Anti-Porn Activist Dead at 58

Andrea Dworkin, photo by Murdo MacLeod, originally uploaded by haileydai.

Andrea Dworkin is dead. She passed away on April 9, 2005. Dworkin was one of the most outspoken anti-porn feminist crusaders of recent history — of all history, really — even going so far as to attempt to pass legislation that bans all pornography, everywhere, forever. She also felt that penetration of a woman by a man was an act of violence and subordination in and of itself.

As someone who feels more inline with the anti-censorship feminists, I’m not a big fan of some of Dworkin’s ideas. That said, I will acknowledge that she did a great deal to bring issues of violence and discrimination against women into the spotlight. Perhaps she targeted the wrong places at times, but she did get a lot of people thinking, and that’s never a bad thing.

She was a fascinating woman. Read stories about her and her passing here, here, here and here.