Letters from a War Zone

by Andrea Dworkin

The nonconformist and social commentator discusses her experiences as a woman and a battered wife, her life of demonstrating, organizing, and addressing other women and the government, and the current state of the women's movement

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, Womens, Gender, Feminist Theory

337 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women.

An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in Pornography - Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse (1987), which remain her two most widely known books.

Reviews

[Yve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning, this review is kind of gushy.

I want to give this book to all the trend-riding liberal feminists. You know, the ones who share articles on Facebook about how progressive Disney movies are, who make cute glittery "misandry" graphics, who say they're gonna "dismantle the patriarchy" with their sexy high heeled shoes and lipstick. As it's a collection of Dworkin's speeches and articles over the years, there is repetition, but not by any means to an irritating degree. In fact, we need to hear repeatedly about rape, abuse, pornography, and everything else that thrives on women's subjugation because it's fucking important. She's one of the best writers I know style-wise: refined yet accessible and devoid of all those empty infuriating buzzwords tossed around nowadays. Her anger is righteous and precise and still relevant, plus I think the fact that some of these were written as speeches gives them a special life. Additionally, she prefaces every piece with some of the context in which it was written, which makes for a very interesting look through history. The only downside is that she does cite a lot of statistics that are probably out of date by now (a few decades later), I'll have to research that.

Reading this book was an unequivocal experience and I felt my heart going out so strongly to her. She's saying things that are so incredibly right and true, even though people ignored and still ignored her. She speaks a lot of the difficulty of being a poor woman writer and the vitriol she faced from anti-feminists as well as from supposed feminists. So I admire her so much for continuing to write and to speak, I am so thankful that she did so that women of other generations, like me, could find her, and, through her, ways of articulating what we've always known but been threatened against saying. The world lost something immeasurable when she passed away.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

A touching, beautiful, inspiring, and sometimes heartbreaking collection of essays and speeches by one of the greatest women to have ever lived.

Women the world over miss you, Andrea. Thank you for speaking up for us so beautifully and so unequivocally when the rest of the world spat us out and left us to rot.

[Patris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me think and generally reconsider my position on pornography. I'm half glad she didn't have to live to see the most horrid, degrading kinds of pornography so easily accessible to practically everyone in the world.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

(reread) i will think about this book everyday for the rest of my life, Dworkin has such a way of writing about being a woman in this world that makes me so emotional. i carry her words and her testimonies with me.

“Violence Against Women: It Breaks the Heart, Also the Bones” echoes in my brain. “Pornography and Male Supermacy” is even more relevant today than ever with porn being everywhere and being promoted by so called “feminists”. “Letters From A Warzone” is so profound. Finally, Her analysis of literature is beautiful and thoughtful.

i love you andrea dworkin thank you for everything

“I can't tell you how brave and brilliant the resisters are. Or how powerless and hurt. Surely it is clear: the most powerless women, the most exploited women, are the women fighting the pornographers. Our more privileged sisters prefer not to take sides. It's a nasty fight, all right. Feminism is dying here because so many women who say they are feminists are collaborators or cowards. Feminism is magnificent and militant here because the most powerless women are putting their lives on the line to confront the most powerful men for the sake of all women. Be proud of us for fighting. Be proud of us for getting so far. Help us if you can. The pornographers will have to stop us. We will not give in. They know that and now so do you.
Love,
Andrea Dworkin”

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so bloody fucking hard to read, as all Dworkin's work is because how true it is. Her words are raw ; no-nonsense ; straughtforward and that is why we continue to devour her words, despite or perhaps because of how much it hurts. It's like exorcizing a cyst - ridding ourselves of the pus so that we can (finally) begin to heal.

[Ellie Burnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of powerful, heartbreaking and inspiring essays, essays which really analyse oppression and gave me new insights. I'm a firm believer that whilst feminist theory is very important, you can and should be able to explain it without a pile of jargon, so I appreciated her straightforward style of writing. A painful read, but as she herself says, "One of the things the women's movement does is to make you feel pain".

[Rus Funk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there any way to give a book more than 5 stars? This is as brilliant and moving as any of what Andrea Dwokin brings to the written text. Just an awesome collection of essays!

