Andrea Dworkin :: essays research papers fc

Andrea DworkinAndrea Dworkin has been an potent write, speaker, and activist forover twain decades. She claims to be a libber, and that her ideas ar practiced to women. This paper will show that many of her most popular beliefsare not only detrimental to society, that also not in the best interests of women.In letters from a war zone, Andrea Dworkin presents a order of wranglees and short articles she has composed during her career as a writer andactivist. many another(prenominal) of her articles deal with censorship and pornography. One claimis central to all of these, pornography is an act and not an idea, thuscensorship is not relevant to it.In response to a New York Time Review of her 1981 book, porno manpowerPossessing Women, Dworkin writes, 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 craze, yes to pain.(Dworkin p 203)In response to Dworkins fiery rhetoric, Wendy Mcelroy writes thatDworkin has scientific backing and even cites evidence to the contrary. InJapan, where pornography depicting military unit is widely available, rape is muchlower per capita than in the United States, where violence in porn isrestricted. Mcelroy attacks the belief that pornography cause violence,stating that even if a correlation is present, is does not necessarily meanthere is a causal relationship. (McElroy 102)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 era thatcould be spent on other important issues. In the end, anti-pornographycampaigns, feminist or not, can only enlist today, as they have invariouslyenlisted before, delinquency and anxiety around sex, as well as lifetimes of confusionin our personal experiences of sexual arousal and activity. In contrast,campaigns whi ch get to the heart of mens room violence and sadism towards women mustenlist the widest possible resources to empower socially. (Gibson 19)Another melodic phrase of Dworkins is that pornography should not beprotected as free speech under the first amendment. It is her contention thatprotecting what pornographers say, is protecting what pornography does.Pornography is more than words. They are acts against women. Pornographyhappens to women. As a result, bans on such material are warranted, not onlybecause it is harmfully and discriminatory to women, but also because there areno civil liberties that are go against in preventing an act.