In the 1980s, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon led the ordinance movement against pornography. The campaign sought to make pornography a form of discrimination against womyn (the spelling of “womyn” with a “y” is for feminist reasons. See Sciullo, 2006). In their view, pornography is a great form of womyn’s subordination. It is a form of forced sex and ought to be recognized as a violation of womyn’s civil rights. Both Mackinnon and Dworkin have social theories of gender based on sexuality. For them, gender is entirely sexual and pornography is a vehicle that determines what that sexuality looks like. In pornography, “men treat women as who they see women as being. Pornography constructs who that is” (Brown, 2000). In this essay, I will analyze the theories of both MacKinnon and Dworkin and the rhetoric of their campaign to show that their feminist attempt to dismantle hierarchies that create oppression fails to be effective and recreates what it critiques: more hierarchies. While these practices are intended to be liberating through an appeal to certain principles, they do not, in fact, correspond to those principles. This disconnection is a result of some unarticulated assumptions appearing in the theorizations of Dworkin and MacKinnon. This deconstruction is made through various aspects of the movement. First, the rhetoric surrounding the ordinance campaign and the works of the authors. Second, the definitions of the subject of womyn and feminism in context of their theories of gender. And finally, exclusion of other intersecting identities of womyn such as race and sexualities.
Given that womyn’s oppression takes place through sex, “in order to end womyn’s oppression in its many manifestations, the way people think and talk and act about sex must be changed” (Frug, 2000). The language of the pornography campaign was gendered in that way that it was characterized by masculine ways of speech and writing. The language of Mackinnon and Dworkin appears aggressive and possesses “obscenities typical of male talk” (Frug, 2000). For instance, in the preface of Intercourse, Dworkin says, “I have never written for a cowardly or passive or stupid reader, the precise characteristics of most reviewers” (2007). Even though this might have contributed to a success in advocacy and a more “powerful” presentation, this assumes that masculine rhetoric is the successful kind. Another appeal to oppressive masculine forms of rhetoric is the generalizations made about the pornography industry. The ordinance advocates reduced all pornography to a heterosexual form that necessarily subordinates womyn. By doing so they ignored the types of porn that actively try to challenge womyn’s subordination in sex. For example, there are works that do not depict the “objectification of an orgasming penis” or ones in which “the subjectivity of the female character is dominant” (Frug, 2000). The campaign also had a very dichotomized approach towards people. They implied consistently that the audience was either pro-womyn, which would necessitate anti-pornography, or they were against womyn. The problem is that issues regarding gender oppression are rooted in the dichotomy of man and womyn and the hierarchies based on this categorization. The dichotomized approach of the campaign, therefore, while attempting to restructure gender, perpetuates the most basic, traditional strategies of gender oppression.
The other underlying issue that goes against feminist principles is the way these theories of gender based on sexuality identify womyn’s subjectivity. In their analysis of heterosexual male porn, both MacKinnon and Dworkin introduce sexuality as what constitutes the social construction of womynhood. For instance Dworkin claims that the act of penetration, as an example of an unequal sexual practice, means that the female body is to be violated. It means that womyn have “less integrity, less privacy, and less power in intercourse” (Jenefsky, 1998). Since “our meanings also exist in our bodies, what we are, what we do, what we physically feel, what we physically know” (Dworkin, 2007), the womyn is reduced to a hole to be fucked. Heterosexual intercourse becomes a necessary part of the social construction of womynhood. In this context, the female subject and the whole female consciousness “consist solely of what men require” (Brown, 2000). This generalized theorization makes it hard to imagine the future of sexuality for womyn and impedes efforts for emancipation. Dworkin would agree that there needs to be an effort to construct independent identities of womyn. I agree and argue that the patriarchy functions as a superstructure that only recognizes womyn as subjects in accordance to a masculine ideology. To keep its dominance this ideology traps womyn in masculine constructions of femininity. In this “phallocentric” system womyn are valuable so far as they serve men (Irigaray, 2010). Therefore, as long as there is no break away from this dependent subjectivity, the fight against the enemy will be limited. The theorizations of the movement advocates; however, make it difficult to imagine a strategy for womyn to articulate the female consciousness. Dworkin crituques the social constructions of “natural” and the ways in which men exploit this notion to keep womyn oppressed. Arguments on sexual intercourse and womyn like the act of penetration; however, presuppose the same notions they seek to critique. These arguments based on biological nature, give into a “deluded humanism” and “maintain that all women necessarily occupy the position of other to man” (Poovey, 1988).