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I confess that I couldn't even read this book past the second or third essay, the one for the Take Back the Night march. As soon as I read the sentence, "Men fuck their wives in the dark," (as if that, too, was a crime alone the lines of the actual crimes like rape and robbery mentioned in that paragraph) I was done. I usually enjoy feminist writers, but maybe Andrea Dworkin is too dated for me. She sounds exactly like the "right-wing women" she decries in one of her other books- completely anti-sex, as if the aforementioned wives could not possibly have WANTED to be "fucked in the dark." Listing what could be consensual sex with criminal acts like rape and robbery? Nuh-uh. Buh-bye, you TERF and SWERF.

[Catling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find it so very hard to rate or review this book. First, because it's made up of essays, and some of them are truly brilliant, while others seem, to me, a bit repetitive. But also because this isn't some novel whose character I can love or hate - this is something too real, and the good parts hurt in a way no novel ever could.

So, in just a few words: Dworkin's writing is very straightforward, which is truly a relief if you've ever had to read anything approaching academic articles. It never feels like she's dumbing it down for us poor idiots, either - it just feels like she's not a pretentious asshole, and she's not purposely trying to confuse her readers to make herself look smarter in comparison.

Beyond that, she has some wonderful insight regarding pornography and rape, and even the parts I disagreed with left me thinking.

All in all, I'd recommend it to any woman interested in the kind of feminism that's not just patriarchy wearing a smile and fake eyelashes.




And now, the best part: a few quotes.

"Night means, for all women, a choice: danger or confinement. Confinement is most often dangerous too - battered women are confined, a woman raped in marriage is likely to be raped in her own home. But in confinement, we are promised a lessening of danger, and in confinement we try to avoid danger." (The Night and Danger)

"We all expected the world to be different than it is, didn't we? No matter what material or emotional deprivation we have experienced as children or as adults, no matter what we understood from history or from the testimonies of living persons about how people suffer and why, we all believed, however privately, in human possibility. Some of us believed in art, or literature, or music, or religion, or revolution, or in children, or in the redeeming potential of eroticism or affection. No matter what we knew of cruelty, we all believed in kindness; and no matter what we knew of hatred, we all believed in friendship or love. Not one of us could have imagined or would have believed the simple facts of life as we have come to know them: the rapacity of male greed for dominance; the malignancy of male supremacy; the virulent contempt for women that is the very foundation of the culture in which we live. The Women's Movement has forced us all to face the facts, but no matter how brave and clear-sighted we are, no matter how far we are willing to go or are forced to go in viewing reality without romance or illusion, we are simply overwhelmed by the male hatred of our kind, its morbidity, its compulsiveness, its obsessiveness, its celebration of itself in every detail of life and culture. We think that we have grasped this hatred once and for all, seen it in its spectacular cruelty, learned its every secret, got used to it or risen above it or organized against it so as to be protected from its worst excesses. We think that we know all there is to know about what men do to women, even if we cannot imagine why they do what they do, when something happens that simply drives us mad, out of our minds, so that we are again imprisoned like caged animals in the numbing reality of male control, male revenge against no one knows what, male hatred of our very being." ("Pornography and Grief")

(about feminists, and specifically radical feminists, not being very nice) "Radical feminists are always nice. Provoked to the point of madness, but remaining, at heart, nice. [...] At a distance or very close, nice is true. At any midpoint, it seems false. Also, you see, we love each other. It's a very impersonal love in many cases. But it is a fierce love. You have to love women who are brave enough to do things so big in a world where women are supposed to be so small." ("Nervous Interview")

"One of the things the women's movement does is to make you feel pain. You feel your own pain, the pain of other women, the pain of sisters whose lives you can barely imagine. You have to have a lot of courage to accept that if you commit yourself, over the long term, not just for three months, not for a year, not for two years, but for a lifetime, to feminism, to the women's movement, that you are going to live with a lot of pain. In this country that is not a fashionable thing to do. So be prepared for the therapists. And be prepared for the prescriptions. Be prepared for all the people who tell you that it's your problem, it's not a social problem, and why are you so bitter, and what's wrong with you?" (Feminism: An Agenda)

"In my view, rape is simply a matter of access. There is no qualitative distinction about men here. The group of men that we know are worse to us than the group of men that we don’t know because they have the most access to us. Rape is a question of access. Men will rape women to whom they have access." ("Feminism: An Agenda")

