In response to Faith's query and for those who want more information on
Dworkin and MacKinnon- These are specifically Andrea Dworkin and Catharine
MacKinnon. They have done work and written books around a number of feminist
issues, and are probably most widely known for their work on pornography. A
good beginning text on this issue is "Pornography and Sexual Violence:
Evidence of the Links" which is the actual transcript of the "civil rights
hearings" on the issue of women, violence, rape, and porn- I believe in
Minneapolis. This was years ago, and Dworkin and MacKinnon led an
initiative to make it possible for rape victims to take legal action
against pornographers. This is very general, and I suggest that for more
specific information, you read up, because I would misrepresent things if
I tried to sum up. Dworkin and MacKinnon's text is "Pornography and Civil
Rights: A New Day For Women" and is not long- and a good summary of their
stance. MacKinnon has done other work on feminist jurisprudence and
feminist theories of The State. Dworkin has written several books,
including "Woman Hating", "Right-Wing Women", "Letters From The War Zone",
"Our Blood", and "Intercourse". Another significant text is "Take Back
The Night: Women Respond to Pornography", edited by Laura Lederer- this
contains "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" by Audre Lorde, which
I recommended before.
Carole J. Adams offers a vegetarian eco-feminist critique of some of the
stances of the anti-porn camp, in her book "The Sexual Politics of Meat".
(She is also anti-porn, from what I can tell, but has ecofeminist
concerns that aren't always articulated).
Other critiques of Dworkin and MacKinnon can be found in the book
"Pornography and Censorship", and in works by Carol Vance and Joan
Nestle, for starters. A lot of people from the ACLU have writings critiquing
Dworkin and MacKinnon as well.
Other interesting pornography work has been done by Diana E.H. Russell.
Good connections between ecofeminist, anti-nuclear, and anti-porn work
are drawn in the anthology edited by her- "Exposing Nuclear Phallacies".
This anthology has some great work by Alice Walker and Barbara Smith-
which I find directly relevant to the "diversity" debates on this list.
I'm not going to try to generalize further about this material, except to
say that I'm particularly interested in people's reactions to the
creation of a dichotomy in some of these texts between being either
"pro-sex" OR "anti-rape". Does this remind you of the dichotomy presented
between being "pro-environment" OR "pro-human"?
Elizabeth
