Male dominance in society always means that out of public sight, in the private, ahistorical world of men with women, men are sexually dominating women.
Andrea DworkinRead
Institutionalised in sports, the military, acculturated sexuality, the history and mythology of heroism, violence is taught to boys until they becomes its advocates.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how societal institutions condition boys to embrace and promote violence as a norm.
Andrea Dworkin's quote critiques the way boys are systematically indoctrinated into accepting violence through various cultural institutions such as sports, the military, and societal expectations around masculinity. This conditioning transforms them into advocates for violence, reflecting a broader commentary on the socialization of gender roles and the implications of a culture that valorizes aggression and dominance.
In practice
In a discussion about gender roles, this quote can be used to highlight the influence of societal norms on behavior.
Male dominance in society always means that out of public sight, in the private, ahistorical world of men with women, men are sexually dominating women.
Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation.... The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover.
I have been asked, politely and not so politely, why I am myself. This is an accounting any woman will be called on to give if she asserts her will.
We are born into a world in which sexual possibilities are narrowly circumscribed. . . . We are programmed by the culture as surely as rats are programmed to make the arduous way through the scientist's maze, and that programming operates on every level of choice and action.
In her heart she is a mourner for those who have not survived. In her soul she is a warrior for those who are now as she was then. In her life she is both celebrant and proof of women's capacity and will to survive, to become, to act, to change self and society. And each year she is stronger and there are more of her.
Being stigmatied by sex is being marked by its meaning in a human life of loneliness and imperfection, where some pain is indelible.
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.
The only people who want to change the Gospel are those who are unchanged by it.
With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?
Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be.
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
I become more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of Hussein, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.
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