"The United States has property where the United States does business, wherever that is. Oil that the United States needs rests on United States property wherever it happens to be. Europe is United States property if the United States wants to base missile there. Any place the Soviets are - including any barren rock in Afghanistan - is United States property waiting to be rescued from foreign invasion." ("Preface to the British Edition of Right-Wing Women")

"The family is intended to be a feudal unit in this political passion play: and religion is a fundamentally and politically effective tool in this program of domestic repression and social control." ("Preface to the British Edition of Right-Wing Women")

"The First Amendment, it should be noted, belongs to those who can buy it. Men have the economic clout. Pornographers have empires. Women are economically disadvantaged and barely have token access to the media. A defense of pornography is a defense of the brute use of money to encourage violence against a class of persons who do not have - and have never had - the civil rights vouchsafed to men as a class." (For Men, Freedom of Speech; For Women, Silence Please")

"Here we are: weep for us. Society, with the acquiescence of too many liberal-left feminists, says that pornographers must not be stopped because the freedom of everyone depends on the freedom of the pornographers to exercise speech. The woman gagged and hanged remains the speech they exercise. In liberal-left lingo, stopping them is called censorship" ("Letter from a War Zone")

[ryan bears · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think this contains dworkin's best and most concise essays with all her seriousness, love, and humour.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love you so much

[Amy Layton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic compilation filled with some essays that I'd previously read via ILL, and some essays that I hadn't!  Many were never published in the United States prior to this collection, and some were essays that had never been published in the first place.  

She discusses pornography, censorship, rape, male violence, in ways which are pressing, poignant, and overall determined.  It's an incredible collection that is hugely powerful and made me ready and wanting to change the world.  And men.  Mostly men.  Definitely worth the read, especially if you're diving into Dworkin's works for the first time.  It will not disappoint.

Review cross-listed here!

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't entirely agree with her view on life. But her talent and discipline as a writer is undeniable.

[Ila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very painful and challenging read as Dworkin's works usually are. I have often admired the bluntness and sheer grit that second-wave feminists showed in the way they tirelessly fought for women's rights; it pains me to see Judith Butler's blithering nonsense applauded as critical theory.

Dworkin's accessible, down-and-dirty, no-holds-barred approach is what I admire the most about her. Unfortunately, much of what she says hasn't changed today. Pornography and trafficking are serious interdependent issues that threaten women's very existence, not something to share a clandestine laugh over. The rise of deep fake porn and AI should worry women the most. While I don't agree with everything Dworkin says, particularly about penile theory and I am aware of much of what she says, some of her analysis leaves you heartbroken.

She is done coddling men and the stupid "feminism is for men too" view that is so prevalent in any talk about feminism today. I found this section particularly gut-wrenching and true:

It is an extraordinary thing to try to understand and confront why it is that men believe— and men do believe— that they have the right to rape. Men may not believe it when asked. [...] It's in life that men believe they have the right to force sex, which they don't call rape. And it is an extraordinary thing to try to understand that men really believe that they have the right to hit and
to hurt. And it is an equally extraordinary thing to try to understand that men really believe that they have the right to buy a woman's body for the purpose of having sex: that that is a right. And it is very amazing to try to understand that men believe that the seven-billion dollar-a-year industry that provides men with cunts is something that men have a right to.

That is the way the power of men is manifest in real life. That is what theory about male supremacy means. It means you can rape. It means you can hit. It means you can hurt. It means you can buy and sell women. It means that there is a class of people there to provide you with what you need. You stay richer than they are so that they have to sell you sex. Not just on street corners, but in the workplace. That's another right that you can presume to have: sexual access to any woman in your environment, when you want.

