Women Against Pornography
Encyclopedia
Women Against Pornography (WAP) was a radical feminist
activist group based out of New York City
and an influential force in the anti-pornography movement
of the late 1970s and the 1980s.
WAP was the best known of a number of feminist anti-pornography groups that were active throughout the United States and the anglophone
world, mainly from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. After previous failed attempts to start a broad feminist anti-pornography group in New York City, WAP was started in 1978. WAP quickly drew widespread support for its anti-pornography campaign, and in late 1979 held a March on Times Square
that included over 5000 supporters. Their anti-pornography activism around Times Square also brought in unexpected financial support from the Mayor's office, theater owners, and other parties with an interest in the gentrification
of Times Square.
WAP became known through their anti-pornography informational tours of sex shops and pornographic theaters in Times Square. In the 1980s, WAP began to focus more on lobbying and legislative efforts against pornography, particularly in support of civil-rights-oriented antipornography legislation
. They were also active in testifying before the Meese Commission and some of their advocacy of a civil-rights based anti-pornography model found its way into the final recommendations of the commission. In the late 1980s, the leadership of WAP began to focus more on the issue of international sex trafficking, and were instrumental in the founding of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
. WAP became less active in the 1990s and faded out of existence in the mid-1990s.
The positions of the group were controversial. Civil libertarians opposed WAP and similar groups, holding that the legislative approaches WAP advocated amounted to censorship
. Sex-positive feminists held that feminist campaigns against pornography were misdirected and ultimately threatened sexual freedoms and free speech rights in a way that would be ultimately detrimental toward women, gay people, and sexual minorities. WAP became involved in some particularly heated debates and skirmishes with sex-positive feminists, particularly in the events surrounding the 1982 Barnard Conference. These events were battles in what became known as the Feminist Sex Wars
of the late 1970s and 1980s.
and other radical feminists over the public debut of Snuff
. It was part of a larger wave of radical feminist organization around the issue of pornography
, which included protests by the Los Angeles
group Women Against Violence Against Women against The Rolling Stones
' sadomasochistic advertisements for their album Black and Blue
(see below). Founding members of the New York group included Adrienne Rich
, Grace Paley
, Gloria Steinem
, Shere Hite
, Lois Gould, Barbara Deming
, Karla Jay
, Andrea Dworkin, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Robin Morgan
. These initial efforts stalled after a year of meeting and resolutions over a position paper, which they hoped to place as a paid advertisement in the New York Times, expressing feminist objections to pornography, and distinguishing them from conservative complaints against "obscenity".
In November 1978, a group of New York feminists participated in a national feminist antipornography conference, organized by Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
(WAVPM) in San Francisco. After the conference, Susan Brownmiller
approached WAVPM organizers Laura Lederer
and Lynn Campbell, and encouraged them to come to New York City to help with anti-pornography organizing there. Lederer decided to stay in San Francisco to edit an anthology based on the conference presentations, but Campbell took up the offer. She arrived in New York on April 1979, with Brownmiller, Adrienne Rich, and Frances Whyatt contributing money to help her cover her living expenses while the organizing work progressed. Dolores Alexander
was soon recruited as a fundraiser, and Barbara Mehrhof was hired as an organizer soon thereafter with the money that Alexander was able to raise. Brownmiller soon took an unpaid position as the fourth organizer.
The diversity in perspectives within the group was the source of considerable debate and some acrimony. WAP originally did not take a stance on the issue of prostitution
, for example, since there was division between members who opposed prostitution as a form of male domination and those who wanted to bring prostitutes into the movement. (WAP later came to strongly oppose prostitution as a form of exploitation of women, and critiqued pornography as a "system of prostitution".) There was also considerable tension between heterosexual feminists and lesbian separatists.
WAP's decision to focus attention on pornography and prostitution in Times Square
drew unexpected support from Broadway
theater owners and city development agencies despairing at the increasing crime and urban blight in the neighborhood of Times Square. Carl Weisbrod, the head of the Mayor's Midtown Enforcement Project, helped them secure rent-free office space from the 42nd Street Redevelopment Corporation, in an empty bar and restaurant storefront that they were able to use until a buyer could be found (they occupied the storefront for more than two years, until two adjacent buildings collapsed during a renovation). St. Malachy's, a Midtown actors' chapel, contributed surplus desks. When Bob Guccione
tried to buy the storefront space (in order to open an establishment to be named the Meat Rack), WAP alerted neighborhood residents, who protested and defeated the proposed deal.
