Justice & Law Quote by Andrea Dworkin

Dworkin’s sentence is a cold splash of water on a certain kind of progressive vanity: the belief that feminism’s main ask is softer men, more feelings, better vibes. She names that impulse, then discards it with a blunt hierarchy of needs. “Learn to cry” stands in for the therapeutic, self-improving masculinity project that can look radical while remaining safely personal. Dworkin isn’t anti-emotion; she’s anti-substitution. Tears don’t change power. Stopping “crimes of violence” does.

The phrasing is strategic. “Terrifically important” carries a faint, scalding sarcasm, like she’s mimicking the earnest workshop language of male allies who want credit for emotional literacy. Then she tightens the frame to “our struggle for freedom and justice,” making clear that this is a political movement, not a sensitivity seminar. The pivot to “crimes” is decisive: not “harm,” not “mistakes,” not “miscommunication,” but acts with perpetrators, patterns, and consequences. Violence isn’t framed as an unfortunate byproduct of patriarchy; it’s a central mechanism.

Context matters. Dworkin wrote amid late-20th-century feminist battles over pornography, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and the legal system’s chronic failure to protect women. Her work insisted that male dominance isn’t just cultural atmosphere; it’s enforced, often literally, through intimidation and injury. The subtext aimed at “supportive” men is bracing: if you want to help, stop centering your own transformation narrative. Put your social power where the danger is: intervene, hold other men accountable, back policies and institutions that actually reduce women’s exposure to violence.