Book Review Essay: Healing Feminism's Broken Heart

25 Women's Rights Law Reporter 167 (2004)

11 Pages Posted: 9 Sep 2009 Last revised: 21 Oct 2013

See all articles by Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Katie Rose Guest Pryal

University of North Carolina School of Law

Date Written: 2004

Abstract

Book review essay of Andrea Dworkin's last book, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant. This review examines the use of the “memoir mode” to further political work and rebuts critiques that Dworkin's writing is too “confessional” - incorporating “guilty personal detail for emotional effect.” I suggest that Dworkin’s “confessions” have a distinct purpose. She is not driven by ego or solipsism; instead of focusing on her accomplishments, she creates life-lines between seminal moments in her childhood and young adulthood and the politics that define her life now. The small rebellions of the child echo the large rebellions of the adult. At the end of the book, she writes: “I hope this work can serve as a kind of bridge over which some girls and women can pass into their own feminist work.”

Keywords: feminism, activism, feminist theory, Andrea Dworkin

Suggested Citation

Pryal, Katie Rose Guest, Book Review Essay: Healing Feminism's Broken Heart (2004). 25 Women's Rights Law Reporter 167 (2004), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1469202

Katie Rose Guest Pryal (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina School of Law ( email )

Van Hecke-Wettach Hall, 160 Ridge Road
CB #3380
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3380
United States
919-962-2558 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://katieroseguestpryal.com

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