Pornography, Feminism, and the IndividualArguing that efforts to ban pornography are ultimately doomed to failure, radical philosopher Alison Assiter takes issue with recent feminist analyses of pornography by Dworkin, Griffin and Kappeler. She demonstrates how close are the parallels between the radical feminist analysis and more conventional liberal perspectives, in their common stress on the primacy of the individual. By limiting the terms of the argument to those of patriarchy - as contemporary analysts have tended to do - we fail, she says, to grasp the true nature of oppression. Any proposed solutions to the problem of pornography will only be partial and unattainable, until such time as we come to terms with the fact that banning pornography cannot obliterate the ills that pornography exemplifies. Only when those wider ills have been more fully identified and understood can we begin to eliminate oppression, exploitation and inequality in all their forms. |
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action Andrea Dworkin argue argument autonomy becomes behaviour believe Bernard Williams Boon novels chapter child classical liberal conception constraints criticized cultural defended depicted Descartes described desire domination emotions erotic eroticism fantasy feeling female feminine focus freedom of expression freedom of speech Freudian gender Griffin harm Hegel hero heroine Ibid individualist perspective instance involves Jude Justine Kant Kappeler Kappeler's liberal individualist Liberal Position liberty London male power Marianne Valverde Mary Daly masculine means Mills & Boon Mills and Boon moral individualism moral neutralism mother Nietzsche object one's other-directed patriarchal penis Penthouse person Phillotson philosopher picture Playboy pleasure porn pornographic magazines pornography purely rational radical feminists rape reader representation responsible role romance romantic fiction Sade Sade's says sense sexual social society someone suggests Susan Griffin thinking treated values violence against women wants Williams Report woman writing wrong