In this fierce and beautiful book, the author of Pornography: Men Possessing Women confronts our most profound social disgrace: the sexual, cultural, and political subjugation of women to men, and with rare eloquence examines the systematic crimes of our male-dominated society against women. “Our Blood is long overdue—all women must welcome the vigor and the incisive perception of this young feminist. ” —Flo Kennedy “Andrea Dworkin’s writing has the power of young genius —Leah Fritz “Andrea Dworkin has dedicated the title chapter of her book to the Grimke sisters, and it would have pleased them, I think—since it contains material which can serve at once as source and inspiration for women. ” —Robin Morgan “Women, looking into the mirror of Out Blood, will feel anguish for our past suffering and enslavement—and outrage at our present condition. Men, if they dare to look into this mirror, will turn away in shame and horror at what they have done. ” —Karla Jay “It is great—scary and innovative and great.” —Karen DeCrow “Our Blood takes a hard, unflinching look at the nature of sexual politics. Each essay reveals us to ourselves, exposing always the dynamics which have kept women oppressed throughout the ages. Our Blood compels us to confront the truth of our lives in the hope that we will then be able to transform them. ” —Susan Yankowitz ok yAde wriW M A N Books byAndreaDworkinWO H A T I N G THE NEW WOMANS BROKEN HEART po r n o g r a ph y : men po ssessin g women Perigee Books are published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Copyright © 1976 by Andrea Dworkin New preface copyright © 1981 by Andrea Dworkin All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Published simultaneously in Canada by Academic Press Canada Limited, Toronto. “Feminism, Art, and My Mother Sylvia.*' Copyright Q 1974 by Andrea Dworkin. First published in Social Policy, May/June 1975. Reprinted by per mission of the author. “Renouncing Sexual ‘Equality. ’” Copyright © 1974 by Andrea Dworkin. First published in WIN, October 17, 1974. Reprinted by permission of the author. “Remembering the Witches. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. First published in WIN, February 20, 1975. Reprinted by permission of the author. “The Rape Atrocity and the Boy Next Door. ” Copyright © 1975 by An drea Dworkin. First delivered as a lecture. “The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. First delivered as a lecture. “Redefining Nonviolence. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. Pub lished in WIN, July 17, 1975. Delivered as a lecture under the tide “A Call to Separatism. ” Reprinted by permission of the author. “Lesbian Pride. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. First published under the title “What Is Lesbian Pride? ” in The Second Wave, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1975. Delivered as a lecture under the title “What Is Lesbian Pride? ” Re printed by permission of the author. “Our Blood: The Slavery of Women in Amerika. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. First delivered as a lecture under the title “Our Blood. ” “The Root Cause. ” Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin. First delivered as a lecture under the title “Androgyny. ” Grateful acknowledgment is made to Random House, Inc., for permission to reprint from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Copyright © 1966, 1967 by Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Dworkin, Andrea. Our blood. Reprint. Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, cl976. Bibliography: p. 1. Women—Social conditions. 2. Feminism. I. Title. HQ1154.D85 1981 305.4'2 81-7308 ISBN 0-399-50575-X AACR2 First Perigee printing, 1981 Printed in the United States of America Contents Preface xi 1. Feminism, Art, and My Mother Sylvia 1 2. Renouncing Sexual “Equality” 10 3. Remembering the Witches 15 4. The Rape Atrocity and the Boy Next Door 22 5. The Sexual Politics of Fear and Courage 50 6. Redefining Nonviolence 66 7. Lesbian Pride 73 8. Our Blood: The Slavery of Women in Amerika 76 9. The Root Cause 96 Notes 113 FOR BARBARA DEMING I suggest that if we are willing to confront our own most seemingly personal angers, in their raw state, and take upon ourselves the task of translating this raw anger into the disciplined anger of the search for change, we will find ourselves in a position to speak much more persuasively to comrades about the need to root out from all anger the spirit of murder. Barbara Deming, “On Anger” We Cannot Live Without Our Lives Now, women do not ask half of a kingdom but their rights, and they don’t get them. When she comes to demand them, don’t you hear how sons hiss their mothers like snakes, because they ask for their rights; and can they ask for anything less?. .. But we’ll have our rights; see if we don’t; and you can’t stop us from them; see if you can. You can hiss as much as you like, but it is coming. Sojourner Truth, 1853 2 Re n o u n c i n g Sexual “Equality” Equality: 1. the state of being equal; correspondence in quantity, degree, value, rank, ability, etc. 2. uniform char acter, as of motion or surface. Freedom: 1. state of being at liberty rather than in con finement or under physical restraint. 2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc. 3. power of determining one’s or its own action. 4. Philos, the power to make one’s own choices or decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy, self-determination. 5. civil liberty, as opposed to sub jection to an arbitrary or despotic government. 6. political or national independence. 8. personal liberty, as op posed to bondage or slavery. —Syn. freedom , independence, lib erty refer to an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to ex ercise one’s rights and powers, freedom emphasizes the opportunity given for the exercise of one’s rights, powers, desires, or the like. independence implies not only lack of restrictions but also the ability to stand alone, un sustained by anything else. —Ant. 1-3. restraint. 5, 6, 8. oppression. Justice: 1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equit ableness, or moral rightness... 2. rightfulness or lawful ness. 3. the moral principle determining just conduct. 4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment. from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language In 1970 Kate Millett published Sexual Politics. In that book she proved to many of us—who would have staked our lives Delivered at the National Organization for Women Conference on Sexuality, New York City, October 12, 1974. on denying it—that sexual relations, the literature depicting those relations, the psychology posturing to explain those rela tions, the economic systems that fix the necessities of those relations, the religious systems that seek to control those rela tions, are political. She showed us that everything that hap pens to a woman in her life, everything that touches or molds her, is political. 1 Women who are feminists, that is, women who grasped her analysis and saw that it explained much of their real existence in their real lives, have tried to understand, struggle against, and transform the political system called patriarchy which exploits our labor, predetermines the ownership of our bodies, and diminishes our selfhood from the day we are bom. This struggle has no dimension to it which is abstract: it has touched us in every part of our lives. But nowhere has it touched us more vividly or painfully than in that part of our human lives which we call “love” and “sex. ” In the course of our struggle to free ourselves from systematic oppression, a serious argument has developed among us, and I want to bring that argument into this room. Some of us have committed ourselves in all areas, including those called “love” and “sex,” to the goal of equality, that is, to the state of being equal; correspondence in quantity, de gree, value, rank, ability; uniform character, as of motion or surface. Others of us, and I stand on this side of the argument, do not see equality as a proper, or sufficient, or moral, or honorable final goal. We believe that to be equal where there is not universal justice, or where there is not universal free dom is, quite simply, to be the same as the oppressor. It is to have achieved “uniform character, as of motion or surface. ” Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of sexuality. The male sexual model is based on a polarization of humankind into man /woman, master/slave, aggressor/victim, active/ passive. This male sexual model is now many thousands of years old. The very identity of men, their civil and economic power, the forms of government that they have developed, the wars they wage, are tied irrevocably together. All forms of dominance and submission, whether it be man over woman, white over black, boss over worker, rich over poor, are tied irrevocably to the sexual identities of men and are derived from the male sexual model. Once we grasp this, it becomes clear that in fact men own the sex act, the language which describes sex, the women whom they objectify. Men have writ ten the scenario for any sexual fantasy you have ever had or any sexual act you have ever engaged in. There is no freedom or justice in exchanging the female role for the male role. There is, no doubt about it, equality.