However, the wider involvement sometimes created conflicts with supporters who did not realize that the group's goals extended beyond Times Square:
, Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, Andrea Dworkin, Charlotte Bunch
, Judy Sullivan, and Amina Abdur-Rahman. The march drew extensive coverage of the CBS
evening news and in the morning papers.
In 1988, WAP organized a conference titled "Trafficking in Women", co-sponsored with Evelina Giobbe's feminist anti-prostitution group Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt (WHISPER). The conference explored the alleged role of sex trafficking in bringing women into the sex industry
. As a result of this conference, Leidholdt felt it would be more productive to focus on combatting the international sex industry, and founded the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
(CATW) for that purpose. She also soon stepped down as leader of Women Against Pornography in order to focus her efforts on this new campaign.
After the departure of Leidholdt, WAP became much less active. The group was led by Norma Ramos, who continued to make appearances in the name of WAP through the early 1990s. WAP faded out of existence during the mid-1990s, closing in 1996–'97, though Leidholt and Ramos both continued to be active in CATW into the 2000s.
and softcore pornography, which were shown with critical commentary by a WAP presenter. The format of a slide show with critical commentary had been used earlier by Julia London of the Los Angeles group Women Against Violence Against Women to illustrate soft-core pornographic themes in rock album covers; WAP adapted the format to discuss pornography in general, including hardcore pornography. Slide shows were generally organized by local feminist groups, and held in women's homes as part of consciousness-raising meetings. The anti-pornography movement has continued to use slide shows as an educational tactic for feminist group meetings and public events.
Opponents of anti-pornography feminism have criticized the slide shows of WAP and similar groups, claiming that they disproportionately emphasized violent and sadomasochistic materials and presented these themes as being typical of all pornography.
, Time
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
, European newspapers, local TV news programs and talk shows in New York City, and The Phil Donahue Show in Chicago.
had violently coerced her into making Deep Throat
and other pornographic films as "Linda Lovelace". WAP also became more active in political lobbying during this time.
WAP was among several groups that protested the release of pornographic video games by Mystique
during the 1980s, especially against their game Custer's Revenge
, which was seen by many as racist.
for anti-pornography legislation, particularly legislation such as the Dworkin-MacKinnon Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance that adhered to the feminist "civil rights
" approach rather than the older "obscenity" approach. In accordance with this, in 1984 WAP lobbied to change a proposed Suffolk County, New York
anti-pornography ordinance to reflect their approach; when these changes were not forthcoming, WAP, along with several anti-censorship groups, successfully lobbied against passage of the measure.
In 1986, the group played an important role in the Meese Commission hearings, helping the commission locate witnesses and having Dorchen Leidholdt testify during the commission hearings. In spite of this, WAP sought to distance itself from the commission, which took a conservative anti-obscenity approach to pornography, even holding a demonstration against the commission immediately before Leidholdt's appearance as a friendly witness. Much of their language of pornography as a civil rights violation against women found its way into the final report of the Meese Commission.
. In 1988, WAP (along with WHISPER), organized a conference titled "Trafficking in Women" (see above), addressing the question of the role of trafficking in the international sex industry.
. WAP was particularly criticized for what was seen by many as its friendly stance toward the Meese Commission, which was viewed by many as a government attack on civil liberties. For its part, WAP held that civil libertarians held to an absolutist free speech doctrine that compromised the civil rights of women. WAP also charged that monetary contributions from pornographers to groups like the ACLU had compromised the ability of such civil libertarians to view legal tactics against pornography objectively.
From its beginnings, the group was controversial in feminist circles, many of whom felt that feminist campaigns against pornography were misdirected and ultimately threatened sexual freedoms and free speech rights in a way that would be ultimately detrimental toward women, gay people, and sexual minorities. Ellen Willis
was particularly outspoken in her criticism of WAP and other feminist anti-pornography campaigns. Opposition to the kind of feminist anti-pornography politics espoused by WAP led to the rise of an opposing movement within feminism known as "pro-sex feminism" (a term coined by Willis). For its part, WAP viewed sex positive feminists as "sexual liberals" and "sexual liberationists" who were not real feminists and were blind to (or possibly even in collusion with) male sexual oppression of women and the central role of such oppression in the upholding male dominance
.