If nothing else, every woman should read the essay "I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape". You will never be the same and look at a man with the same eyes again, but you will be glad you read Dworkin.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS AND SPEECHES, FROM 1976-1987

Andrea Rita Dworkin (1946-2005) was an American radical feminist and writer, as well as anti-war activist and anarchist in the 1960s, best known for her criticism of pornography; she was married to John Stoltenberg.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “These are essays and speeches, an occasional interview or book review, written from 1976 to 1987. I wrote them to communicate and to survive: as a writer and as a woman; for me, the two are one. I wrote them because I care about justice for women. I wrote them because I believe in bearing witness, and I have seen a lot. I wrote them because people are being hurt and the injury has to stop. I wrote them because I believe in writing, in its power to right wrongs, to change how people see and think, to change how and what people know, to change how and why people act. I wrote them out of conviction, Quaker in its origin, that one must speak the truth to power.” (Pg. 5)

She continues, “This is the basic premise for all my work as a feminist: activism or writing. I wrote these pieces because I believe that women must wage a war against silence; against socially coerced silence; against politically preordained silence; against economically choreographed silence; against the silence created by the pain and despair of sexual abuse and second-class status. And I wrote these essays, gave these speeches, because I believe in people: that we can disavow cruelty and embrace the simple compassion of social equality. I don’t know why I believe these things; only that I do believe them and act on them.´(Pg. 5)

Sher goes on, “Every piece in this book is part of my own war against the silence of women. Only four pieces were published in mainstream magazines… three were published in Ms., the last one in 1983, and one was published in Mother Jones a decade ago. Most of the essays and speeches were published in tiny, ephemeral newspapers, most of which are no longer publishing. Three of these pieces were eventually published in the widely distributed anthology ‘Take Back the Night.’ Seven of these pieces have never been published at all…” (Pg. 5)

She points out, “None of these pieces, despite repeated efforts over years, were published in ‘The Nation,’ ‘The New Republic,’ ‘The Progressive,’ ‘The Village Voice,’ ‘Inquiry,’ left-liberal periodicals that pretend to be freewheeling forums for radical debate and all of which have published vicious articles with nasty, purposeful misrepresentations of what I believe or advocate. Some of my pieces were written in the aftermath of such attacks---most were written in the social environment created by them---but I have never been given any right of response… And I have never been able to publish anything on the op-ed page of The New York Times, even though … my work[s] have been denounced editorially so many times over the past decade that I am dizzy from it. And I have never been able to publish in... magazines that ... also pay writers real money. I have been able to travel in the United States and Canada to speak. If the work in this book has had any influence, that is the main reason.” (Pg. 5-6)

She notes, “These essays and speeches present a political point of view, and analysis, information, arguments, that are censored out of the Amerikan press to protect the pornographers and to punish me for getting way out of line. I am, of course, a politically dissident writer but by virtue of gender I am a second-class politically dissident writer. This means that I can be erased, maligned, ridiculed in violent and abusive language, and kept from speaking in my own voice by people pretending to be standing for free speech… The fact is that these essays and speeches speak for and to the vast numbers of women condemned to silence by this same misogyny…” (Pg. 6)

In a 1979 essay, she observes, “Night is magical for men. They look for prostitutes and pick-ups at night. They do their so-called lovemaking at night. They get drunk and roam the streets in packs at night… They dress up in white sheets and burn crosses at night… The infamous Crystal Night, when German Nazis firebombed and vandalized … foreshadowed the slaughter to come…. The values of the day become the obsessions of the night… We fear the night because men become more dangerous in the night.” (Pg. 14-15)

From a 1978 interview: “Q: The Women’s Movement seems to be more conciliatory towards men than you are, especially these days. There is a definite note of reconciliation, or at least not hurling accusations. What do you think of that? A: I think that women have to pretend to like men to survive. Feminists rebelled, and stopped pretending. Now I worry that feminists are capitulating.” (Pg. 59)

In a 1977 piece, she wrote, “All my life, I have hated the proscribers, those who enforce sexual conformity. In answering, I had given in to the inquisitors, and I felt ashamed. It humiliated me to see myself then: one who resists the enforcers out there with militancy, but gives in without resistance to the enforcers among us.” (Pg. 111)

In a 1976 essay she stated, “The act of rape established the nadir in female worthlessness. Rape signifies that the individual victim and all women have no dignity, no power, no individuality, no real safety…. Rape signifies that any woman, no matter how uppity she has become, can be reduced by force or intimidation to the lowest common denominator---a free piece of a_s, there for the taking.” (Pg. 119)

In a 1983 essay, she explains, “The ultimate goal of feminism is to make feminism unnecessary. And that makes feminism different from other political movements in this country.” (Pg. 143)

She notes in a 1985 essay, “The law that Catherine A. MacKinnon and I wrote making pornography a violation of women’s civil rights recognizes the injury that pornography does: how it hurts women’s rights of citizenship through sexual exploitation and sexual torture both.” (Pg, 272)

These essays and short pieces contain some of Dworkin’s most powerful (and concise!) writing.

[senseijutsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Después de haber leído muchísimos libros sobre el tema, incluso de Andrea Dworkin, puedo decir al 100% que este es el mejor libro de ella y de feminismo que leí hasta ahora. Tan cruda como siempre, ella destruye de arriba a abajo todos los temas por los cuales seguimos luchando incluso ahora, siendo cuestionadas y aplastadas por el feminismo progre posmoderno. Es una pena pensar que los libros de esta autoraza son imposibles de conseguir, mientras que las librerías están llenas de escritos que mejor no mencionar, dicen "educar" en feminismo de la tercera ola, aka agenda zurda y progre. Andrea Dworkin estaría muy decepcionada del feminismo actual después de toda su lucha.

Pienso que el feminismo de verdad quedó en los 70's y murió junto con el fallecimiento de Dworkin.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

No notes. Definitely more accessible than Woman Hating, and the one I should've started with. An excellent guide to the main points of second wave feminism, and both made me reinforce and question certain parts of my personal beliefs. It's incredibly depressing to think that so much of what Dworkin was campaigning against is still alive and well today. Consider my third eye blown wide open. I'll see you all next year when I finish another of her books.

[Alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrea Dworkin is one of the most poignant and thrilling non-fiction writers you can have the pleasure to read. This collection of articles and speeches is a must, and I think a great introduction to Dworkin's work. However, if you have read some of her books (like Intercourse, Pornography, or Woman Hating), this compilation doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the table and might feel a bit repetitive at times.

[Julia]

min första bok av Dworkin, vill läsa fler! många bra texter i denna, ibland lite väl mycket upprepning. tror detta är en bra introduktion innan man läser andra verk av henne.

[Louise Hewett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, 'Letters From a War Zone: Writings 1976-1989', in particular the essay about Wuthering Heights, wishing I could have read it when I studied the novel in my matriculation year at high school - which would not have been possible; I studied the book in the year she wrote the essay, 1983, and at that time of my life had never even heard of a feminist (sadly). Once disabused of the "romance" of the novel as I grew up and grew some consciousness, I realised Heathcliff was a nasty piece of work. Cathy wasn't much better but she was a woman like me, and in her situation I might have chosen as she did.

I also appreciated the essay regarding biological essentialism: 'Biological Superiority: The World's Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea.' I have had a long interest in the symbolic or metaphorical form of Goddess to understand and express poetically the earth, our lives, and the cosmos. Ideas about divine "feminine and masculine" pervade the New Age, Pagan, and contemporary Goddess movements, and even what I suppose might be called these days "Queer" spirituality; anything that believes there are sexed cosmic "energies" (and also believes they are sexed but able to move around, jump bodies and so on, becoming justified as energies or tendences, such as a tendency to be receptive, a leader in relationships, emotional, submissive, logical, to have a masculine energy, or to like violence in the bedroom, or to have had the wrong sexed soul inserted into their body - all without any feminist analysis of patriarchy and patriarchal philosophies - I could go on but I won't) have been highlighted to me through my keen interest in developing feminist consciousness. Furthermore, as a writer exploring such a Goddess-oriented and feminist community of women AND Goddess-oriented pro-feminist men in my novels, these ideas feel extremely important to think about and to be clear about (despite clarity being derided these days - please imagine another eye-roll here).

As is commonly asserted by some when discussing such matters as "matriarchy" and without the benefit of Heide Gottner-Abendroth's in-depth analysis and theory, or the insights of the Maternally-rooted Gift Logic (Genevieve Vaughan and others), a maternally derived set of principles is often dismissed AS biological determinism rather than understood as a grounded interpretation and logic. Those who've never investigated anything from a maternal and feminist standpoint, or radically questioned women's experiences of being mothers in a patriarchal context, and especially without Gottner-Abendroth's and Vaughan's valuable insights (whether one agrees with every little thing they say or not), may be inclined to accept that matriarchy is an idea just as Dangerous and Deadly as patriarchy, when it's not a mirror reversal at all. Far from it. I wanted to mention this here simply because it's a subject I find causes many people to go into a dismissive flap when they hear about it, rather than stop to listen to the logic (and I understand how much effort that takes, because I struggle too). But, rather than get all alarmed by Dworkin's claims about supposed matriarchal history, and consequent dismissal of the subject within this chapter, I put it in the context of her discussion, which is valuable, made some notes, and move on.

