less?. . . But we’ll have our rights; see if we don’t;
and you can’t stop us from them; see if you can.
You can hiss as much as you like, but it is coming.
Sojourner Truth, 1853
I thank Kitty Benedict, A
C
K
N
O
W
L
E
D
G
M
T
S
Phyllis Chesler, Barbara
Deming, Jane Gapen, Beatrice Johnson, Eleanor
Johnson, Liz Kanegson, Judah Kataloni, Jeanette
Koszuth, Elaine Markson, and Joslyn Pine for
their help and faith.
I thank John Stoltenberg, who has been my
closest intellectual and creative collaborator.
I thank my parents, Sylvia and Harry Dworkin,
for their continued trust and respect.
I thank all of the women who organized the
conferences, programs, and classes at which I
spoke.
I thank those feminist philosophers, writers,
organizers, and prophets whose work sustains and
strengthens me.
PREFA CE
situation was that I could not get my work published. So I
took to public speaking—not the extemporaneous exposition of thoughts or the outpouring of feelings, but crafted prose that would inform, persuade, disturb, cause recognition, sanction rage. I told myself that if publishers would not publish my work, I would bypass them altogether. I
decided to write directly to people and for my own voice. I
started writing this way because I had no other choice: I saw
no other way to survive as a writer. I was convinced that it
was the publishing establishment—timid and powerless
women editors, the superstructure of men who make the
real decisions, misogynistic reviewers—that stood between
me and a public particularly of women that I knew was
there. The publishing establishment was a formidable
