like myself,
addresses an audience primarily of political men who say that they
are antisexist. . .[and if I had a plea or a question or a human
address] it would be this: why are you so slow?  Why are you so slow
to understand the simplest things; not the complicated ideological
things.  You understand those.  The simple things. . .

And also: that we do not have time.  We women. We don't have forever.  Some of us don't have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out and do something."

(On stats on rape, battering, murder) 

"Those statistics are not abstractions.  It is easy to say, "Ah, the
statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them
up another way."  That's true.  But I hear about those rapes one by
one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen.  Those
statistics are not abstract to me.  Every three minutes a woman is
being raped.  Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten.  There
is nothing abstract abotu it.  It is happening right now as I am
speaking."

[a page edited out]


"The men's movement seems to stay stuck on two points, The first is
that men don't really feel very good about themselves.  How could you?
The second is that men come to me or to other feminists and say: "What
you're saying about men isn't true.  It isn't true of me.  I don't
feel that way.  I'm opposed to all of this."

And I say: don't tell me.  Tell the pornographers.  Tell the pimps.
Tell the warmakers.  Tell the rape apologists and the rape
celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues.  Tell the novelists who
think that rape is wonderful.  Tell Larry Flynt.  Tell Hugh Hefner.
There's no point in telling me.  I'm only a woman. There's nothing I
can do about it.  These men presume to speak for you.  They are in the
public arena saying they represent you.  If they don't , then you had
better let them know."

(on equality)
"I want to talk to you about equality, what equality is and what it
means. It isn't just an idea.  Ot's mot just some insipid word that
ends up being bullshit.  It doesn't have anything to do with all those
statements like, "Oh, that happens to men too."  I name an abuse and I
hear, "Oh, it happens to men too."  That is not the equality we are
struggling for.  We could change our strategy and say: well, okay, we
want equality; we'll stick something up the ass of a man every three
minutes."

"I came here today because I don't believe that rape is inevitable or
natural.  If I did, I would have no reason to be here.  Have you ever
wondered why we are not in armed combat against you?  It's not because
there's a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we
believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.

The shame of men in front of women is, I think, an appropriate
response both to what men do and to what men do not do.  Ithink you
should be ashamed. But what you do with that shame is to use it as an
excuse to keep doing what you want and keep not doing anything else;
and you've got to stop.  You've got to stop.  Your psychology doesn't
matter.  How much you hurt doesn't matter in the end any more than how
much we hurt matters.  If we sat around and only talked about how much
rape hurt us, do you think there would have been one of the changes
that you have seen in this country in the last fifteen years?"