For those of you who are not yet aware, I am a third year student at Brooklyn Law School--this is my last semester of law-related studies, and I am (finally) taking classes that I enjoy. One such class is "Sexuality and the Law," for which we are required to compose weekly one-page response papers where we discuss issues raised in the reading assigned for the class. This week, we read about anti-pornography legislation. Let's just say . . . I got angry in the middle of the assigned reading and wrote a three-page rant, then finished the reading and wrote one paragraph more. I thought some of you might be interested in my perspective, so here it is--imperfect and all.
WHY PORN ISN'T INHERENTLY EVIL (The Short Version): A Response to an Excerpt from MacKinnon's, "Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech."
Having read and discussed the philosophies of Dworkin and MacKinnon in several atmospheres during the course of my non-legal studies, I came to this reading with a relatively strong pre-existing position. I disagree with both Dworkin and MacKinnon in their view that pornography (even considering that they see pornography as different from erotica) is inherently a form of sex discrimination. In order to reach this conclusion, I first had to define what I meant by “sex discrimination,” an element of the theory that I think is largely left out of the included MacKinnon article.
First, I believe that what MacKinnon is discussing is not actually “sex” discrimination, but is more accurately defined as “gender” discrimination. MacKinnon talks about the “female experience” by describing an average woman’s experience of female-ness within society; MacKinnon does not describe an average woman’s experience of having specific sex organs. Therefore, I believe that the first step to accurately defining the kind of discrimination that MacKinnon speaks of in her article must be re-naming it as “gender discrimination,” rather than “sex discrimination.” (I am leaving aside the problems of talking about such discrimination from ONLY the "average woman's" perspective, rather than a more gender-inclusive one. This is a problem that one can attribute to the time at which MacKinnon is writing, but would require an analysis and contradictory argument of its own.)
Second, we must flush out what it means to discriminate on the basis of gender. The Oxford English Dictionary[1] defines the word “discrimination” as, first, “to recognize a distinction,” and second, “to make an unjust distinction in the treatment of different categories of people.” These two definitions, in my opinion, articulate the core divide between “equality” and “difference” feminism. Equality feminism, in my view, is the belief that gendered women and gendered men are inherently equal in every significant way. Difference feminism, in my view, is the belief that gendered women and gendered men are inherently different from each other, either because of “nature” or because of “society” (or social context). As a result of the divergence between these two theories, the proponents of these viewpoints must hold different ideas regarding the definition of “gender discrimination” (or what MacKinnon calls “sex discrimination”).
Equality feminists would most likely agree with the OED’s primary definition of discrimination as “to recognize a distinction” between individuals. As such, equality feminists would likely apply the OED’s definition of discrimination to the definition of “gender discrimination” by defining the latter term as “to recognize a distinction between individuals based upon gender.” Difference feminists would likely agree with the OED’s secondary definition of discrimination as “to make an unjust distinction in the treatment of different categories of people.” As such, difference feminists would likely apply this definition to that of “gender discrimination” by defining this term as “to make an unjust distinction in the treatment of different categories of people on the grounds of gender.”
According to the first definition of gender discrimination, in order for pornography to inherently fall under this category by definition, it must merely recognize a difference between men and women based upon gender. According to the second definition of gender discrimination, in order for pornography to be discrimination, it must always make an unjust distinction in the treatment of different categories of people on the basis of gender.
Throughout my studies of feminism, I have had difficulty in determining whether I agree with equality or difference feminism. I would like to believe that we live in a world where people of all genders are inherently equal; yet my experience has shown me that our society has influenced our identities to such a degree that we cannot help but develop differently. Regardless, I do not believe that pornography is inherently discriminatory on the basis of gender (or sex) according to either definition of gender discrimination. Not all pornography recognizes a difference between men and women based upon gender, just as not all pornography makes a distinction (let alone an unjust distinction) in the treatment of individuals based upon gender.
It appears to me as though MacKinnon’s description of what she calls “sex discrimination” places her amongst the proponents of difference feminism. Therefore, one might take issue with her theory of pornography based upon her definition of discrimination on the basis of gender (or sex). However, even if I were to agree with the feminist perspective that MacKinnon’s (and Dworkin’s) argument assumes, I disagree with its conclusion that pornography must fall under this definition. In her argument, MacKinnon not only assumes the definition of gender discrimination, but she also assumes the definition of pornography. While MacKinnon admits the second assumption[2], I believe that this definition of pornography is inaccurate and her further use of the term makes it clear that her intent is to apply the word, "pornography," far more broadly than its stated definition. It is at this point that I most strongly disagree with MacKinnon’s argument. Her definition of pornography may yield the conclusion that all pornography is discriminatory on the basis of gender (according to either an equality or difference feminist definition of "gender discrimination"), but I do not believe that this definition is accurate.
I wrote the portion of this paper to this point before concluding the reading; therefore, I was very pleased to then read Duggan, Hunter, and Vance’s article, “False Promises: Feminist Anti-Pornography Legislation,” as their disagreement with MacKinnon’s view also hinges upon the false definition of pornography. My view, however, is not merely that MacKinnon’s definition of pornography was vague (as Duggan, Hunter, and Vance assert), but that her use of the term (and that of the legislature, judiciary, and American culture) went far beyond the scope of the definition that MacKinnon proposed.
[1] http://www.askoxford.com:80/concise_oed/discriminate?view=uk
[2] “We define pornography as the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or works that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities, enjoying pain or humiliation or rape, being tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt, in postures of sexual submission or servility or display, reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.” (text p. 448).
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