These controversies came to a head in an event known as the Barnard Conference, a 1982 academic conference
on feminist perspectives on sexuality. The conference was organized by "pro-sex" and other feminists who felt that their perspectives were excluded by the dominance of the anti-pornography radical feminist position in feminist circles. The latter were in turn excluded from participation in the Barnard Conference. WAP responded by picketing the conference. It is also alleged that WAP engaged in a campaign of harassment against several of the conference organizers (among them author Dorothy Allison
), publishing their home addresses and phone numbers on leaflets that were distributed publicly, engaging in telephone harassment, and calling the employers of these individuals in an attempt to get them fired from their jobs. In 1984, feminists opposed to Women Against Pornography and feminist anti-pornography politics coalesced in the group, Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT).
The often-acerbic confrontations between sex-positive and anti-porn feminists (in which WAP played a central role) during the 1980s became known as the Feminist Sex Wars
.
Among the first such groups was Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), which was founded in Los Angeles in 1976 and was led by Marcia Womongold. This group was best known for holding a demonstration in 1977 in response to a BDSM
-themed billboard for the Rolling Stones album Black and Blue
, which showed a bound and bruised woman with the caption "I'm 'Black and Blue' from the Rolling Stones — and I love it!". The billboard was removed in response to the WAVAW's protests. WAVAW went on to start a number of chapters in several cities throughout North America and the United Kingdom, with a particularly active chapter in Boston. (A New York City chapter headed by Dorchen Leidholdt also existed prior to the founding of WAP.) The group was active until 1984.
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
(WAVPM) was a San Francisco group that played a very important role in the founding of WAP and pioneered many of its tactics (such as slide shows, porn shop tours, and mass demonstrations in red light districts). It was active from 1976–1983 and led by Lynn Campbell (who went on to become first head of WAP) and Laura Lederer.
Feminists Fighting Pornography
, led by Page Mellish, did organizing in New York City
.
Feminists Against Pornography was a different group, active in Washington, D.C.
during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Pornography Resource Center, a Minneapolis group, was founded in 1984 to support Catharine MacKinnon
's campaign to pass the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance
in Minneapolis. The group changed its name to Organizing Against Pornography in 1985 and was active until 1990.
In the United Kingdom, the feminist Campaign Against Pornography (CAP) was launched by British MP Clare Short
in 1986 and was best known for its "Off the Shelf" campaign against "Page Three girls" in British tabloids. A breakaway group, Campaign Against Pornography and Censorship (CPC), started by Catherine Itzin
in 1989, adhered more closely to the civil rights anti-pornography approach favored by Women Against Pornography. CPC was active in Ireland as well as the UK. Both groups were active until the mid-1990s.
In New Zealand, a group calling itself "Women Against Pornography" was active during the eighties and early nineties (1983–1995), though it had no formal connection to the American group. They are best known for their 1984 attempt to force the resignation of New Zealand Chief Censor
Arthur Everard
after he allowed the horror film I Spit on Your Grave
to be shown in that country. In this national context, the Society for Promotion of Community Standards had tried to prevent the criminalisation of spousal rape
in 1982, so there were tensions between the Christian Right
and feminist anti-pornography activists, as well as a strengthened movement for LGBT rights in New Zealand that also benefited from prevalent social liberalism
, pointing out that gay pornography
did not operate according to the same psychological and sociological parameters as its heterosexual equivalent. When it dissolved in 1995, Women Against Pornography had not adopted a strategy that converged with the New Zealand Christian Right, unlike many of its national counterparts abroad. Much of this was due to the weakness of the New Zealand Society for Promotion of Community Standards after co-belligerency against the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986.
The group Scottish Women Against Pornography (SWAP) was started in 1999 and was still active as of 2008. It also has no formal connection with the American group and was started well after its demise.
In 2002, anti-pornography feminist Diana Russell and several cohorts informally used the name "Women Against Pornography" for a demonstration against the opening of the Hustler
Club, a San Francisco strip club
.
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a current theoretical perspective within feminism that focuses on the theory of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on an assumption that "male supremacy" oppresses women...
activist group based out of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and an influential force in the anti-pornography movement
Anti-pornography movement
The term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia, dehumanization, sexual exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to maintain healthy sexual...
of the late 1970s and the 1980s.
WAP was the best known of a number of feminist anti-pornography groups that were active throughout the United States and the anglophone
English-speaking world
The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another. For more information, please see:Lists:* List of countries by English-speaking population...
world, mainly from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. After previous failed attempts to start a broad feminist anti-pornography group in New York City, WAP was started in 1978. WAP quickly drew widespread support for its anti-pornography campaign, and in late 1979 held a March on Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
that included over 5000 supporters. Their anti-pornography activism around Times Square also brought in unexpected financial support from the Mayor's office, theater owners, and other parties with an interest in the gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
of Times Square.
