Pornography
Tracy Sorensen's centre spread on pornography (GLW #23) disturbed me. I have been following the pornography debate fuelled by the film Silence of the Lambs and the novel American Psycho, and feel uneasy over the uniformity of debate coming from socialist feminists.
Ms Sorensen's story, along with a recent review in the British magazine, Living Marxism, which bagged those who are considering some form of state control as the "burn 'em and ban 'em brigade", insists we cannot trust the state to put the brakes on pornography. Nor can we have any control because the right wing can use it against us. Nor can we advocate censorship because freedom of speech, however horrible it may be, is precious.
Instead, they argue, we must change society. Making the world a fairer place to live where women are no longer regarded as objects is, they say, easier than imposing censorship.
Well, I'm not keen on waiting around for the revolution to fix things up for women. I want to do something now.
After all the debates, left feminists are not doing anything concrete to stop the exploitative portrayal of women by publishers, the media and the multi-billion dollar pornography industry.
In essence, they are committed to a belief that the harm done to a society as a whole through the restriction of some forms of speech must be prioritised over the harm done to women by pornography.
Doing nothing, I believe, is indefensible.
There are real dangers involved in censorship just as there are dangers in giving the pornography industry carte blanche. But while feminists who wish to impose some kind of control over pornography need be wary of aligning themselves with the conservative push of people like Fred Nile, so too do feminists committed to freedom of expression need to make sure their commitment is based on a developed understanding of the concept rather than automatic adherence to it.
Left feminists have not explored the possibility of a more limited form of government intervention. Jocelyn Scutt's push for intervention similar to that advocated by US anti-pornography campaigners, Dworkin and Mckinnon, which defines pornography as actionable as a form of sex discrimination, has not been seriously debated.
I'm a left feminist and I am not crazy about the state handling women's affairs. But just as I am not opposed to other tricky bits of legislation being put in place to protect discriminated groups, like the racial vilification act in NSW, I am willing, at very least, to explore the possibility of women having a place to lodge their objections about pornography.
Some women don't like novels where women are nailed to floorboards by psychopaths. They should have a place to say so.
A push for real control over the way women are portrayed has not yet begun. And while it is true that until the violation and exploitation of women as a class is addressed, the most any rational policy can hope to achieve is an improvement on the margin.
I want to improve the margin.
Angela Matheson
Sydney
'Green realism?'
Teresa Dowding's letter (GLW #24), attacking the Chris Kelly cartoon about NBH and the environment, makes a number of valid points about how the green movement has missed an opportunity in not relating to concern about the loss of jobs when NBH pulls out of north-west Tasmania. But what in the world does that have to do with Kelly's very witty cartoon?
The implication of her letter is that Kelly should have produced, instead, an illustration of what greens should have done. Perhaps socialist realist ("green realist"?) sketches of heroic greens and workers marching arm in arm against the NBH foe?
And where did Teresa get the idea that the cartoon was a "portrayal of workers"? The cartoon portrayed drongos — namely people who believe that NBH is capable of, and interested in, looking after the welfare of the environment and the people who live near its operations. The cartoon did not imply that there are a higher percentage of such people among workers than among any other class.
Cartoons exaggerate and distort things. That's what makes them funny. Trying to analyse them as one would a political program is a waste of time and rather misses the point of why Â鶹´«Ã½ has cartoons as well as political articles.
There are many things that can get in the way of the left and greens reaching out to a broader audience. One of them would be giving the impression that we don't have a sense of humour.
Richard Ingram
Sydney
Alternative therapies
It is unlikely that the debate between Rob McKinnon-Lower and myself on the scientific status of alternative medical therapies can be resolved in the letters page of GLW but some brief points on a desirable approach to the issue can usefully be made.
The appeal to antiquity (acupuncture has been around "long before Christ or Buddha" — Rob in GLW #24) doesn't advance the debate. Medicine men, superstition generally, and the placebo effect have similar antiquity.
An appeal to various authorities and "men and women of calibre" — on its own — is also unhelpful. It merely invites a roll-call of counter authorities.
I am also a little flummoxed by "true independent sciences" such as homeopathy whose "practitioners are mostly unaware of the scientific tenets". It is somewhat worrying that many of the believers in homeophathy are also believers in the healing power of crystals and pyramids, the magical power of Tarot cards, and so on. This is not to attempt the guilt of alternative therapies by association with loony pseudo-science but the underlying "will to believe" and rejection of scientific method needs to be considered in any assessment.
Finally, it will not do to lose patience with doubters by equating the sceptical mind with the closed mind (as Rob unfortunately does). This is unwarranted and tactically inadvisable because such an intemperate dismissal of probably the sceptical bulk of the population doesn't help policy formulation, and the health policy of any Green political party/movement (which will be about more than just hospital funding) is going to be important. People's lives and health will depend on getting it as nearly right as we can.
Phil Shannon
Narrabundah ACT