We need not concern ourselves with how or why Bush killed our beloved Andrea Dworkin. If he didn't murder her with his own hands, then the mere existence of the soft, dangly collection of objects in his trousers was sufficient to sap away her feminine juju until she was nothing but an empty husk.
To those of us who loved her, Andrea was both enigmatic and complex. Yet despite her divine brilliance, she led a simple, unpretentious life, devoting herself to an ordinary daily routine. Just like everyone else, she'd get up early, brush the tangles out of her long, flowing armpit hair, dress like an insane street person, and then spend the day desperately trying to survive in a male-dominated world where the subjugation of womyn has become the accepted norm.
As she'd step out of her Washington, DC flat each morning, she'd often pass some devoted grrl fans camped out on the front steps. Some would follow her as she walked along, a small entourage of shaved heads, combat boots, and permanent sneers trailing behind her like militant lesbian ducklings.
Andrea preferred to travel by foot, for buses were built by men, maintained by men, and driven by men. Mass transportation was nothing more than another means for men to assert their dominance over womyn. Sometimes, when she was feeling especially frisky, she enjoyed stepping onto a bus, then stepping off again, then getting back on and off repeatedly until the driver complained. "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE PENETRATED?" she'd scream at him. "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE RAPED INSTEAD OF THE RAPIST?"
The bus would quietly roll away and Andrea would walk on, satisfied.
Somewhere along the way, she'd start walking backwards, simply because males expected her to always walk forwards. It was the man's way to keep a womyn docile and under control, facing the opposite direction while he whispered his insidious rapist plots behind her back. So she'd plod along backwards for a couple of blocks, knocking over pedestrians, garbage cans, and produce stands full of phallic shaped fruits and vegetables. Then she'd stop, light up a cigarette, and survey the chaos she had wrought. This is how men must feel when they rape the world, she'd think. Then once again, she'd turn around and start walking forward - not because she was expected to, but because she had empowered herself to do so.
As she approached the drug store, she'd pause to glare at the homeless man sitting on the sidewalk - the same vile animal who had brutally raped her in BROAD DAYLIGHT only two weeks earlier by holding open the door and saying "Good Morning, Ma'am". Hundreds of passers-by witnessed the violent act, heard her screams of "RAPE! RAPE! RAPE!", yet not a single one tried to stop him. Even the police protected their own and refused to do anything about it, actually threatening to arrest her for kneeing the bum in the groin and crushing a cigarette out on his neck. One pig actually made a move for the wooden phallus hanging from his belt, but it just made her laugh. She wasn't afraid of them. She had done time before - most recently for beating senseless a hot dog vendor who thrust a bratwurst at her. Once the pigs knew they couldn't intimidate her, they sent her on her way.
Since that day, the little rapist street bum would always cower in fear when he saw her approach, perhaps realizing how womyn have felt every day for the past 2,543 years. She'd walk past him with a snicker and step inside the drug store, pretending not to notice the hired help quickly clearing the magazine rack of pornography. The young lady behind the pharmacy counter would always have her 36 boxes of Pamprin and 17 cartons of Camels waiting for her. Andrea would try once again, unsuccessfully, to convince her to castrate her sons and leave her husband for a large hairy womyn with poor personal hygeine. "It is only after you've liberated yourself from the chains of manhood that you can truly explore your femininity", she'd tell her. But the poor creature was beyond help. She'd spent too many years brainwashed by men into believing it was her duty to breed, and had actually begun to enjoy being a slave of the patricentric family construct.
Andrea would pay for her purchases in Susan B. Anthony dollars, refusing any change offered. The exchange of coinage minted with the faces of men was just a another form of rape, like the metallic phalluses the men of the city installed on every block to taunt her. With every hydrant she passed, it felt like being raped a thousand times. Every parking meter was like being raped another thousand times. Lamposts, about three hundred times. Despite their inappropriate names, the mailboxes were actually vaginas, so she had no qualms with them until some MAN came along and thrust a letter inside one. Occasionally, she'd watch as a line of men formed to take turns gleefully violating the mailvagina, until a pimp in a mailMAN outfit would came along and start scooping offspring out its brutalized womb.
Sometimes the things she saw on the street made the hair on her back stand on end.