WAP became known through their anti-pornography informational tours of sex shops and pornographic theaters in Times Square. In the 1980s, WAP began to focus more on lobbying and legislative efforts against pornography, particularly in support of civil-rights-oriented antipornography legislation
Antipornography civil rights ordinance
The Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance is a name for several proposed local ordinances, closely associated with the anti-pornography radical feminists Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, that proposed to treat pornography as a violation of women's civil rights,...
. They were also active in testifying before the Meese Commission and some of their advocacy of a civil-rights based anti-pornography model found its way into the final recommendations of the commission. In the late 1980s, the leadership of WAP began to focus more on the issue of international sex trafficking, and were instrumental in the founding of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is an international non-governmental organization opposing human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sex.-Views:...
. WAP became less active in the 1990s and faded out of existence in the mid-1990s.
The positions of the group were controversial. Civil libertarians opposed WAP and similar groups, holding that the legislative approaches WAP advocated amounted to censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. Sex-positive feminists held that feminist campaigns against pornography were misdirected and ultimately threatened sexual freedoms and free speech rights in a way that would be ultimately detrimental toward women, gay people, and sexual minorities. WAP became involved in some particularly heated debates and skirmishes with sex-positive feminists, particularly in the events surrounding the 1982 Barnard Conference. These events were battles in what became known as the Feminist Sex Wars
Feminist Sex Wars
The Feminist Sex Wars and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography,...
of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Formation
The group that eventually became Women Against Pornography emerged out of the efforts of New York radical activists in fall 1976, after the public controversy and pickets organized by Andrea DworkinAndrea Dworkin
Andrea Rita Dworkin was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women....
and other radical feminists over the public debut of Snuff
Snuff (1975 film)
Snuff is a 1976 splatter film, and is most notorious for being marketed as if it were an actual snuff film. This picture contributed to the urban legend of snuff films, although the concept did not originate with it.-Production:...
. It was part of a larger wave of radical feminist organization around the issue of pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, which included protests by the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
group Women Against Violence Against Women against The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
' sadomasochistic advertisements for their album Black and Blue
Black and Blue
Black and Blue is the 13th British and 15th American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1976. It was the band's first studio album released with Ronnie Wood as the replacement for Mick Taylor...
(see below). Founding members of the New York group included Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
, Grace Paley
Grace Paley
Grace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...
, Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
, Shere Hite
Shere Hite
Shere Hite is an American-born German sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey...
, Lois Gould, Barbara Deming
Barbara Deming
Barbara Deming was an American feminist and advocate of nonviolent social change.- Early life :Barbara Deming was born in New York. She attended a Friends school up through her high school years....
, Karla Jay
Karla Jay
Karla Jay is a professor of English and the director of the Women's and Gender Studies program at Pace University. A pioneer in the field of lesbian and gay studies, she is widely published....
, Andrea Dworkin, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan
Robin Morgan is a former child actor turned American radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Sisterhood is Powerful and Ms. Magazine....
. These initial efforts stalled after a year of meeting and resolutions over a position paper, which they hoped to place as a paid advertisement in the New York Times, expressing feminist objections to pornography, and distinguishing them from conservative complaints against "obscenity".
In November 1978, a group of New York feminists participated in a national feminist antipornography conference, organized by Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media was a radical feminist anti-pornography activist group based in San Francisco and an influential force in the larger feminist anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and 1980s....
(WAVPM) in San Francisco. After the conference, Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use,...
approached WAVPM organizers Laura Lederer
Laura Lederer
Laura J. Lederer is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech...
and Lynn Campbell, and encouraged them to come to New York City to help with anti-pornography organizing there. Lederer decided to stay in San Francisco to edit an anthology based on the conference presentations, but Campbell took up the offer. She arrived in New York on April 1979, with Brownmiller, Adrienne Rich, and Frances Whyatt contributing money to help her cover her living expenses while the organizing work progressed. Dolores Alexander
Dolores Alexander
Dolores Alexander was a lesbian feminist, writer, and reporter. Alexander is the only Executive Director of the National Organization of Women to have resigned because of the homophobic beliefs in the early inception of NOW. She co-opened "Mother Courage" with Jill Ward, creating the first...
was soon recruited as a fundraiser, and Barbara Mehrhof was hired as an organizer soon thereafter with the money that Alexander was able to raise. Brownmiller soon took an unpaid position as the fourth organizer.
