Andrea Dworkin (Essay Date 1978)

SOURCE: Dworkin, Andrea. "Pornography and Grief." In Letters from a War Zone: Writings 1976-1989, pp. 19-23. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1988.

In the following excerpt, originally written as a speech for a "Take Back the Night" march in 1978, Dworkin argues that pornography "functions to perpetuate male supremacy and crimes of violence against women because it conditions, trains, educates, and inspires men to despise women, to use women, to hurt women."

I searched for something to say here today quite different from what I am going to say. I wanted to come here militant and proud and angry as hell. But more and more, I find that anger is a pale shadow next to the grief I feel. If a woman has any sense of her own intrinsic worth, seeing pornography in small bits and pieces can bring her to a useful rage...