On her way home, she'd often make an extra special effort to pass by a construction site so she could vent her anger on some unsuspecting rapists by ridiculing their tiny power tools. In her final journal entry, Andrea would write:
"Passed by a f**cking construction site today, fully expecting to be gang-raped by walking phalluses in hard hats. But there wasn't so much as a f**king cat call or a whistle. Is there something wrong with me? Should I clean myself up a little, wash my hair, put on a little make up and a nice f**king dress? Then I realized it was Sunday, and all the rapists had taken a f**cking day off from erecting their giant glass and concrete phallus to sit inside a wooden phallus and ask their giant phallic Man God to forgive them for all the womyn they've f**cking raped. I hope they choke on their f**king communion wafers.
Must conclude. This phallus that men gave us to write with is ejaculating ink all over my f**cking paperwork. DOH! Raped again!"
The world has truly lost a visionary.
have you gone completely mad? why dont you go shove your liberal bull shit up someone else's ass and not in america because it is pricks like you that fuck this country up. thanks for being uselsss
Posted by: Ron Finklebutt | April 13, 2005 at 08:34 PM
Ron Finklebut put your finger in your butt. You are a stupid neocon dumass who is rich and wite. You do nor be lieve in progressive change or passive survival.You thint you are so smart but reallly your not. Progressive change is coming and their is'nt a damn thing you can do abot it.
Posted by: howie | April 13, 2005 at 08:42 PM
Larry, that was the most wonderful tribute ever. May Gaia Earth Mother rest the soul of our beloved castrator.
Ron, you should take a hint from Howie and emasculate yourself in true progressive fashion as he has done. Only then will you ever know the joy of being phallus-free.
Posted by: Red Loser | April 13, 2005 at 08:50 PM
I do believe you've outdone yourself, Larry-san...kudos. ☺
Posted by: camojack | April 13, 2005 at 08:56 PM
I did not emascuklate myself and I am not phallus-free. My phallus was for the hot lib girl but now I ♥ JannyMae. But ron should be phalus free.
Posted by: howie | April 13, 2005 at 09:19 PM
I betcha Mr. Andrea isn't a proctologist nor an ob-gyn. Probably a eunuch..I mean..unique individual nonetheless.
Does Lorena Bobbitt have a pen name, per chance?
Oh and poor Janny Mae. Howie is it that she's being so...ahem... *progressively violated*?
Posted by: Eclectic Alien | April 13, 2005 at 09:31 PM
Larry, you have, like, you know, totally outdone yourself. Great eulogy!
Well Howie, I don't have any interest in you, but even if I did, I strongly suspect that you wouldn't be able to get past my 6'5" 230 pound husband. Although you probably couldn't get past my 4'5" 75 pound son, either!
This happens to me all the time, these guys(?!) falling in love with me. I just can't stop exuding all my charms through my typing, I guess. Why they are always, "progressives," I can't understand! I'm sure though, that Howie is only trying to make hotlibgirl jealous, since she wants Dean (not his really name) and thinks he is hot!
Eclectic Alien: "progressively violated" Very subtle, and therefore outstanding pun! I'm impressed.
Posted by: JannyMae | April 13, 2005 at 09:45 PM
Larry,
I'm still weeping from your eulogy. I'd never heard of the woman before but the knowlege (am I spelling like Howie?), that I at some point raped her fills me with utter grief. I'd never heard of Baroness Lips before either but the memory of your lament still occasionally causes the eyes to water.
While we're on the subject of such things I'd like to address the carnal frission that is developing between hotlibgirl, Dean04prez, Howie and JannyMae. Janny Mae has just put herself out of the picture but hotlibgirl, can't you and Dean arrange to meet somewhere between Florida and Philly so you can get it into your system? I'm sure people visiting this site can suggest a suitable spot. Not to be nasty to Howie who has probably never done it, you can invite him along so he can observe the proceedings and report back in a vignette written in his own inimitable style.
Posted by: African Moonbat | April 13, 2005 at 11:37 PM
Our poor sweet dead Andrea D. I'll miss her and your elegy to our Diana-like Dworkin will inspire others to fight for the cause of womyn. Together we can abolish the logocentricism that afflicts even such a demotic system as the interweb. So affected by Andrea's death am I that I nearly wet myself in solidarity and revulsion when I was told by a chauvanist tool of the patriarch the following "joke":
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
It doesn't matter, feminists can't change anything.
Well, with articles like yours, Gaia willing, we can change this heartless, penile world.
Posted by: Thurgood Marshall | April 13, 2005 at 11:40 PM
Larry,
Poetry...pure poetry. Now I realize my only penance can be to slam a desk drawer shut on my junk until womyn the world over can walk topless into biker bars without being ogled.
*SLAM*
urrrlllgh
Posted by: Kanuckistani | April 14, 2005 at 01:46 AM
Brilliant! Simply brilliant! Larry, you have truly outdone yourself this time.
The vivid portrait you've painted of a day in the life of Andrea Dworkin strikes me as particularly poignant given that I so often had to read her demented ravings, er, I mean, wondrous insights while a film student at Southern Cal.
Posted by: Trojan Horse | April 14, 2005 at 02:15 AM
Hey Justice Marshall, which fills you with a deeper sense of self-loathing: yours or
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
That's NOT funny!
Posted by: Supernatural Rabbit Scribe | April 14, 2005 at 05:23 AM
For too long have Womyn been oppressed by that secret combination of the Male Bonding Group, the Penile Code.
Posted by: Cricket | April 14, 2005 at 06:05 AM
I would have thought a cigarette a tad too phallic for the androphobic Dworkin.
Posted by: aelfheld | April 14, 2005 at 06:17 AM
But Andrea chose to blow cigarettes.
Posted by: mean spirited woman | April 14, 2005 at 06:23 AM
Andrea's obit says 'her husband.' Now, considering her hatred of anything phallic bearing, why have a man unless she could tie him up and...
Posted by: Cricket | April 14, 2005 at 06:47 AM
Liberal Larry:
"Despite their inappropriate names, the mailboxes were actually vaginas, so she had no qualms with them until some MAN came along and thrust a letter inside one. Occasionally, she'd watch as a line of men formed to take turns gleefully violating the mailvagina, until a pimp in a mailMAN outfit would came along and start scooping offspring out its brutalized womb"
My God, man, this is inspired!
"A Feminist View of the United States Postal Service".
I can see some womyn developing this theme into a Mistress' Thesis.
Regards;
Posted by: Bilgeman | April 14, 2005 at 07:08 AM
I hope they don't turn her corpse into a phallus that penetrates the earth in a *wood* coffin. I am naturally distraught at Andrea's passing as I was one of her 'militant lesbian ducklings'. If Bush had any decency he would turn Barbara and Jenna into militant dykes as a mark of respect.
Posted by: Menstrual Rainbow | April 14, 2005 at 07:09 AM
I heard a womyn's retelling of that joke, it goes like this:
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
None! Because the womyn are not staying home working around the house anymore. We go to work, you stay home and change the bulb, and why don't you castrate yourself while you're at it!?
I like that version much better, it is not as offensive as the first, and gives us men good advice on what we should be doing for a better world.
Posted by: Pluto's Dad | April 14, 2005 at 07:23 AM
I'm sure "husband" was meant in the most gender-neutral, calico tom, Jamie Lee Curtis-type way possible. Her "husbynd" was her beard.
(Oh, I stand corrected. She actually had a beard.)
That was a beautiful eulogy to a beautiful womyn. Not the kind of beauty that you'd want your friends to catch you on a date with, but the kind that allows you to sneer condescendingly at her detractors for being shallow and unenlightened.
Andrea's impact on feminist philosophy will linger for years to come, like B.O on an expensive sofa. I pour searing hot coffee in my lap in tribute to you, sweet Andrea.
Posted by: Che Guevarito | April 14, 2005 at 07:32 AM
Larry
You have been absolutely en fuego lately.
Keep up the good work.
I recently found a hoorific example of the patricentric society's brutal disrespect for womyn AND cryptozoological specimens:
Q: What's the difference between a radical feminist and Bigfoot?
A: One's big, ugly, hairy, and smelly, and the other has big feet.
Posted by: Grodd | April 14, 2005 at 07:33 AM
I found this quote in one of Andrea's earlier essays:
What do 10,000 battered womyn have in common?
They all didn't know when to shut the %*&@ up.
Posted by: Che Guevarito | April 14, 2005 at 07:37 AM
Bravo, comrade! You brought a tear to my eye. Ms. Dworkin would be very pleased to see you're continuing the good news!
Posted by: Ratan | April 14, 2005 at 07:47 AM
Isn't it Ironic that Ms. Dworkins surname (or should I say miss-name) sounds so much like dorkin', which is something she would have despised.
Posted by: adam & steve | April 14, 2005 at 08:08 AM
That is kinde of sad. But I shaev and take baths evreyday and im still a like minded porgresive like Dean (not his real name). Does that mene Im not a rele liberal. Im so conufsed. Im learning allot from yur site.
And NO, Howie teh poop head cantt watch!!!1!! Duh!!!1!!
Posted by: hotlibgirl | April 14, 2005 at 09:29 AM