Written By : Donald Douglas

Just sharing something I found when writing my earlier post, “Sady Doyle Cheers Penis Amputation in Sweden!“

Here’s a 1994 flashback from the New York Times, “Mrs. Bobbitt is Symbol of Feminist Resistance“:

To the Editor:

Like most of the American mass media, you have framed the Lorena L. Bobbitt affair as an issue of penile mutilation. You ignore the social context of Lorena Bobbitt’s actions.

Prof. Catharine MacKinnon of the University of Michigan and the writer Andrea Dworkin long ago pointed to the institution of marriage as a legal cover for the act of rape and the permanent humiliation of women. Lorena Bobbitt’s life has been a poignant instance of that nightmare, which elicited a bold and courageous act of feminist self-defense.

As one who recently returned from a conference of feminist activists in Europe, I can assure readers that the Lorena Bobbitt case has galvanized the women’s movement worldwide in a way the Anita Hill case never did. No feminist is advocating emasculation as the weapon of first choice. And some women question the political prudence of “sociosexual vigilantism.” But whatever the judgment of America’s patriarchal legal system, Lorena Bobbitt is for most feminists no criminal. She is instead a symbol of innovative resistance against gender oppression everywhere ….

STEPHANIE MORRIS

Sydney, Australia, Jan. 12, 1994

Hmm, feminist innovation.

Yeah. Sure.

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