Dworkin, Andrea: General Commentary

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ANDREA DWORKIN: GENERAL COMMENTARY

ERICA JONG (ESSAY DATE JUNE 1988)

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FROM THE AUTHOR

DWORKIN ON THE FEMALE COLONIZED MIND

Feminists are now threatened in every area of activity because men are trying to recolonize our minds—minds that have been trying to be free of male control. Everywhere, women are confronted by the urgency of male demands, all of which are supposed to supersede in importance the demands which women must make toward our own integrity. This story is so old that it should be tired and dead, but it is not. Feminists tell the tales over and over: how women contributed to this and that revolution and were sold out in the end, sent packing back to the house to clean it up after the revolutionary dust had settled, pregnant and poor; how women contributed to this and that movement for social change and were raped and exploited and abused, and then sent back to clean the house, pregnant and poor. But the colonized mind cannot remember. The colonized mind does not have the pride or militancy of memory. The colonized mind refuses to politicize anger or bitterness. The colonized mind must meet the demands of the colonizer: devotion and good behavior, clean thoughts and no ugly wrath.

Dworkin, Andrea. Excerpt from Letters from a War Zone: Writings 1976-1989. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988, p. 128.

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Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion