Feminist Writer Andrea Dworkin Dies

Posted on April 13, 2005

Feminist author Andrea Dworkin died on Saturday at the age of 58. Ms. Dworkin was best known for her many battles against the pornography indusry, which she regarded as a civil rights violation against women. Ms. Dworkin was the driving force behind the 1983 Indanapolis law that allowed women to sue producers and distributors of pornography in civil court. The law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her long writing career began with the 1974 publication of her first book, Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality. Her 2002 memoir was titled Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant. Ms. Dworkin's agent said that the public never got to see the author's softer side.

"Some in the media liked to picture her as tough and hard and difficult but she was soft and with a lovely voice and a good sense of humor," Markson said. "She'd had knee surgery and she seemed not to have recovered very well from the surgery. She was rather frail of late," Markson said.

Ms. Dworkin is survived by her husband, author John Stoltenberg.