Membership and support
The original organizers of Women Against Pornography came primarily from the New York radical feminist groups that had developed during the 1970s, but once their organization began they found unexpected sources of membership and support from across New York. According to Susan Brownmiller,The diversity in perspectives within the group was the source of considerable debate and some acrimony. WAP originally did not take a stance on the issue of prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, for example, since there was division between members who opposed prostitution as a form of male domination and those who wanted to bring prostitutes into the movement. (WAP later came to strongly oppose prostitution as a form of exploitation of women, and critiqued pornography as a "system of prostitution".) There was also considerable tension between heterosexual feminists and lesbian separatists.
WAP's decision to focus attention on pornography and prostitution in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
drew unexpected support from Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
theater owners and city development agencies despairing at the increasing crime and urban blight in the neighborhood of Times Square. Carl Weisbrod, the head of the Mayor's Midtown Enforcement Project, helped them secure rent-free office space from the 42nd Street Redevelopment Corporation, in an empty bar and restaurant storefront that they were able to use until a buyer could be found (they occupied the storefront for more than two years, until two adjacent buildings collapsed during a renovation). St. Malachy's, a Midtown actors' chapel, contributed surplus desks. When Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione
Bob Guccione was the founder and publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse. He resigned from his publisher position in November 2003.-Early life:...
tried to buy the storefront space (in order to open an establishment to be named the Meat Rack), WAP alerted neighborhood residents, who protested and defeated the proposed deal.
However, the wider involvement sometimes created conflicts with supporters who did not realize that the group's goals extended beyond Times Square:
March on Times Square
Women Against Pornography also organized a March on Times Square, held October 20, 1979. The march drew between five and seven thousand demonstrators, who marched behind a huge stitched banner reading "Women Against Pornography / Stop Violence Against Women," including Brownmiller, Alexander, Campbell, Mehrhof, Bella AbzugBella Abzug
Bella Savitsky Abzug was an American lawyer, Congresswoman, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus...
, Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, Andrea Dworkin, Charlotte Bunch
Charlotte Bunch
Charlotte Bunch is an American activist, author and organizer in women's and human rights movements.A Board of Governor’s Distinguished Service Professor in Women's and Gender Studies, Bunch founded Washington D.C...
, Judy Sullivan, and Amina Abdur-Rahman. The march drew extensive coverage of the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
evening news and in the morning papers.
Later history
After the March on Times Square, Lynn Campbell resigned her position as an organizer (due to her failing health) and Brownmiller resigned to finish work on her book Femininity, while Dorchen Leidholdt took on a new leadership role in the organization.In 1988, WAP organized a conference titled "Trafficking in Women", co-sponsored with Evelina Giobbe's feminist anti-prostitution group Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt (WHISPER). The conference explored the alleged role of sex trafficking in bringing women into the sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
. As a result of this conference, Leidholdt felt it would be more productive to focus on combatting the international sex industry, and founded the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is an international non-governmental organization opposing human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sex.-Views:...
(CATW) for that purpose. She also soon stepped down as leader of Women Against Pornography in order to focus her efforts on this new campaign.
After the departure of Leidholdt, WAP became much less active. The group was led by Norma Ramos, who continued to make appearances in the name of WAP through the early 1990s. WAP faded out of existence during the mid-1990s, closing in 1996–'97, though Leidholt and Ramos both continued to be active in CATW into the 2000s.
Campaigns
Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Women Against Pornography focused on educational campaigns to raise awareness of what they viewed as the harms caused by pornography and the sex industry. Their activism took on many forms, including expose slide-shows, tours of sex industry outlets in Times Square, conferences, and public demonstrations.Slide shows
The group's earliest educational efforts were a series of slide shows of hardcoreHardcore pornography
Hardcore pornography is a form of pornography that features explicit sexual acts. The term was coined in the second half of the 20th century to distinguish it from softcore pornography. It usually takes the form of photographs, often displayed in magazines or on the Internet, or films. It can also...
and softcore pornography, which were shown with critical commentary by a WAP presenter. The format of a slide show with critical commentary had been used earlier by Julia London of the Los Angeles group Women Against Violence Against Women to illustrate soft-core pornographic themes in rock album covers; WAP adapted the format to discuss pornography in general, including hardcore pornography. Slide shows were generally organized by local feminist groups, and held in women's homes as part of consciousness-raising meetings. The anti-pornography movement has continued to use slide shows as an educational tactic for feminist group meetings and public events.
