Andrea Dworkin :: essays research papers fc

Andrea Dworkin   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Andrea Dworkin has been an influential write, speaker, and activist for over two decades. She claims to be a feminist, and that her ideas are beneficial to women. This paper will show that many of her most popular beliefs are not only detrimental to society, but also not in the best interests of women.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In letters from a war zone, Andrea Dworkin presents a collection of speeches and short articles she has composed during her career as a writer and activist. Many of her articles deal with censorship and pornography. One claim is central to all of these, pornography is an act and not an idea, thus censorship is not relevant to it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In response to a New York Time Review of her 1981 book, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Dworkin writes, â€Å"Pornography says the women want to be hurt, forced, and abused; pornography says women want to be raped, battered, kidnapped, maimed; pornography says women want to be humiliated, shamed, defamed, pornography says that women say no but mean yes - Yes to violence, yes to pain.† (Dworkin p 203)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In response to Dworkin's fiery rhetoric, Wendy Mcelroy writes that Dworkin has scientific backing and even cites evidence to the contrary. â€Å"In Japan, where pornography depicting violence is widely available, rape is much lower per capita than in the United States, where violence in porn is restricted.† Mcelroy attacks the belief that pornography cause violence, stating that even if a correlation is present, is does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship. (McElroy 102)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Lynne Segal sees in inherent harm in trying to link the two together. She believes that feminists who try to do so are wasting valuable time that could be spent on other important issues. â€Å"In the end, anti-pornography campaigns, feminist or not, can only enlist today, as they have invariously enlisted before, guilt and anxiety around sex, as well as lifetimes of confusion in our personal experiences of sexual arousal and activity.† â€Å"In contrast, campaigns which get to the heart of men's violence and sadism towards women must enlist the widest possible resources to empower socially.† (Gibson 19)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another argument of Dworkin's is that pornography should not be protected as free speech under the first amendment. It is her contention that protecting what pornographers say, is protecting what pornography does. Pornography is more than words. They are acts against women. â€Å"Pornography happens to women.† As a result, bans on such material are warranted, not only because it is harmfully and discriminatory to women, but also because there are no civil liberties that are violated in preventing an act.