Word: dworkin
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MacKinnon, a University of Minnesota law professor and a recent speaker at the Law School, co-sponsored a Minneapolis municipal ordinance with feminist writer Andrea Dworkin that defines pornography as a violation of a woman's civil rights. This bill, which was vetoed by the Mayor, would have allowed anyone to sue the creators and distributors of pornography for damages, effectively putting them out of business...
...Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance is part of a recent trend among feminists, who are critical of pornography and its effects on society's perception of women. Feminists like Dworkin contend that the portrayal of women as submissive sexual objects promotes a degrading attitude toward women that in turn leads to sexual discrimination, harassment, abuse, and rape. They have written articles, staged marches, and given speeches advocating the banning of obscene material because of its damaging effects on women...
...city of Indianapolis, with the aid of anti-obscenity activists from Minneapolis, drafted and passed an ordinance similar to MacKinnon and Dworkin's. It was immediately stayed by a Federal District Court judge, and further arguments on the ordinance's constitutionality are pending...
...second assumption is that some workable definition of pornography can be found. The courts have had enormous difficulty trying to define what is and is not pornographic. In order to meet the criterion of specificity that the Supreme Court demands of a statute, the MacKinnon-Dworkin bill committed the sin of ridiculousness. Under the proposed ordinance, any work that portrays women "who are tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt" or that shows women as "filthy or inferior" qualifies as pornography. Out goes A Clockwork Orange, Gone with the Wind, and almost every action film...
...Dworkin and MacKinnon couch their discussion in terms of establishing equality between the sexes, but their real complaint is that women don't receive equal respect. Pornography is a double insult; it denigrates women and has fun doing it. But turning to the law to endorse a stiff-necked Victorian worship of womanhood's worth is hardly an answer. It implies that there is a moral right to extract respect from the disrespectful. A widespread perception of feminine inferiority infringes on the real equality of the sexes, but this perception must be changed by conversion, not coercion...