Opponents of anti-pornography feminism have criticized the slide shows of WAP and similar groups, claiming that they disproportionately emphasized violent and sadomasochistic materials and presented these themes as being typical of all pornography.
Times Square tours
Women Against Pornography's best-known tactic was a guided tour of the pornography and prostitution outlets in Times Square, which they led twice a week for a suggested contribution of $5.00. (In San Francisco, WAVPM had conducted similar tours in the red-light districts of that city.) Lynn Campbell suggested that people who did not consume pornography knew very little about the content of the pornography or the atmosphere in sex shops and live sex shows, and that actual guided tours of the sex industry in Times Square would provide an excellent educational tool. Susan Brownmiller planned an itinerary for the tour and wrote a script for the guides (with the help of information supplied by Carl Weisbrod, a police officer tasked with finding and closing down underground brothels in Midtown, and Maggie Smith, the owner of a neighborhood bar). The tours often involved unplanned encounters—being physically thrown out by enraged store managers, watching businessmen try to hide from the tourists, or talking briefly with nude performers while they took their breaks. After a reporter for the New York Times took one of the first tours and wrote a feature article for the Style section, WAP received coverage in PeoplePeople (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, European newspapers, local TV news programs and talk shows in New York City, and The Phil Donahue Show in Chicago.
Demonstrations
Women Against Pornography also organized a number of large demonstrations against pornography, most notably, the March on Times Square (see above).Later campaigns
During the era of Dorchen Leidholdt's leadership, the group continued the Times Square tours and slide shows, organized smaller-scale protest demonstrations, sent out speakers and held public panel discussions on pornography, and announced "WAP zaps," a series of publicly announced awards and condemnations focused on the advertising industry, and expressed public support for Linda Boreman after she publicly stated that Chuck TraynorChuck Traynor
Charles "Chuck" E. Traynor was an American entrepreneur and pornographer.Traynor was a minor figure in the early US East Coast pornographic film industry and appeared in a number of short "loops" in the early 1970s, usually with his then-wife Linda Lovelace...
had violently coerced her into making Deep Throat
Deep Throat (film)
Deep Throat is a 1972 American pornographic film written and directed by Gerard Damiano and produced by Louis Peraino and starring Linda Lovelace ....
and other pornographic films as "Linda Lovelace". WAP also became more active in political lobbying during this time.
WAP was among several groups that protested the release of pornographic video games by Mystique
Mystique (company)
Mystique was the name of a company that produced a number of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600, such as Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and Custer's Revenge. It was one of several video game companies that tried to use sex to sell its games...
during the 1980s, especially against their game Custer's Revenge
Custer's Revenge
Custer's Revenge is a controversial video game made for the Atari 2600 by Mystique, a company that produced a number of adult video game titles for the system...
, which was seen by many as racist.
Lobbying
WAP also focused on lobbyingLobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
for anti-pornography legislation, particularly legislation such as the Dworkin-MacKinnon Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance that adhered to the feminist "civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
" approach rather than the older "obscenity" approach. In accordance with this, in 1984 WAP lobbied to change a proposed Suffolk County, New York
Suffolk County, New York
Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York on the eastern portion of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,493,350. It was named for the county of Suffolk in England, from which its earliest settlers came...
anti-pornography ordinance to reflect their approach; when these changes were not forthcoming, WAP, along with several anti-censorship groups, successfully lobbied against passage of the measure.
In 1986, the group played an important role in the Meese Commission hearings, helping the commission locate witnesses and having Dorchen Leidholdt testify during the commission hearings. In spite of this, WAP sought to distance itself from the commission, which took a conservative anti-obscenity approach to pornography, even holding a demonstration against the commission immediately before Leidholdt's appearance as a friendly witness. Much of their language of pornography as a civil rights violation against women found its way into the final report of the Meese Commission.
Advertising awards
WAP held an annual awards ceremony in which plastic pigs were handed out for advertising campaigns that WAP considered "demeaning to women and girls" and "Ms. Liberty awards" were awarded for "prowoman ads". Many advertisers disagreed with WAP's interpretation of their ad campaigns, though at least one recipient of a "pig" award, the shoemaker Famolare, responded by changing its ads, and was rewarded with a "Ms. Liberty" award the next year.Conferences
In 1987, WAP organized a conference titled "The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism", a forum in which various notable radical feminist writers stated their opposition to the newly emerged school of sex-positive feminismSex-positive feminism
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism is a movement that began in the early 1980s...
