Further proof we live in a Rape Culture>

[Major Nikon]

16. Many did, and that's the problem

When Dworkin would try to reel in her statements later when they proved too controversial(which was her intent in the first place), she was wholly unbelievable. Yes, Dworkin tried to claim later that what she meant was all men are potential rapists, but don't have to be that way. I read the book. There was no way you could derive any other intent from what she wrote. What Dworkin meant was that the western idea of heterosexual sex (which she called "fucking&quot was essentially rape. A good part and perhaps the entire book was her idea of a proof of that assertion. So yes, perhaps that doesn't really mean that "all men are rapists", but it's close enough to be effectively the same. As a literary major, Dworkin would have or should have known that. Furthermore Dworkin wasn't alone as she had quite a number of disciples that preached her gospel just as if it were the inspired word of god. Certainly there were feminists who didn't hold such views, and lots of them. The problem was not enough spoke up to contradict her and even if they did they weren't getting nearly the press she was because the blowhards of our society always get more attention than the intellectuals.

The example of the man who thought men should be entitled to something in return for their $200 subscribe to what I call the "all women are whores" mentality. I'm not going to argue that attitude is not pervasive in our society. Yes it is wrong. Yes that attitude is extremely destructive. Evidence of this is easy to find. Rape is epidemic. Rape convictions account for about 5% of all rape, by some accounts. Perhaps the number isn't that low and perhaps it is, but I don't think you'll find anyone who will say the number isn't extremely lopsided and this includes a great number of cases where arrests are involved, but never reach conviction and the number of cases that go to trial and result in acquittal. So it's pretty evident (at least to me) that the "all women are whores" mentality is pretty well entrenched in our society. And yes you are right in that this attitude is very extreme, however it is far closer to the mainstream mentality and as such far less controversial. If a man wrote a pseudo-scientific book with this as the theme it's doubtful he'd ever get published. Regardless of all this, the counter to that mentality is not "all men are rapists".

So yes, Dworkin might have been calling attention to a very serious problem, and yes she was right in that much of our culture needed to change in order to address that problem. However, she also held very extreme views that were very far removed from reality, much less the mainstream. I suspect that much victimization in her past helped form those ideas. She was perceived by the public as a man hater, and that's exactly what she was. As such it was her most extreme statements and ideas that made the press and turned her into a very controversial figure. It also made her a target, and a very easy one. It also made her the face of feminism, whether she represented the whole of them or not, and in that way she set back the cause of feminism significantly as extreme radicals often do. It caused many women to not want to be associated with feminism of any kind. It caused many to believe that the conservative idea of how women should be treated wasn't all that bad. It gave half-wits like Limbaugh and Coulter(themselves blowhard extremists) an endless stream of material to draw from. It didn't even matter to them that Dworkin crawled in bed with Ed Meese. To them she was the poster woman of what was wrong with feminism, and it was very easy for them to put all feminists on board with her.