In general, I find Dworkin's articulation of issues concerning women's safety, liberation from violence and the constraints of patriarchal sexuality often breath-taking, fearless, and always satisfying. Her commitment to women is inspiring. There are so many great essays in this book, another particular favourite 'For Men, Freedom of Speech; For Women, Silence Please.' How relevant is this today? And not only regards women's activism against pornography and prostitution. Men (and some women) wielding baseball bats (which are for hitting things) in their demonstrations for whatever rights they think they don't have (apparently the right to dominate women), is surely a vivid pictorial representation of this: "For Women, Silence Please" - or else.

My introduction to Dworkin's work began with the books 'Intercourse' and 'Pornography: Men Possessing Women.' 'Letters From a War Zone' is my third, but will not be my last.

[mark propp · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think dworkin was wrong about some things, but there is no denying the power of her words. individually, almost all of these essays are harsh & brutal. cumulatively they are almost hurricane of emotion & anger.

reading dworkin has helped me understand the human condition more than i did before, so i'm glad i've taken the time to do so.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

should be a required reading before opening pornhub...andrea dworkin would be so horrified to see the state of widely-accessible pornography on the internet today

[Peg Tittle · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Why Pornography Matters to Feminists” from Letters from a War Zone, Andrea Dworkin:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - Because my god, there’s something placard-worthy in every paragraph!!

Pornography is a n essential issue because pornography says that women want to be hurt, forced, and abused; pornography says women want to be raped, battered, kidnapped, maimed; pornography says women want to be humiliated, shamed, defamed; pornography says that women say No but mean Y e s— Yes to violence, Yes to pain.

Also: pornography says that women are things; pornography says that being used as things fulfills the erotic nature of women; pornography says that women are the things men use.

Also: in pornography women are used as things; in pornography force is used against women; in pornography women are used. Also: pornography says that women are sluts, cunts; pornography says that pornographers define women; pornography says that men
define women; pornography says that women are what men want women to be.

Also: pornography shows women as body parts, as genitals, as vaginal slits, as nipples, as buttocks, as lips, as open wounds, as pieces.

Also: pornography uses real women.

Also: pornography is an industry that buys and sells women.

Also: pornography sets the standard for female sexuality, for female sexual values, for girls growing up, for boys growing up, and increasingly for advertising, films, video, visual arts, fine art and literature, music with words.

Also: the acceptance of pornography means the decline of feminist ethics and an abandonment of feminist politics; the acceptance of pornography means feminists abandon women.

Also: pornography reinforces the Right’s hold on women by making the environment outside the home more dangerous, more threatening; pornography reinforces the husband’s hold on the wife by making the domestic environment more dangerous, more
threatening.

Also: pornography turns women into objects and commodities; pornography perpetuates the object status of women; pornography perpetuates the self-defeating divisions among women by perpetuating the object status of women; pornography perpetuates the
low self-esteem of women by perpetuating the object status of women; pornography perpetuates the distrust of women for women by perpetuating the object status of women; pornography perpetuates the demeaning and degrading of female intelligence and
creativity by perpetuating the object status of women.

Also: pornography is violence against the women used in pornography and pornography encourages and promotes violence against women as a class; pornography dehumanizes the women used in pornography and pornography contributes to and promotes the dehumanization of all women; pornography exploits the women used in pornography and accelerates and promotes the sexual and economic exploitation of women as a class.

Also: pornography is made by men who sanction, use, celebrate, and promote violence against women.

Also: pornography exploits children of both sexes, especially girls, and encourages violence against children, and does violence to children.

Also: pornography uses racism and anti-Semitism to promote sexual arousal; pornography promotes racial hatred by promoting racial degradation as “sexy”; pornography romanticizes the concentration camp and the plantation, the Nazi and the slaveholder;
pornography exploits demeaning racial stereotypes to promote sexual arousal; pornography celebrates racist sexual obsessions.

