On the morning of Saturday, April 9, 2005, radical feminist writer and activist Andrea Dworkin, 58, died peacefully in her sleep in her Washington, D.C., home.
Her death was discovered by John Stoltenberg, her life partner of over three decades and husband of the past six years. News of Andrea's death was made public April 11, and as of this writing, the cause of death has not been announced, although it was widely known that Andrea's health had deteriorated over the past few years.
And it was on Saturday, April 9, two days before the public announcement, that I found myself utterly and inexplicably consumed for hours, thinking intensely about Andrea and the enormous impact she has had on my life.
Yet a certain anxiety accompanied those thoughts, compelling me to leave a voicemail late that evening for Andrea's literary manager, Elaine Markson, expressing my appreciation for Andrea's writing, and pitching a project that had been on my mind for at least 10 years, a project involving Andrea's work.
Needless to say, the news on Monday came as an absolute shock, a crushing blow to me and countless others around the world whose lives have been deeply and profoundly transformed by this brave, visionary, and uncompromising champion of women's freedom.
On April 12, following a performance of my play Precious Stones at North Dakota State University in Fargo, I used a portion of the post-show discussion to share with the audience the impact Andrea had on both the writing of the play and the broader context in which the play exists.
Then on April 13, Elaine Markson, Andrea's literary manager, returned my call. I wasn't home at the time, but Elaine spoke with my life partner Malik and mentioned to him how eerie it was for her to receive my voice mail on the day she had learned of Andrea's death.
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Perhaps more than any other writer, Andrea Dworkin changed my life. I consider her influence on my political and intellectual development to be immeasurable.
It was of course those books, those life-altering, paradigm-busting, status quo-exploding, truth-telling, heart-wrenching, 'you'll never be the same again,' books. They challenged me, informed me, provoked me, cajoled me, shocked me, disturbed me, riveted me, infuriated me, and never let me shut my eyes.
Our Blood, Woman Hating, Pornography, Right Wing Women, Letters from a War Zone, Mercy, Life and Death, Scapegoat, Heartbreak, and of course Intercourse, a book I rank as a classic, both a touchstone of feminism's second wave, and a literary masterpiece.
Andrea taught us about gender, about sexuality, patriarchy, male privilege, misogyny. Most importantly, Andrea taught us about rape, about the abject horror and devastation that rape is, and about the hatred, sadism, and genocidal impulses that incite rape.
She forced us to confront in rape, in wife beating, in sexual harassment, systems of terror perpetrated by men against women that are deliberately designed to perpetuate women's second-class status of citizenship.
She taught us about courage, about integrity, about speaking one's truth, and about the importance of listening to women, actually hearing women. Andrea taught us to respect women, to take women seriously. She taught us that women matter, that women count, that women don't exist to elevate male egos, or tend to men's emotional and physical needs.
Andrea illuminated for us the many lies our culture tells us, lies we internalize, that women enjoy being abused, that women provoke and desire rape, that it is a woman's nature to be dominated. She was always there to remind us that women in fact don't 'get off' on being dehumanized, and that women's inequality is not 'sexy' or 'cute.'
She revealed to us the intimidation and fear women live with on a daily basis, threats imposed by men, on the streets, in the workplace, in the privacy of one's home, not as isolated incidents, but as universal reality. She convinced us women will never be free in a society that believes rapists over their victims, and blames women for the harm done to them.
Andrea's work saved the lives of countless women, and not a few men. She gave voice to the voiceless, the least powerful, the most despised. She brought meaning and hope to those who had been hurt, traumatized, used, and rejected. She modeled a will that would neither break nor succumb.
She implored the oppressed to never grant their enemies the power to define them, and to uphold their humanity and dignity, even when the onslaught felt too great.
Andrea Dworkin lived her life without apology. She was fierce. She was militant. Yet she exuded a spirit that was gentle and caring. She spoke truth to power. She was resilient, tenacious, and oh so bold.
And it was that tireless ferocity, that righteous anger, that imploding rage, coupled with her incredible love for people, her tremendous compassion, her insatiable desire for justice, that galvanized and uplifted so many of us. Andrea wouldn't give up. She'd been raped, battered, exploited. Her life had a mission, creating a world in which no other woman would suffer what she had suffered. She showed us how to channel our anger and our outrage, not into self-destructive behavior, or meanness, or resignation, but into meaningful change.
Her signature denim overalls, her refusal to be a 'nice girl,' her contempt for bourgeois conventions, all became part of a Dworkin mystique, a mystique unlike other mystiques, in that the person it represented was, like her message, real and full of substance.
Andrea simply refused.
She refused to compromise, to bend, to demur, to appease. She refused to trade in her dignity and self-respect for 'likeability.' And she refused to apologize for being a woman, for being a Jew, for being a feminist, for being a lesbian, for being pro-choice, for not wearing make-up, for not being thin.
