Intercourse, by: Andrea Dworkin - Feminish

DIRT/DEATHN FER IO R ITY IS N O T BANAL OR INCIDEN TAL EVEN W HEN ITIhappens to women. It is not a petty affliction like bad skin orcircles under the eyes. It is not a superficial flaw in an otherwiseperfect picture. It is not a minor irritation, nor is it a trivialinconvenience, an occasional aggravation, or a regrettable but(frankly) harmless lapse in manners. It is not a “point of view”that some people with soft skins find “offensive. ” It is the deepand destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding ofdignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worthand human recognition, the forced alienation of a person fromeven the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity. Inferiorityputs rightful self-love beyond reach, a dream fragmented byinsult into a perpetually recurring nightmare; inferiority createsa person broken and humiliated inside. The fragments—scattered pieces and sharp slivers of someone who can neverbe made whole— are then taken to be the standard of what isnormal in her kind: women are like that. The insult that hurther— inferiority as an assault, ongoing since birth— is seen as aconsequence, not a cause, of her so-called nature, an inferior