Also: pornography numbs the conscience, makes one increasingly callous to cruelty, to the infliction of pain, to violence against persons, to the humiliation or degradation of persons, to the abuse of women and children.

Also: pornography gives us no future; pornography robs us of hope as well as dignity; pornography further lessens our human value in the society at large and our human potential in fact; pornography forbids sexual self-determination to women and to children; pornography uses us up and throws us away; pornography annihilates our chance for freedom.

[Rachel Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four-point-five stars for Letters from a War Zone, which was an excellent collection of speeches and essays by Andrea Dworkin, the godmother of radical feminism, as she eloquently raises her voice and her pen against pornography, sexual abuse, violence against women, all the things that make women obedient and subservient slaves in a patriarchal system.

All of these topics are things I have been educating myself on over the past several years, and of course the more I learn about the less I can “unsee” the abuse and oppression of women. So naturally Dworkin’s essays are infuriating and horrifying and disgusting for any woman t o read and admit to herself that it’s all true. But it’s also very necessary to acknowledge, so we can begin to fight back. We are literally in a war zone, when violence against women is commonplace and, indeed, sexy and arousing.

If only Andrea Dworkin was alive today, what her comments would be on the state of “feminism” now. Sigh.

The only thing I am rating Letters from a War Zone down for is that some of the essays require prior knowledge of other feminist books or Wuthering Heights, for instance, which I’m sure would be interesting if I remembered or had read those books, but since I do not, those essays weren’t something I focused on reading. Other parts were a bit repetitive, which served Dworkin's points very well and obviously indicates the pervasiveness of the problems she addresses, but it did get tiring when several of the essays and speeches in this compilation were too similar.

[erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Will feminism be a political movement that confronts the power of men over women in order to dismantle that power; or will feminism be a "lifestyle" choice, a post-modernist fad, a cyclically noted fashion?”

I decided to read this after reading Dworkin’s incisive, powerful essay on Nicole Brown Simpson. Reading this made me very upset. There are some really excellent pieces here that I’ll be thinking about forever.

It’s impossible to read Dworkin and not reexamine everything about the men I have known, about the society I live in. It becomes all very real and painful when she articulates it — this truth about patriarchy that I have always known in my bones — and it makes me feel so sick to the bottom of my stomach. I am constantly struck by the precision of her words — how radical and brave and true they were then and somehow continue to be now.

I know the truth she speaks so intimately because of how well she writes and how unique her voice is. She never compromises, and it is breathtaking to read how relentless she is in her views. I think her works are an interesting starting point for work dealing with the women + women’s sexuality + violence against women. Maybe I don’t know exactly how I feel about everything she says, but I’ll certainly wrestle with all her arguments every minute of my life moving forward. She was an incredible writer. Reading her is a reminder why the pen is the most powerful thing in the world.

[María Frankenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrea nunca deja indiferente a nadie con sus textos. Como feminista radical, siempre ahonda en la problemática de las mujeres.
Nos permite ver la realidad por lo que es. Por nuestra falta de derechos civiles al no ser leídas como seres humanos (o ser consideradas de segunda).
Andrea carga contra la industria de la pornografia que sexualizada y maltrata a mujeres sin consecuencias amparándola en la libertad de expresión. ¿Es esto justo? ¿Es está una sociedad igualitaria? ¿Que las mujeres sean atadas a objetos u árboles y penetradas por objetos es empoderante? ¿Lo sería si la víctima es judía o racializada? La industria sexual se ha encargado, por desgracia, de hacernos creer a las mujeres que no hay nada malo en ese mundo, que es sólo sexo. ¿De verdad lo es?
Yo, personalmente me quedo con esta cita: “Quiero que otra generación de mujeres tenga la posibilidad de reclamar los sueños de Libertad que la pornografía me arrancó.” Lo conseguiremos, te juro que lo conseguiremos.

[Lunea Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me lo he leido en castellano, es un libro que todas deberíamos leer. descarnado y directo. Explica como el movimiento contra la pornografía lleva años denunciado las mismas atrocidades, y lo poco que se a avanzado para mejorar la situacion al respecto. Es doloroso leerlo.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speechless. This is definitely the Dworkin book I will be recommending first to my friends. I'd read a few of the essays before from her other works but this compilation is everything and more. Personal, political and for women.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm always in awe every time I read anything Dworkin wrote and this was a lot to process