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Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986
Pornography catapulted to the forefront of the American women's movement in the 1980s, singled out by some leading feminists as a key agent of female oppression and celebrated by others as an essential ingredient of sexual liberation. In Battling Pornography, Carolyn Bronstein locates the origins of anti-pornography sentiment in the turbulent social and cultural history of the late 1960s and 1970s, including women's mixed responses to the sexual revolution, and explains the gradual emergence of a controversial anti-pornography movement. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reveals that that the seeds of the movement were planted by groups who protested the proliferation of advertisements, Hollywood films, and other mainstream media that glorified sexual violence. Over time, feminist leaders redirected the emphasis from violence to pornography to leverage rhetorical power, unwittingly attracting right-wing supporters who opposed sexual freedom and igniting a forceful feminist counter-movement in defense of sexuality and free speech. Battling Pornography presents a fascinating account of the rise and fall of this significant American social movement and documents the contributions of influential activists on both sides of the pornography debate, including some of the best-known American feminists.
376 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2007
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April 2, 2021
Battling Pornography is, as long as I know, the first systematic study of the feminist anti-pornography movement in the US. Bronstein focus her study on the three main groups: Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM) and Women Against Pornography (WAP).
The Main thesis of the book is that the early radical feminist organization WAVAW created an efficient campaign against sexual violent representations of women in the media, especially publicity. Based on civil tactics like letters, boycotts and marches, WAVAW saw a program in order to make conciseness on the people about the damaging effects of those representations in women’s lives. WAVPM took some of the original impulse but became more critical of a wide representation of sexual depictions on pornographic magazines (an issue avoided by WAVAW) and finally, how WAP focus entirely on pornography, ultimately creating a fertile ground for political conservatives to co-opt the feminist rhetorical against pornography.
As a PHD dissertation, the book is cited and written in an implacable way. The author is clearly respectful of the different perspectives and make and excellent job creating a more complex picture of the different activists involved in all campaigns, the book also debunk the myth that anti-pornography feminist were right-wing reactionaries; instead, the author offers an historical perspective that show the power of the conservative and new Right mobilizations in America, and how they effectively campaign against pornography taking feminist discourse but without feminist values and principles.
I certainly don’t share all the perspectives of the author, she relies a lot on Alice Echol’s theory of the shift of radical feminism into “cultural feminism”, when she tries to put the “cultural feminist” rhetorical looks very forced, especially in the way she read some of the material. My main criticism of the book is that pornography here is a crime without criminals, Bronstein support the idea that violence sexual depictions hurts both men and women, the way men demand pornography, specially very cruel and sadistic pornography is never approached, apparently in this perspective some invisible and no defined force create pornography for incautious and clueless men. She also don´t approach what happens when non-violent pornography was created by coercion; while she’s clearly against legal actions, and bet instead for consumer-actions and community educations, she does not tell what happens when those recorded and filmed rapes are circulating widely on the media, apparently, again, those clueless men are just waiting and not participating when consuming those materials.
The Main thesis of the book is that the early radical feminist organization WAVAW created an efficient campaign against sexual violent representations of women in the media, especially publicity. Based on civil tactics like letters, boycotts and marches, WAVAW saw a program in order to make conciseness on the people about the damaging effects of those representations in women’s lives. WAVPM took some of the original impulse but became more critical of a wide representation of sexual depictions on pornographic magazines (an issue avoided by WAVAW) and finally, how WAP focus entirely on pornography, ultimately creating a fertile ground for political conservatives to co-opt the feminist rhetorical against pornography.
As a PHD dissertation, the book is cited and written in an implacable way. The author is clearly respectful of the different perspectives and make and excellent job creating a more complex picture of the different activists involved in all campaigns, the book also debunk the myth that anti-pornography feminist were right-wing reactionaries; instead, the author offers an historical perspective that show the power of the conservative and new Right mobilizations in America, and how they effectively campaign against pornography taking feminist discourse but without feminist values and principles.
I certainly don’t share all the perspectives of the author, she relies a lot on Alice Echol’s theory of the shift of radical feminism into “cultural feminism”, when she tries to put the “cultural feminist” rhetorical looks very forced, especially in the way she read some of the material. My main criticism of the book is that pornography here is a crime without criminals, Bronstein support the idea that violence sexual depictions hurts both men and women, the way men demand pornography, specially very cruel and sadistic pornography is never approached, apparently in this perspective some invisible and no defined force create pornography for incautious and clueless men. She also don´t approach what happens when non-violent pornography was created by coercion; while she’s clearly against legal actions, and bet instead for consumer-actions and community educations, she does not tell what happens when those recorded and filmed rapes are circulating widely on the media, apparently, again, those clueless men are just waiting and not participating when consuming those materials.
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