This was a debate piece for a philosophy class -- I couldn't resist teasingly yanking the professor's chain a little! She considered me "opinionated but interesting!" ;-)
Question: Whether or not we should outlaw pornography due to
the way it victimizes women.
Answer: No; because outlawing pornography will not stop
victimization of women.
In Susan Brownmiller's article titled "Pornography Hurts Women" she states that pornography affects the cultural view of women in a harmful fashion. Pornography, she believes, invariably presents women as victims and as subordinate to men. She advocates the criminalization of sexually explicit materials in order to eliminate this hurtful societal perception of women.
Brownmiller has a legitimate concern -- the current view of women in our society is flawed, and women are harmed by this. However, criminalization of sexually explicit materials will not stop this, since her basic assumption, on which her thesis is based, is incorrect. She believes that criminalization of pornography would end the culture's exposure to sexist, violent imagery. This is unfortunately not so.
While I agree with Ms. Brownmiller's goal, I find her conclusion a simplistic assessment of the problem. Pornography is not the only purveyor of sexist violence in our society. One has only to watch a small selection of mainstream media to see more such sexist violence, as well as a plethora of other societal ills. Television, advertisements, movies, art, music, pop literature: all support the insidious idea that women are victims and should be subordinate to men. Soap operas perpetuate the impression that women are incomplete somehow without a man, and that the only roles available to a young girl are either nurturers and/or mothers or sexually free "bad girls"; advertisements show objectified portions of women in unnatural, pseudo-artistic poses; movies deliberately mix sex with violence, as if to say women want to be hurt; classical art classically depicts men as powerful and active, but women as passive, useful mostly for nude studies or to be acted upon by men; and some modern music seems to teach a message of hate and violence towards not just women, but everyone.
Let us take a somewhat sardonic look at the problem of how women are viewed in our society. If we really want to stop victimization of women, then I'd suggest we start at the beginning of this unfortunate cultural trend. Religion is frequently the basis for a culture's perceptions of life. There is a patina of respectability concerning subordination of women in this culture, and it is provided by our religious beliefs. Therefore, let us go to the root of the problem: the Bible. Why? What exactly is the Bible? It's a book detailing the day to day lives of a war-like, quarrelsome, self-righteous group of tribes of nomadic herders that worshipped an unforgiving, vengeful, childish god. It has some of the most disgusting and repulsive examples I've ever read concerning treatment of women as not just second class citizens, but property on the level of a cow or donkey. Yet it is still held up today as a paragon of literary, religious, and historical merit. People base their day to day lives and their cultural assumptions on proper gender roles on the Bible. I do not wish to teach that kind of morality to my children.
Brownmiller may believe that one must start somewhere, and pornography is one of the worst offenders. However, I'd have to point out again that such a pervasive assumption (that women are victims, and subordinate to men) will not be excised from the public mind simply by outlawing all sexually explicit materials. Furthermore, in order to censor effectively, one must eliminate all of the undesired materials from the society. Passing a law will not eliminate all pornography -- it will merely force sexual freedom of expression underground, and make it a highly desired "forbidden fruit." This will mean that pornography will increase in demand and popularity -- the opposite of Brownmiller's stated goal. Thus criminalization of pornography cannot improve society's view of women or stop sexist violence. Better by far for us to address concrete examples of sexist violence to actual individuals, and teach both women and the rest of society that such behavior will not and should not be tolerated.
In conclusion, I believe that Brownmiller may have a worthy goal. However, her means is not suitable for her ends. She will inadvertently be promoting exactly what she is trying to stop. Outlawing pornography will not stop victimization of women.