. In 1988, WAP (along with WHISPER), organized a conference titled "Trafficking in Women" (see above), addressing the question of the role of trafficking in the international sex industry.
Opposition and controversies
Many of Women Against Pornography's campaigns for legal remedies against pornography brought them into direct confrontation with civil libertarians such as the ACLU, who argued that laws such as the Dworkin/Mackinnon Ordinance were simply another form of censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. WAP was particularly criticized for what was seen by many as its friendly stance toward the Meese Commission, which was viewed by many as a government attack on civil liberties. For its part, WAP held that civil libertarians held to an absolutist free speech doctrine that compromised the civil rights of women. WAP also charged that monetary contributions from pornographers to groups like the ACLU had compromised the ability of such civil libertarians to view legal tactics against pornography objectively.
From its beginnings, the group was controversial in feminist circles, many of whom felt that feminist campaigns against pornography were misdirected and ultimately threatened sexual freedoms and free speech rights in a way that would be ultimately detrimental toward women, gay people, and sexual minorities. Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis
Ellen Jane Willis was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist and pop music critic.-Biography:...
was particularly outspoken in her criticism of WAP and other feminist anti-pornography campaigns. Opposition to the kind of feminist anti-pornography politics espoused by WAP led to the rise of an opposing movement within feminism known as "pro-sex feminism" (a term coined by Willis). For its part, WAP viewed sex positive feminists as "sexual liberals" and "sexual liberationists" who were not real feminists and were blind to (or possibly even in collusion with) male sexual oppression of women and the central role of such oppression in the upholding male dominance
Male dominance
Male dominance, or maledom, refers to BDSM activities where the dominant partner is male.Maledom scenarios are common in BDSM fiction, including works such as the Story of O and the works of John Norman and Adrian Hunter...
.
These controversies came to a head in an event known as the Barnard Conference, a 1982 academic conference
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
on feminist perspectives on sexuality. The conference was organized by "pro-sex" and other feminists who felt that their perspectives were excluded by the dominance of the anti-pornography radical feminist position in feminist circles. The latter were in turn excluded from participation in the Barnard Conference. WAP responded by picketing the conference. It is also alleged that WAP engaged in a campaign of harassment against several of the conference organizers (among them author Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison
Dorothy Allison is an American writer, speaker, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.-Early life:Dorothy E. Allison was born on April 11, 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina to Ruth Gibson Allison, who was fifteen at the time. Ruth was a poor and unmarried mother who worked as a...
), publishing their home addresses and phone numbers on leaflets that were distributed publicly, engaging in telephone harassment, and calling the employers of these individuals in an attempt to get them fired from their jobs. In 1984, feminists opposed to Women Against Pornography and feminist anti-pornography politics coalesced in the group, Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce (FACT).
The often-acerbic confrontations between sex-positive and anti-porn feminists (in which WAP played a central role) during the 1980s became known as the Feminist Sex Wars
Feminist Sex Wars
The Feminist Sex Wars and Lesbian Sex Wars, or simply the Sex Wars or Porn Wars, were the acrimonious debates within the feminist movement and lesbian community in the late 1970s through the 1980s around the issues of feminist strategies regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography,...
.
Similar groups
A number of feminist anti-pornography groups sprang up throughout the United States, as well as internationally, particularly during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some histories of the anti-pornography movement mistakenly refer to the activities of these groups as those of "Women Against Pornography", which was by far the best-known of these groups.Among the first such groups was Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), which was founded in Los Angeles in 1976 and was led by Marcia Womongold. This group was best known for holding a demonstration in 1977 in response to a BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
-themed billboard for the Rolling Stones album Black and Blue
Black and Blue
Black and Blue is the 13th British and 15th American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1976. It was the band's first studio album released with Ronnie Wood as the replacement for Mick Taylor...
, which showed a bound and bruised woman with the caption "I'm 'Black and Blue' from the Rolling Stones — and I love it!". The billboard was removed in response to the WAVAW's protests. WAVAW went on to start a number of chapters in several cities throughout North America and the United Kingdom, with a particularly active chapter in Boston. (A New York City chapter headed by Dorchen Leidholdt also existed prior to the founding of WAP.) The group was active until 1984.
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media
Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media was a radical feminist anti-pornography activist group based in San Francisco and an influential force in the larger feminist anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and 1980s....
