In the 1970s, she began speaking and writing about the politics of sexuality and her affinity for women. Having been a waitress, receptionist, secretary, typist, salesperson, and factory worker, Dworkin fully embarked on a career as a radical feminist after her marriage ended and she returned to the United States in 1972. While in Amsterdam, she married a political radical, who beat her repeatedly. She joined the embryonic anti–Vietnam War movement graduated from Bennington College, of Vermont and spent the late 1960s living overseas. People who didn't think women should be there. However, Dworkin's admittedly autobiographical novel Mercy (1991) may provide insight into some of the events that helped to shape this controversial feminist crusader: the book chronicles the sexual victimization-including molestation and rape-faced by the protagonist, Andrea, as a child, a rebellious teenager, and a young woman.ĭworkin was drawn toward the law after graduating from high school in 1964, but she did not pursue a legal career because she believed law schools at the time were run by She has devoted much of her adult life to fighting what she sees as the most visible signs of men's need to control and do violence to women: pornography, prostitution, INCEST, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, STALKING, and rape.Īlthough much has been written about Dworkin, little of the coverage has dealt with her early life. MacKinnon and Dworkin define pornography as any material whose 'dominant characteristic is the undue exploitation of sex or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely crime, horror, cruelty and violence.'ĭworkin was born September 26, 1946, in Camden, New Jersey, the daughter of Harry Spiegel and Sylvia Spiegel.

452) in February 1992, making the shipment and sale of pornographic materials in Canada more difficult for that country's booksellers. C-34, § 159 (8) (1970) (Can.), and the Canadian Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of that definition, which was transferred to § 163 in 1985.

The Canadian Criminal Code adopted the MacKinnon-Dworkin definition of pornography Criminal Code R.S.C., ch. ), a federal law signed by President BILL CLINTON as part of a larger crime bill in September 1994, which makes sex-based violence a CIVIL RIGHTS violation and allows victims to sue for compensatory and PUNITIVE DAMAGES and attorney's fees (42 U.S.C.A.

The two also helped author the VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT (S. With Professor Catherine MacKinnon of the University of Michigan Law School, Dworkin has championed antipornography ordinances for several cities in the United States.

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