Andrea Dworkin Feminist Quotes & Sayings

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge. Some of us have ventured out nevertheless, and so far we have not fallen off. It is my faith, my feminist faith, that we will not. — Andrea Dworkin

Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it. Thought, experienced primarily as language, is permeated by the linguistic and perceptual values developed expressly to subordinate women. Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name. No transcendence of the male system is possible as long as men have the power of naming ... As Prometheus stole fire from the gods, so feminists will have to steal the power of naming from men, hopefully to better effect. — Andrea Dworkin

Families make possible the super-exploitation of women by training them to look upon their work outside the home as peripheral to their 'true' role. — Andrea Dworkin

Feminist art may ... though perhaps our imaginations are so mutilated now that we are incapable even of the ambition, introduce a new theme ... should we call it 'joy'? — Andrea Dworkin

Sex as desired by the class that dominates women is held by that class to be elemental, urgent, necessary, even if or even though it appears to require the repudiation of any claim women might have to full human standing. In the subordination of women, inequality itself is sexualized, made into the experience of sexual pleasure, essential to sexual desire. — Andrea Dworkin

We are born into a world in which sexual possibilities are narrowly circumscribed ... We are programmed by the culture as surely as rats are programmed to make the arduous way through the scientist's maze, and that programming operates on every level of choice and action. — Andrea Dworkin

Feminist art is not some tiny creek running off the great river of real art. It is not some crack in an otherwise flawless stone. It is, quite spectacularly, art which is not based on the subjugation of one half of the species. — Andrea Dworkin

Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies. — Andrea Dworkin

One of the reasons that women are kept in a state of economic degradation- because that's what it is for most women- is because that is the best way to keep women sexually available. — Andrea Dworkin

Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name. — Andrea Dworkin

The annihilation of a woman's personality, individuality, will, character, is prerequisite to male sexuality. — Andrea Dworkin

I'm a radical feminist, not the fun kind. — Andrea Dworkin

On the Left, on the Right, in the Middle; Authors, statesmen, thieves; so-called humanists and self-declared fascists; the adventurous and the contemplative, in every realm of male expression and action, violence is experienced and articulated as love and freedom. — Andrea Dworkin

In my own life, I don't have intercourse. That is my choice. — Andrea Dworkin

Men use the night to erase us. — Andrea Dworkin