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Civil Liberties Abstracts from CAF
From: [email protected] (Joseph F. Mays)
Newsgroups: alt.censorship
Subject: Excerpts from women against censorship
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 31 Aug 92 05:40:32 GMT
Since I quoted a portion of the book _Women_Against_Censorship_ in my
preceding post, I wanted to take a moment to say something about the book
and enter a couple more excerpts from it.
The book is a collection of essays by various feminists who are opposed to
censorship and to the anti-pornography movement represented by Andrea
Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon. The women who have contributed essays
to the book have in common only their devotion to feminism and their
opposition to censorship. They state reasons for opposition which
come from several different viewpoints. If you have an interest in
opposing the public control of ideas, in whatever form it might take,
I highly recommend the book.
_Women_Against_Censorship_
Edited by Varda Burstyn
Douglas & McIntyre Limited, 1985
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt 1--
From "False Promises: Feminist Anti-Pornography Legislation in
the U.S.A." by Lisa Duggan, Nan Hunter, and Carole S. Vance
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[page 130]
In the United States, after two decades of increasing community
tolerance for dissenting or disturbing sexual or political materials,
there is now growing momentum for retrenchment. In an atmosphere of
increased conservatism, evidenced by a wave of book-banning and anti-
gay harassment, support for new repressive legislation of various
kinds -- from an Oklahoma law forbidding schoolteachers from advocating
homosexuality to new anti-pornography laws passed in Minneapolis and
Indianapolis -- is growing.
The anti-pornography laws have mixed roots of support, however.
though they are popular with the conservative constituencies that
traditionally favor legal restrictions on sexual expression of all
kinds, they were drafted and are endorsed by antipornography feminists
who oppose traditional obscenity and censorship laws. The model law
of this type, which is now being widely copied, was drawn up in the
politically progressive city of Minneapolis by two radical feminists,
author Andrea Dworkin and attorney Catherine MacKinnon. It was passed
by the city council there, but vetoed by the mayor. A similar law
was also passed in Indianapolis, but later declared unconstitutional
in federal court, a ruling that the city will appeal. Other versions
of the legislation are being considered in numerous cities, and
Pennsylvania senator Arlen Spector has introduced legislation modeled
on parts of the Dworkin-MacKinnon bill in the U.S. Congress.
Dworkin, MacKinnon and their feminist supporters believe that
the new antipornography laws are not censorship laws. They also
claim that the legislative effort behind them is based on feminist
support. Both of these claims are dubious at best. Though the new
laws are civil laws that allow individuals to sue the makers, sellers,
distributors or exhibitors of pornography, and not criminal laws
leading to arrest and imprisonment, their censoring impact would be
substantially as severe as criminal obscenity laws. Materials could be
removed from public availability by court injunction, and publishers
and booksellers could be subject to potentially endless legal
harassment. Passage of the laws was therefore acheived with the
support of right-wing elements who expect the new laws to accomplish
what many censorship efforts are meant to accomplish. Ironically,
many antifeminist conservatives backed these laws, while many feminists
opposed them. In Indianapolis, the law was supported by extreme right
wing religious fundamentalists, including members of the Moral Majority,
while there was _no_ local feminist support. In other cities, tra-
ditional procensorship forces have expressed interest in the new approach to
banning sexually explicit materials. Meanwhile, anticensorship
feminists have become alarmed at these new developments, and are
seeking to galvanize feminist opposition to the new antipornography
legislative strategy pioneered in Minneapolis.
One is tempted to ask, how can this be happening? How can feminists
be entrusting the patriarchal state with the task of legally dis-
tinguishing between permissible and impermissible sexual images?
But in fact this new development is not as surprising as it first
seems. For the reasons explored by Ann Snitow (see page 107),
pornography has come to be seen as a central cause of women's
oppression by a significant number of feminists. Some even argue
that pornography is the root of virtually all forms of exploitation
and discrimination against women. But this analysis takes feminists
very close -- indeed far too close -- to measures that will ultimately
support conservative, anti-sex, procensorship forces in American
society, for it is with these forces that women have forged alliances
in passing such legislation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[page 147]
The consequences of enforcing such a law, however, are much more
likely to obstruct than advance feminist political goals. On the
level of ideas, further narrowing of the public realm of sexual
speech coincides all too well with the privatization of sexual,
reproductive, and family issues sought by the far right -- an
agenda described very well for example, by Rosalind Petchesky in
"The Rise of the New Right" in _Abortion_and_Woman's_Choice_.
Practically speaking, the ordinances could result in attempts to
eliminate the images associated with homosexuality. Doubtless
there are heterosexual women who believe that lesbianism is a
"degrading" form of "subordination." Since the ordinances allow
for suits against materials in which men appear "in place of women,"
far right antipornography crusaders could use these laws to suppress
gay male pornography. Imagine a Jerry Falwell-style conservative
filing a complaint against a gay bookstore for selling sexually
explicit materials showing men with other men in "degrading" or
"submissive" or "objectified" postures -- all in the name of pro-
tecting women.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpt 2--
From "Feminist Debates and Civil Liberties" by June Callwood
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[page 122]
My personal experiences around the issue of pornography and
censorship mirror those of thousands of women in this country who
have become estranged from feminist colleagues and even from close
friends. What alarms me most is that this polarity might well cripple
our efforts to work together in the future on such common --
and vital -- causes as day care, reproductive rights, equal pay
for work of equal value and adequate pensions for women. As lawyer
Mary Eberts once said, "Pornography is our Skokie." Just as the
American Civil Liberties Union's controversial decision to support the
rights of self-styled Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois, in
1977 divided that organization, so the pornography debate is splitting
the women's movement into separate, often hostile, camps.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[page 129]
Mistrust of civil liberties reveals a lack of historical
perspective. The freedom of dissent enjoyed by today's feminists
owes everything to the civil liberties groups who 30 years ago
fought for the right of marginal organizations to disagree with the
majority. It was a civil liberties organization that sought to make
covenants on the sale of land to Jews illegal. It was a civil
liberties group that in 1965 fought a Toronto bylaw that would have
allowed police to censor placards in demonstrations. Today, it
is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that protests such
draconian welfare laws as the man-in-the-house rule and campaigns
against inequities in the country's abortion laws.
...
Feminism and civil liberties are inextricable. The goal of
both is a society in which individuals are treated justly. Civil
libertarians who oppose censorship are fighting on behalf of
feminists, not against them.
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