Feminists v. fundies

[10/05/06 Edit: The transcript of the speech I am referring to is now available at Witchy-Woo's place]

Welcome to the post I promised about the difference between feminist and religious fundamentalist arguments against pornstitution!

At the Dworkin conference, a speaker from Feminists Against Censorship suggested that radical feminist arguments against pornography 'play into the hands' of religious fundamentalists. The suggestion seems to be that feminists should not attack pornography because religious nutcases attack pornography. We should ignore the harm pornography does to women because it is trivial compared to looking like you agree with the right. Hmmm.

What exactly is meant by 'playing into the hands' of religious fundamentalists? Are they all going to suddenly jump up and down in glee yelling 'Yay! Feminists who oppose our oppression of women and promote women's independence from male authority and religious domination hate pornography too! Well gosh, they must be on our side really. Take that, secular leftists!'? Are we suddenly going to be overtaken by the desire to submit to restrictive and misogynistic doctrine of fundamentalists? I rather doubt it, given that feminists vehemenously oppose what religious fundamentalists stand for: patriarchy.

If I was feeling malicious (and I am), I would suggest that this 'playing into the hands' crap orginates as the cry of those leftist men who regard the consumption of porn as their natural right, and the women's liberation movement as a mere subset of leftist politics. To them let me just say, women are dying because of pornography and prostitution. Women are raped and abused in the practice of pornography and prostitution. You want us on your side? Then fight pornstitution. Help us. Fight the degradation and abuse of women, examine your own assumptions and privileges, get the rapists off those women's bodies. We can't wait for your revolution. And we won't let you off the hook because your pride is damaged by the ridiculous fear that the right wing are laughing at you. Deal with it.

Okay, I went off on a bit of a tangent there.

I also want to point out that the opposition of feminists, and the opposition of religious fundamentalists to pornography and prostitution could not be more different. Radical feminists, indeed, argue that pornography owes its existence to the religious view of women's bodies, and therefore sexual activity as dirty and wrong. Pornography gets its thrill from degrading women, and therefore skips along happily with the oppressive mores of religious fundamentalism. If sexual activity was seen as healthy and normal, those who today consume pornography would have no need for it.

Radical feminists further speak of how the women in the pornstitution industry end up there, point out the lack of real choices, how sexual abuse and poverty feature in the lives of the majority of women in the industry. I have yet to see religious fundamentalists discuss these issues, and I will happy to be pointed to somewhere where they do.

Religious fundamentalists oppose pornography because they assert that sex (which they define solely as penis-in-vagina intercourse) is dirty and improper unless it takes place in a certain context. That context is of course marriage under male domination, in which the wife is the sexual property of her husband; her adultery will likely be treated with much more severe punishment than that of her husband. They oppose pornography because they believe it literally does depict the 'whore'- who is the polar opposite to the devoted and chaste wife and mother. They oppose pornography because, like pornstitution's defenders and popular culture as a whole, they confuse pornography with sex.

Radical feminists oppose pornography because of the damage that it does to the women involved in it, and women in the society as a whole in which pornography is normalised. They recognise that women will not be free until there is no rape, no pornography, no defining a woman purely by her sexual function, no misogyny, no objectifying of women, no poverty. They recognise the damage pornography does to the attitudes of men towards women and of women towards women, expressed in contempt for rape survivors, disregard of the unrelenting violence women face everyday and the assumption that the male and female sexualities as depicted in pornographic media are true representations, and not social constructs linked to a hierarchical society in which men rule over women.

Radical feminists cannot give up their opposition to pornstitution because it upsets the left. Any understanding of women's oppression in the world requires an understanding of the oppression of women in one's own culture. We will not help our sisters under the rule of religious fundamentalists by ignoring misogyny in our own culture, nor by acting as if our culture is something to be envied. We will help them by listening to what they have to say, and aiding them in their struggles.

We must not abandon any group of women, as the moment we do, feminism means nothing.