Women Against Pornography Conference

By Jan Held

On September 15th and 16th, 700 women from all over the U.S. and as far away as Ireland and England gathered in New York City at a conference on Women Against Pornography to view and talk about the most prevalent anti-woman propaganda, pornography.

"The word 'pornography' in its very origins means writing about women as captives or slaves," explained Gloria Steinem during her opening remarks. The definition is more than adequate, Slides shown depicted a naked woman with legs spread apart and a man hovering over her with a jackhammer aimed at her vagina; a woman's body being fed into a meatgrinder; a woman dismembered as a chicken on a plate covered with tomato sauce or blood; and more, equally repulsive. These examples were not drawn from one imaginative mind. They came from magazines, record albums, and films, all easily accessible to minors and adults. We didn't like what we saw. We liked even less what we heard.

Lynn Shapiro, conference organizer and founder of Women Against Pornography, read one of many letters from women who had had personal experiences with pornography:

Although my family was middle-class, moral, religious regulars in the Midwest, my father had molested me from the time I was 8 years old until I was 18. As a child the only time I saw pornography was with my father; the pictures he showed me told me it was okay for men to do whatever they wanted to do with women. A film on street harassment showed the verbal harassment to which women are subjected. The all too familiar scenarios of whistles, wisecracks, and insults from men as women walked the streets were depicted. One man thought it was great fun to make a woman think he was going to run her over by stopping and starting his car each time she tried to cross the street. The audience discussed experiences raised by the Film. One woman told us that she gained weight to avoid being hassled by men. It has not worked. She is still a target of verbal abuse.

More than 45 workshops were offered during the two-day conference, including such topics as The Meaning of Force in Sex and Pornography, Erotica vs. Pornography, The Black Woman and Pornography, The Media and Pornography, and The First Amendment and Pornography.

Two women from Cleveland went on one of the Smut Tours that the New York Women Against Por-

LETTERS

Many people agree that pornography is, on the whole, degrading to women and would like to see the day when it's an artifact in a museum. How can it be stopped?

Some people (remember Mayor Perk?) feel that making it out-and-out illegal is the way. But those of us who are for positive changes in our society realize that laws barring freedom of speech could also be used to outlaw abortion, gay rights, alternative political views, etc. Besides, laws wouldn't stop the pornography industry, just drive it underground.

As I understand it, Women Against Pornography feels that by exposing porn to women, the increased awareness of this degradation of women will create popular pressure eventually to stop porn. Some of the tactics they use are taking tours through peep shows and bookstores and putting pressure on landlords to throw out these undesirable tenants.

I think it's good to increase women's awareness in any way possible, but can focusing consciousnessraising in this direction actually stop porn and, even

Page 2/What She Wants/October, 1979.

nography have conducted for the past three months. One of the features of this tour is Show World, an emporium that has masturbation facilities for men: booths in which to watch peep shows, to talk dirty on the telephone to a naked woman who can be seen through a glass partition, and to observe a carousel stage on which naked women dance, gyrate, and touch themselves. One of the women from Cleveland told us her experience with this last booth:

The metal panel opened like a window. Women aged 16-20 were standing around in the center of the carousel. I could see the other windows filled with men. One woman mentioned to another "It's a pussy," and they walked toward my window, I was scared. I put my hand behind me to hold the door latch. I wanted to run out but I wanted, too, to talk. Why should I be scared? They're women like me, but

I've invaded their territory, My mind was racing, "Is your tit like mine?,” she asked.

"I guess," I said.

"Are you a lesbian?” She assumed I was. “That doesn't make any difference. I hope you're paid well for what you do here." "We are, very well."

"That's good, you should be."* "What are you doing here?"

"I think what you do here has something to do. with rape, battery, and child abuse, and that bothers me.”

Time was up. There was a click and the metal panel started going down. We stared into each other's eyes. "Do you really think so?," she asked. Both our heads were turned sideways; I could barely see her full face. "Yes," I said. I walked out emotionally drained; we need to talk to our sisters!

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT: Measuring Up

In a continuing effort to end violence against women and to stop our being regarded as sex objects, members of the Take Back the Night Committee and Cleveland State University Women's Alliance recently picketed the sneak preview movie 10 at the Randal!

SNEAK PREVIEW

TONIGHT at 7:45 p.m.

OMLSI Come to the Randall Park Cinema Tonight at 7:15 PM and WGAR's Joe Meyer will rate YOU an a scale of 1 to 10 FREE T-SHIRTS to the first 50 entrants!

"10"

Park Mall. The movie deals with a recently divorced man who rates women physically on a scale from one to ten.

The main reason we picketed this particular movie

further, stop rape and change the root cause of rape—a sexist society?

We know that violence against women is caused by basic attitudes in our society that women are inferior 10 men-fit only to serve as mothers and sexual playmates and must be kept in our places. Porn is an expression of these attitudes. But the biggest, most shocking degradation is our economic inequality-the attitude that our labor, our brains, etc., are not worth nearly those of men. For the majority of us who must work, this is an unbearable humiliation, compounded by harassment by our bosses, beatings by our husbands, and rape as we walk to the bus stop. The same attitudes that create a market for porn are also keeping us in our places on the job, in the welfare lines, and at home.

As women we must battle these inequalities-in our unions, in women's groups, and among our friends. This is a massive undertaking which demands political action, organization, and consciousness-raising, particularly among working and poor women, those who suffer most from this oppression. We must unite and build a women's movement that is based on this group of women and that meets their needs.

I believe that the Take Back the Night movement

was because of the sexist promotion staged by WGAR. Joe Meyer, the disc jockey on hand, was ready to rate women's bodies and give away a T-shirt with the number "10" on it to any woman willing to have her body measured (36-24-36) by standing in a life-size female silhouette cutout.

When Meyer was confronted concerning the promotion, he said, "I knew something like this would happen!" He had told his employers that "some women are not going to like this," but felt that a new DJ job would be hard to come by. At this point, one of our members stated, "Oh? Fuck your morals for your job?" Meyer was visibly embarrassed, and ended up by giving away the T-shirts and leaving the cinema (within sixteen minutes of starting the promotion).

Before the movie began, we handed out leaflets to the women attending the movie informing them of the sexist tactics used by the movie promoters, and how something like this can be carried out to the logical extreme of pornography. A lot of women in the Mall were curious about what we were trying to say, and after reading our material seem to have understood the seriousness of the whole gimmick. As a result of our efforts, only one woman (a theatre employee) stood in that contraption to get a T-shirt!

-Pat McNeil -Jan Held

Take Back the Night Committee

has been an important step toward starting to build that movement. More working women will become involved if they see that the movement is taking direct action to deter rape and violence through working toward better street lighting, self defense, shelters for battered women, convicting rapists, and fighting racism and sexism in the courts. In that process of fighting and winning small victories, we can raise the consciousness of large numbers of women and expand to other issues that are at the root of sexism. This will be especially true as different movements, such as ERA and pro-choice, begin to unite.

I feel that if the Take Back the Night movement turns away from the more immediate demands of the movement and spends organizing energy on exposing porn to women, they will lose much of the momentum and support they are beginning to get from working and poor women. I'm not saying Women Against Pornography is wrong. I just feel very strongly that making this issue a priority for building a women's movement for equality is the wrong road to take at this time.

-Sandy Pope Cleveland, Ohio