In the theories of pornography and sexuality, the male and female subject are defined totally by sexuality. This assumes a hierarchy of identities and ignores different constituents of sexuality. In Intercourse, Dworkin demonstrates how sex and dominant social structures are interconnected. She argues that intercourse is not really a private act, since society determines the terms and the conditions under which the act occurs. Intercourse does not exist isolated from the social forces of the church and the law. However, this acknowledgement of the effect of power relations on identity comes to a contradiction specifically with MacKinnon’s social theory of gender. Theorizing gender as sexualized domination ignores the fact that “sexuality may be racialized, racial subordination may be sexualized” (Brown, 2000). This undermines intersectional feminist approaches that examine the ways in which racial relations are implicated in sexual violence and erases, rather than include, racial identity.
In a talk at the Schlesinger Library in 2002, addressing the question of race and diversity, Dworkin asserts that she has worked in movements that were very diverse. She claims that many disagreements about race occur when womyn get into theoretical debates. In contrast, she believes it is easier for womyn to come together around life practices. The problem with this assumption; however, is that firstly, she assumes that theory and practice are very separate. Most contemporary works on rhetoric show that there is really no bright line between theory and practice and that in fact, theory is practice. Even if we define these practices as certain physical acts, the way that these practices are approached is ultimately influenced by “theory.” For example, Kimberle Crenshaw is one of the most influential feminist writers who analyses feminist theory and shines light on the fact that black womyn will never be included in the movement unless there is a shift in the “analytical structure” (Crenshaw, 1989). Ignoring these fundamental theorizations about race was part of the reason why racial imbalance was a big problem in feminism at the time.
Finally, the principles of the pornography movement perpetuate the gender binary and assume heterosexuality as the only sexuality. The fundamental assumptions of the theories of gender based on sexuality are based on a womyn, with a vagina, and a man with a penis that dominates and objectifies the womyn. This clearly leaves out any other gender identity. Furthermore, the extreme focus on the vagina, implies that it is key to womynhood. This idea is specifically problematic because it excluded trans womyn from the movement. Genital-based representations of femininity not only ignore the very identity of trans womyn, but they also adhere to the idea of naturality as a point of argument which is the very strategy of patriarchal oppression. In addition, in the theorizations of the advocates, specifically in MacKinnon’s social theory of gender, the questions of homosexuality, or any other sexuality for that matter, are left unanswered. Given that the sexualization of gender means that womyn are sex for men, lesbian sexuality would not really exist. It would be assumed as “sex for men” or an imitation of heterosexuality (Brown, 2000). The ordinance advocate also argued that pornography users identify with same-sex to “reproduce pornography scenes in their own lives.” This reduction of the user’s identification poses a problem regarding the usage of pornography, since many use pornography for sex instruction, or even as a way of avoiding genderized sex. This also undermines the appeal of gay and lesbian porn. In that form, the focus seems to be more than just a same-sex identification.
In conclusion, the pornography movement as a feminist effort, failed to challenge what it denounces in various ways. The campaign advocates stylistically mirror that which they critique and conform to the cultural standards that they seek to strike. in Drucilla Cornell’s words MacKinnon “fucks her audience.” The movement exploits the power of a pornographic social sphere while rejecting its content. The theorizations of the movement ignore key constituents of sexuality like race, reducing womyn to an embodiment of men’s desires. For the advocates, as Wendy Brown states, “Heterosexuality is the past, present, and the eternal future of gender” (2000). Feminism has strived to protect inclusion and fight oppression by identifying goods, mechanisms, and bodies required for this fight (Hoff, 2015). These identifications create the risk of reinforcing exclusionary social conditions on the way to construct a solution. What to take away from the analysis of the pornography campaign is to accept differences in the construction of “womyn.” the goal is to examine the self for the consequences of untraced presuppositions; to deconstruct pornography rather than breaking it down in totality.
References
Brown, W. (2000). The Mirror of Pornography. In Cornell, D. Feminism and pornography. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. U. Chi. Legal F., 139-167.
Dworkin, A. (2007). Intercourse. New York: Basic Books.
Foss, K. A., Foss, S. K., & Griffin, C. L. (1999). Feminist rhetorical theories (Vol. 1). Sage.
Frug, M.J. (2000). The Politics of Postmodern Feminism. In Cornell, D. Feminism and pornography. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press.
Hoff, S. (2015). Translating Principle into Practice: On Derrida and the Terms of Feminism. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 29(3), 403-414.
Irigaray, L. (2010). Speculum of the other woman. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell Univ. Press.
Jenefsky, C., & Russo, A. (1998). Intercourse: An Institution of Male Power. In Without Apology: Andrea Dworkin’s Art and Politics. Westview Press.
Poovey, M. (1988). Feminism and Deconstruction. Feminist Studies, 14(1), 51-65.
Sciullo, N. J. (2006). “This Womyn’s Work” in a “Man’s World”: A Feminist Analysis of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002. Whittier Law Review, 28, 709-739.
Scrambled eggs rhetoric, and so on and so on.... 