Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Anti-pornography Civil Rights Ordinance (also known as the Dworkin–MacKinnon Anti-pornography Civil Rights Ordinance or Dworkin–MacKinnon Ordinance) is a name for several proposed

civil rights and to allow women harmed by pornography to seek damages through lawsuits in civil courts. The approach was distinguished from traditional obscenity law, which attempts to suppress pornography through the use of prior restraint and criminal penalties
.

The ordinances were originally written in 1983 by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, and supported by many (but not all) of their fellow members of the feminist anti-pornography movement. Versions of the ordinance were passed in several cities in the United States during the 1980s, but were blocked by city officials and struck down by courts, who found it to violate the freedom of speech protections of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

History

The idea of combating pornography through civil rights litigation in the United States was first developed in 1980.

civil rights law. Two weeks later, they met with Boreman to discuss the idea of pursuing a lawsuit against Traynor and other pornographers. She was interested, but Steinem discovered that the statute of limitations
for a possible suit had passed, and Boreman backed off (Brownmiller 337). Dworkin and MacKinnon, however, began to discuss the possibility of civil rights litigation as an approach to combatting pornography.

In the fall of 1983, MacKinnon secured a one-semester appointment for Dworkin at the

American Booksellers v. Hudnut. The Supreme Court denied to hear the case, thus leaving the ordinance unconstitutional.[1][2] The case is often cited as an important decision on freedom of speech as applied to pornography
.

In spite of the defeat in the courts, Dworkin, MacKinnon, and some other feminists continued to advocate versions of the civil rights ordinance, organizing campaigns to place it on the ballot as a voter initiative in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1985 (where it was voted down in the referendum 58%–42%), and then again in Bellingham, Washington, in 1988 (where it was passed). The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the city of Bellingham after the ordinance was passed, and the federal court again struck the law down on First Amendment grounds.

Feminists were strongly divided over the anti-pornography ordinance. Some feminists, such as Wendy McElroy, Ellen Willis, Wendy Kaminer and Susie Bright, opposed anti-pornography feminism on principle, identifying with sex-positive feminist position in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s. Many anti-pornography feminists supported the legislative efforts, but others—including Susan Brownmiller and Janet Gornick—agreed with Dworkin and MacKinnon's critique of pornography, but opposed the attempt to combat it through legislative campaigns, which they feared would be rendered ineffectual by the courts, would violate principles of free speech, or would harm the anti-pornography movement by taking organizing energy away from education and direct action and entangling it in political squabbles (Brownmiller 318–321).

Butler decision in Canada

In 1992, the

R. v. Butler (the Butler decision) which incorporated some elements of Dworkin and MacKinnon's legal approach to pornography into the existing Canadian obscenity law. In Butler the Court held that Canadian obscenity law violated Canadian citizens' rights to free speech under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms if enforced on grounds of morality or community standards of decency; but that obscenity law could be enforced constitutionally against some pornography on the basis of the Charter's guarantees of sex equality. The Court's decision cited extensively from briefs prepared by the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), with the support and participation of Catharine MacKinnon. Andrea Dworkin opposed LEAF's position, arguing that feminists should not support or attempt to reform criminal obscenity law. In 1993, copies of Dworkin's book Pornography were held for inspection by Canadian customs agents,[3] fostering an urban legend that Dworkin's own books had been banned from Canada under a law that she herself had promoted. However, the Butler decision did not adopt Dworkin and MacKinnon's ordinance; MacKinnon and Dworkin claimed that holding Dworkin's books (which were released shortly after they were inspected) was a standard procedural measure, unrelated to the Butler decision.[4]

Definition of pornography in the ordinance

Dworkin and MacKinnon placed special emphasis on the legal definition of pornography provided in the civil rights ordinance. The civil rights ordinance characterizes pornography as a form of "sex discrimination" and defines "pornography" as "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words," when combined with one of several other conditions. In the "model ordinance" that they drafted, Dworkin and MacKinnon gave the following legal definition:

1. "Pornography" means the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words that also includes one or more of the following:
a. women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things or commodities; or
b. women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain; or
c. women are presented as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest, or other sexual assault; or
d. women are presented as sexual objects tied up or cut up or mutilated or bruised or physically hurt; or
e. women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display; or
f. women's body parts—including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks—are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; or
g. women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals; or
h. women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.
2. The use of men, children, or
transsexuals
in the place of women in (a)–(h) of this definition is also pornography for purposes of this law.
—Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Model Antipornography Civil-Rights Ordinance," Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality, Appendix D

Causes for action

Each version of the ordinance provided different causes for action under which women could file sex discrimination suits related to pornography.

