Pornography Pornography is a Civil Rights Issue for Women by Andrea Dworkin (1988)
Pornography Pornography is a Civil Rights Issue for Women by Andrea Dworkin (1988)
Jul 28 2025, 9:03 AM
Quote:When your rape is entertainment, your worthlessness is absolute. You have reached the nadir of social worthlessness. The civil impact of pornography on women is staggering. It keeps us socially silent, it keeps us socially compliant, it keeps us afraid in neighborhoods; and it creates a vast hopelessness for women, a vast despair. One lives inside a nightmare of sexual abuse that is both actual and potential, and you have the great joy of knowing that your nightmare is someone else's freedom and someone else's fun.
Quote:The reality for women in this society is that pornography creates silence for women. The pornographers silence women. Our bodies are their language. Their speech is made out of our exploitation, our subservience, our injury and our pain, and they can't say anything without hurting us, and when you protect them, you protect only their right to exploit and hurt us.
Pornography is a civil rights issue for women because pornography sexualizes inequality, because it turns women into subhuman creatures.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/mjlr/article/1825/&path_info=
Quote:When your rape is entertainment, your worthlessness is absolute. You have reached the nadir of social worthlessness. The civil impact of pornography on women is staggering. It keeps us socially silent, it keeps us socially compliant, it keeps us afraid in neighborhoods; and it creates a vast hopelessness for women, a vast despair. One lives inside a nightmare of sexual abuse that is both actual and potential, and you have the great joy of knowing that your nightmare is someone else's freedom and someone else's fun.
Quote:The reality for women in this society is that pornography creates silence for women. The pornographers silence women. Our bodies are their language. Their speech is made out of our exploitation, our subservience, our injury and our pain, and they can't say anything without hurting us, and when you protect them, you protect only their right to exploit and hurt us.
Pornography is a civil rights issue for women because pornography sexualizes inequality, because it turns women into subhuman creatures.