No apologies for breaking ranks with her allies when her conscience dictated she do so, for naming pornography a violation of women's civil rights, for possessing the sheer audacity to want to end all rape. Andrea went to battle armed with the power of her convictions and the force of her knowledge. She battled rapists, pornographers, pimps, wife beaters, child molesters, racists, anti-Semites, homophobes.
She challenged the right and the left, both oozing with male supremacy and misogyny, and refused to sacrifice women's lives to some male-defined 'greater good.' She spoke, she rallied, she wrote.
Those of us fortunate enough to have seen Andrea speak in person, to have heard her powerful oratory, as I was on two occasions, know how unforgettable an experience it was. She exposed, in graphic language, the litany of crimes and atrocities committed against women, across the world, throughout the ages. She confronted the horrors of anti-Semitism, pogroms, the Holocaust, and condemned Israel for its cruel oppression of the Palestinians.
Andrea was also the most misrepresented, misquoted, and defamed writer I have ever known of. Her work was routinely quoted out of context and deliberately distorted by people who either hadn't read her or had read her and couldn't respond truthfully.
She was labeled a 'man-hater,' a 'feminazi,' deemed 'pro-censorship,' and 'anti-sex,' none of which could be further from the truth.
Andrea was, at heart, an artist.
Even her non-fiction reads as literature.
Her work was rooted in free expression, liberty and sensuality. The responses it evoked were as visceral as they were intellectual.
And if I may say, the reviled 'man-hater' actually made me feel good about being a man, and about loving a man. She helped me imagine a masculinity rooted in equality, a masculinity that is compassionate, nurturing, and capable of expressing love.
And for that she was dismissed and ridiculed as 'fat,' 'ugly,' 'angry,' 'bitter,' 'mentally unstable,' 'a liar,' always by those for whom masculinity translated as unchallenged power. It should be noted that I don't agree with all of Dworkin's theories. I find some of her conclusions objectionable, and I part company with aspects of her analysis of pornography.
In fact, I have sometimes found myself in the awkward position of agreeing with Andrea's detractors, and yet siding with Andrea. That said, our disagreements never once lessened my respect for her. Nor caused me to doubt, in any way, shape, or form, her vision of a world in which all women and all men are safe and free all of the time.
And as I have said before, other writers made me 'think' my feminism, Andrea made me 'feel' my feminism. For that I am eternally grateful. I am also grateful to have once received a correspondence from Andrea. It was in the mid-'90s. I was teaching for a year at a college prep school, and I assigned one of my classes an Andrea Dworkin essay to read.
As part of the assignment, the students were each asked to write a letter to Andrea, expressing their reactions to the piece. To no surprise, the reactions were all over the place, from gratitude to anger to awe to appreciation to praise to apprehension to disgust to sadness to defensiveness to outright exuberance.
I then mailed the letters to Andrea, via Ms. Magazine, and a while later she sent me a most kind and thoughtful card. In it she expressed how moved she had been to receive such intelligent and insightful letters from high school students, letters she shared with her publisher, who was equally impressed. Andrea went on to thank me for believing in her work and for sharing it with others.
When I would read Andrea Dworkin, I couldn't help but feel as if she and I were engaged in a private conversation, a dialogue, even a debate at times. I felt as if we were close personal friends. So it always made sense to me that Andrea's best friend, her life partner and eventual husband, John Stoltenberg, was a feminist gay man.
Knowing that Andrea Dworkin, the woman-identified radical feminist, the 'out' lesbian who had waxed poetic about her great love for women, found her soul mate in a gay man, certainly brought me, and I'm sure other gay men, that much closer to her. I never thought it a coincidence that so much of her work resonated for me not only as feminist, but as a gay man as well.
On many levels, I believe Andrea was speaking to 'my tribe' too.
It is nothing less than astounding, really, that in such a short life, a mere 58 years, Dworkin has left behind such an important and expansive body of work. To dwell upon all the books she still had in her, all the wisdom, brilliance, and passion she had yet to impart, will only make our loss all the more unbearable.
Dworkin possessed a great mind. She was one of our era's most important writers and thinkers. It is a tragedy she didn't live to receive the sort of recognition and adulation that was her due. We must assure that in the coming decades, Andrea's work is rightfully situated amongst that of her peers, those who, in Gloria Steinem's words, 'help the human race to evolve.'
I have lost a great teacher and mentor, and I am heartbroken. I never wanted to imagine a world without Andrea Dworkin, and I still can't fathom what that world will look like. My heart goes out to John Stoltenberg and to all those who had the great honor of knowing Andrea as a friend and a loved one. Let us forever cherish Andrea's meaningful words and the courage and strength she gave us all.
I love you, my dear Andrea, my beautiful sister! I will miss you terribly. May you memory be eternal. Thank you.
Jamil Khoury is the Artistic Director of Silk Road Theatre Project, www.srtp.org .