(WAVPM) was a San Francisco group that played a very important role in the founding of WAP and pioneered many of its tactics (such as slide shows, porn shop tours, and mass demonstrations in red light districts). It was active from 1976–1983 and led by Lynn Campbell (who went on to become first head of WAP) and Laura Lederer.
Feminists Fighting Pornography
Feminists Fighting Pornography
Feminists Fighting Pornography was a political activist organization against pornography. It advocated for U.S. Federal legislation to allow lawsuits against the porn industry by women whose attackers were inspired by pornography. FFP was based in New York, N.Y., was founded in 1983 or 1984, and...
, led by Page Mellish, did organizing in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Feminists Against Pornography was a different group, active in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Pornography Resource Center, a Minneapolis group, was founded in 1984 to support Catharine MacKinnon
Catharine MacKinnon
Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist.- Biography :MacKinnon was born in Minnesota. Her mother is Elizabeth Valentine Davis; her father, George E. MacKinnon was a lawyer, congressman , and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...
's campaign to pass the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance
Antipornography civil rights ordinance
The Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance is a name for several proposed local ordinances, closely associated with the anti-pornography radical feminists Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, that proposed to treat pornography as a violation of women's civil rights,...
in Minneapolis. The group changed its name to Organizing Against Pornography in 1985 and was active until 1990.
In the United Kingdom, the feminist Campaign Against Pornography (CAP) was launched by British MP Clare Short
Clare Short
Clare Short is a British politician, and a member of the Labour Party. She was the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983 to 2010; for most of this period she was a Labour Party MP, but she resigned the party whip in 2006 and served the remainder of her term as an Independent. She...
in 1986 and was best known for its "Off the Shelf" campaign against "Page Three girls" in British tabloids. A breakaway group, Campaign Against Pornography and Censorship (CPC), started by Catherine Itzin
Catherine Itzin
Catherine Lenore Itzin was an Honorary Research Fellow in the Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations Research Unit, Department of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bradford...
in 1989, adhered more closely to the civil rights anti-pornography approach favored by Women Against Pornography. CPC was active in Ireland as well as the UK. Both groups were active until the mid-1990s.
In New Zealand, a group calling itself "Women Against Pornography" was active during the eighties and early nineties (1983–1995), though it had no formal connection to the American group. They are best known for their 1984 attempt to force the resignation of New Zealand Chief Censor
Office of Film and Literature Classification (New Zealand)
The Office of Film and Literature Classification is the government agency in New Zealand that is responsible for classification of all films, videos, publications, and some video games in New Zealand...
Arthur Everard
Arthur Everard
Arthur Everard graduated with a BA in psychology from Victoria University of Wellington and worked for 19 years as a writer, editor and director at the National Film Unit...
after he allowed the horror film I Spit on Your Grave
I Spit On Your Grave
Day of the Woman is a 1978 controversial rape revenge film. The film received a limited release, with a wider release in 1980. Prominent film critics condemned the film for its graphic violence and lengthy depictions of gang rape, and the motion picture remains controversial to this day...
to be shown in that country. In this national context, the Society for Promotion of Community Standards had tried to prevent the criminalisation of spousal rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
in 1982, so there were tensions between the Christian Right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
and feminist anti-pornography activists, as well as a strengthened movement for LGBT rights in New Zealand that also benefited from prevalent social liberalism
Social liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
, pointing out that gay pornography
Gay pornography
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....
did not operate according to the same psychological and sociological parameters as its heterosexual equivalent. When it dissolved in 1995, Women Against Pornography had not adopted a strategy that converged with the New Zealand Christian Right, unlike many of its national counterparts abroad. Much of this was due to the weakness of the New Zealand Society for Promotion of Community Standards after co-belligerency against the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986.
The group Scottish Women Against Pornography (SWAP) was started in 1999 and was still active as of 2008. It also has no formal connection with the American group and was started well after its demise.
In 2002, anti-pornography feminist Diana Russell and several cohorts informally used the name "Women Against Pornography" for a demonstration against the opening of the Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
Club, a San Francisco strip club
Strip club
A strip club is an adult entertainment venue in which striptease or other erotic or exotic dance is regularly performed. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, but can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style....
.
External links
- Women Against Pornography Records.Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- "Women's War on Porn", Time, August 27, 1979.
- "Anti-Porn March in Times Square (1979)", WPIXWPIXWPIX, channel 11, is a television station in New York City built, signed on, and owned by the Tribune Company. WPIX also serves as the flagship station of The CW Television Network...
. (Archived on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.) - The Women Against Violence Against Women records, 1972-1985 are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, MA.