The original version of the ordinance passed in Minneapolis, the Indianapolis ordinance, and the proposed Cambridge ordinance each recognized four causes for action that could justify a sex discrimination suit:

  • Trafficking in pornography, defined as the production, sale, exhibition, or distribution of pornographic materials. Making pornography available for study in government-funded public libraries and public or private university libraries was exempted from being considered discrimination by trafficking. Any woman could claim a cause for action against the trafficker(s) as a woman acting against the subordination of women. Men or transsexuals who alleged injury by pornography in the way that women are injured by it could also sue.
  • Coercion into pornographic performances. Any person coerced, intimidated, or fraudulently induced into pornography could sue the maker(s), seller(s), exhibitor(s), or distributor(s), both for damages and to have the product or products of the performances eliminated from public view. The law stated that a number of specific factors, including past sexual history, other involvement in prostitution or pornography, the appearance of cooperation during the performance, or payment for the performance, could not be used (by themselves, without further evidence) as evidence against a claim of coercion.
  • Forcing pornography on a person in a home, workplace, school, or public place. Any person who has pornography forced on her or him could sue the perpetrator and the institution.
  • Assault or physical attack due to pornography. The victim of an assault, physical attack, or injury "directly caused by specific pornography" could seek damages from the maker(s), distributor(s), seller(s), and/or exhibitor(s) of the pornography, and an injunction against the further exhibition, distribution, or sale of that specific pornography.

The Model Ordinance that Dworkin and MacKinnon advocated in Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality (1988), and the version of the ordinance passed in Bellingham, Washington, the same year, added a fifth cause of action in addition to these four:

  • Defamation through pornography, defined as defaming any person (including public figures) through the unauthorized use of their proper name, image, or recognizable personal likeness in pornography, and allowing for authorization, if given, to be revoked in writing at any time prior to the publication of the pornography.

Criticism

The most vocal critic of Mackinnon and (Andrea) Dworkin's rights-based approach to pornography is Ronald Dworkin (of no relation), who rejects the argument that the private consumption of pornography can be said to be a breach of women's civil rights.[5] Ronald Dworkin states that the Ordinance rests on the "frightening principle that considerations of equality require that some people not be free to express their tastes or convictions or preferences anywhere."[6] Ronald Dworkin also argues that the logic underpinning the Ordinance would threaten other forms of free speech.[5]

See also

  • Attorney General's Commission on Pornography
  • American Booksellers v. Hudnut

References

  1. ^ "Press Release: Supreme Court denies cert in Hudnut v. American Booksellers Association | mediacoalition".
  2. ^ "The Supreme Court, handing feminists and religious conservatives a".
  3. ^ Margulis, Zachary (1995). "Canada's thought police". WIRED 3.03: Electrosphere. Electronic Frontier Canada [La Frontière Électronique du Canada]. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  4. No Status Quo. Nikki Craft
    . Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  5. ^ a b West, Caroline (Fall 2013), "Feminist perspectives on sex markets: pornography", Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  6. ^ Dworkin, Ronald (October 21, 1993). "Women and pornography". The New York Review of Books. 40 (17).
    Review of:
    ISBN 9780674639348
    .

Bibliography
See also:
JSTOR 2265469. Pdf.
See also: Davies, Alex (March 2014). "How to silence content with porn, context and loaded questions".
doi:10.1111/ejop.12075
. (Online version before inclusion in an issue.)

Further reading
Book review of In Harm's Way: Jensen, Robert (July 1998). "Signs of struggle: voices from the anti-pornography movement". Books-on-Law. 1 (4). Archived from the original on January 11, 2014.
Book review of In Harm's Way: McElroy, Wendy (July 1998). "The MacKinnon-Dworkin memory hole". Books-on-Law. 1 (4). Archived from the original on January 11, 2014.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Antipornography_Civil_Rights_Ordinance&oldid=1214330577"