Smut's Insidious Threat
 

I always thought that Catherine McKinnon was a marginalized extremist, comical, and not deserving of serious consideration on the legal or political arena.

But she refuses to go away. She just came out with a new book, published by Harvard Press, "Women's Lives, Men's Laws", in which presumably she continues her war against pornography as the root of all evil in America today.

Her basic thesis seems to be that pornography sets standards for behavior, including at work. And because pornography is ubiquitous, it threatens sexual harassment law.

Is that completely crazy, or what?

She's been saying this for at least 30 years, and now she's saying it again in her new book. My feeling is that she's nuts, basically. But why does she continue to get so much respect among academics, and now with Harvard Press?

Somebody's a few beers short of a six pack. I'd suggest she needs a stiff one in it, but that'd make me look sexist. Whoops, too late...

That's a joke people, put the pitchforks down.

did we get a west coast ann coulter?

Not quite......

http://www.pinetreeline.org/fco2002/fco-02/fco02-14.jpg

I wonder what Ann Coulter thinks about pornography... :-/

Didn't she date the Pres of Penthouse, Bob Guccione?

The single most powerful force in undercutting sex equality at work remains the cultural sexualization of women, which has gained momentum over the same 30 years. During this time, pornography has increasingly saturated the world, both public and private, making itself ever more legitimate. Major corporations and mainstream media increasingly distribute what the pornography industry produces, trafficking women and girls for sexual use. With pornography infusing daily life more and more, its power to turn women into sexual objects, to eroticize domination as the meaning of being a man and subordination as the meaning of being a woman, and to desensitize its users to sexual abuse effectively sets standards for behavior, including at work.

Geez I thought this tired rhetoric died with the dinosaurs,..or was it feminism. Yaaaaaaawnnnnnnnnnnn. I think I'll learn the tango by myself now.

Or maybe I'll ponder the thought that during the last 30 years more and more women have entered and stayed in the workplace. Oh,..can't do that now, the second showcase is starting and Bob Barker hasn't leered once at one the his highly paid, there by their own choice models.

I notice that conveniently there's no mention made of male, especially homosexual male, pornography and how that aspect of the industry has been growing ever more quickly. Of course, we can't take that into consideration or her whole "women are inferior because of pornography" argument would suddenly become visible as the opininated drivel that it is.

ah... that makes so much sense now. it'd be funny, but i think i'd like to poke my eyes out.

Maybe she's the evil opposite of Ann Coulter.

But of course that implies that Ann Coulter herself isn't evil, and that's just crazy talk...

Extremes and extremists just suck, that's all there is to it.

Why isn't anyone worried about the "cultural sexualization" of men? The fact remains that sexual harrassment laws and rules are much tougher and much more fiercely enforced than they were 30 years ago.

To me, this is conflating two issues. The first is whether or not porn should exist and the second is whether most porn that's out there today encourages the objectification of women (and gay men) in a way that undermines their social status. She's arguing the latter but trying to incite action over the former. That's plain stupid... but while I'm on the topic, do I think that it should be illegal to create pornography (as in 'people engaging in sexual activities on tape/film')? No. There's woman-friendly porn out there, too. Do I think that the porn that most men watch has the insidious effect that this woman is describing over the population in general? You bet. Do I place all of the blame on the media corporations who distribute the porn or on the men who watch it for not supporting more woman-friendly porn? ...Yes.

Well she's saying that the existence of porn is going to "destroy the law against sexual harassment at work." I see only two explanations for that statement: (1) she's intentionally fear-mongering; or (2) she's just plain loony. Or I guess both.

Okay, in place of "has the insidious effect that this woman is describing," I should have said "has an insidious effect that is akin to what this woman is describing." Basically, I agree that she's fear-mongering, but to call her loony because she's exaggerating is the same thing as dismissing her entire argument... and I happen to think there's a valid point in there somewhere. It's just too bad she chose to frame it this way because anybody who wants to advocate for what I think is the valid part of her argument is going to receive the same kind of dismissive response thanks to her.

Well I'm aware of a lot of studies that conclude that viewing of porn has negligible (and transient) or no effect on men's attitudes toward women, as well as the obvious truth that porn consumption is correlated overall with liberal attitudes (incl. of men toward women).

There are lots of other correlational studies that show some positive relationships between porn use and measures of antisocial behavior tendencies, but without any attempt to sort out cause and effect (eg. by an experimental comparison) these have little value.

Here's a nice example of a controlled experimental study (I added the underline):

"SMUT!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
if it's uncut, and un su(b)t-le!

who needs a hobby,
like tennis, or philately(sp)?
I've got a hobby,
rereading Lady Chatterly!"

/sorry, will stop singing and typing now....

On a slightly related note, didn't Andread Dworkin die this week?

http://www.pinetreeline.org/fco2002/fco-02/fco02-14.jpg

Ouch, my eyes....

*crawls away in utter agony*

Hey guys, the woman in that picture may have the same name, but it's not the feminist Catherine MacK. It looks like somebody's nice mom having a blast at a college reunion . . . .