Discover Radical Feminism:
rad-butch-woman:
transgender-harms-women:
Discover Radical Feminism
Radical Feminism:
Authors, Theorists, Ideologues:
Sheila Jeffreys
Janice Raymond
Gail Dines
Catharine MacKinnon
Andrea Dworkin
Andrea Dworkin has a lot of gender critical and anti-porn books.
Bell Hooks is also a black woman who has written a lot of books, and
her book Ain’t I A Woman deals specifically with the intersections of
misogyny and racism. This page (http://radfemresource.tumblr.com/resources) also has numerous sources.
Hope this helps!
On systematic male against female violence:
Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing (Anthology) , http://www.dianarussell.com/f/femicde%28small%29.pdf
THE ORIGIN AND IMPORTANCE OF THE TERM FEMICIDE
December 2011, written by Diana E.H Russell, Ph.D
Femicide – The Power of a Name
The Rise of Femicide: Can Naming a Deadly Crime Help Prevent It?, by Aaron Schulman. The New Republic. December 29, 2010
On the issues that pornography presents feminists and ways we can challenge them:
Making Violence Sexy (Anthology), http://www.dianarussell.com/f/makingviolencesexy%28smaller%29.pdf
On the psychological and behavioral consequences of pornography consumption:
Ph.D Diana E. H. Russell, “Pornography & Rape: A Causal Model”. Vol. 9, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), Published by: International Society of Political Psychology.
Exposure to Pornography As a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization
Stolen Innocence: The Damaging Effects of Child Pornography- On and Off the Internet
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/VAW02/mod2-6b.htm
The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships (2007/2008), http://www.antipornography.org/Price_of_Pleasure_doc.html (Warning: censored nudity but some of the content remains graphic and disturbing. Potentially triggering).
Pornography FAQ (http://catwa.org.au/?q=node/67 ):
How is pornography related to prostitution?
Pornography and prostitution are often thought of as completely
separate entities. In many parts of the world, this is even reflected in
law where pornography and prostitution hold very different positions;
pornography is often privileged as a form of ‘representation’.
Pornography, however, is filmed prostitution. Both pornography and
prostitution involve the sexual use of women in exchange for money.
Often, the only difference between the two is the presence of a camera.
Pornography can also be seen to increase the legitimacy of prostitution,
by depicting the commercial sexual exploitation of women as
entertaining, glamorous and acceptable. In addition, pornography is
frequently used by pimps to ‘season’ or train women for prostitution and
in a rather cyclical relationship, women used in prostitution are often
also used in pornography.
Shouldn’t pornography be protected as free speech?
It is important to note that pornography is not speech but rather filmed acts of prostitution. Pornography is not merely the representation of
sex acts, but involves the filming of real sex acts, performed by real
people. Arguing that pornography is speech, ignores the realities of how
pornography is actually produced and also ignores the harm to women
that pornography both generates and reinforces.
Read: Only Words, by Catharine MacKinnon
Isn’t porn just harmless sex?
There is no such thing as harmless pornography. Many people believe
pornography to simply be sex between ‘consenting adults’ rather than
understanding pornography as a multi-billion dollar industry.
Pornography is not ‘just sex’, it is a particular construction of sex
which involves the commercial sexual exploitation of women for the
purpose of men’s sexual pleasure. Pornography harms both the women who
are directly abused in the making of it, and also women as a group more
generally. It promotes a model of sexuality which is incompatible with
women’s equality.“[P]ornography plays an important part in
contributing to sexual violence against women and to sex discrimination
and sex inequality” - Catherine Itzin Pornography: Women violence and civil liberties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 (p. 1).
Isn’t pornography a good sexual outlet for men?
The idea that pornography creates a useful sexual release for men,
assumes that men have uncontrollable sexual ‘urges’ which require an
outlet. It also assumes that pornography use is acceptable and healthy.
Neither is the case. Pornography use is harmful to the women used in
creating it, and pornography creates and reinforces harmful ideas about
women, sex and sexuality; for example, that women enjoy or welcome
unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault. Rather than reducing the
likelihood that men will act out, it creates a culture in which women
are increasingly objectified and viewed as commodities. Such a culture
helps to fuel, rather than prevent, acts of sexual violence.
Doesn’t opposing pornography make you a prude?
Many people assume that the only reason to oppose pornography is
because you find it personally ‘offensive’ or are ‘anti-sex’. Opposing
pornography means that you oppose abusive sexual practices that harm
women, not that you must oppose all sex. Nor does opposing pornography
have to be about arguing that its content personally offends you. From a
feminist perspective, it is not necessarily explicitness or the
depiction of sex which is the problem with pornography. It is not about
offence and decency, but about harm. “What is objectionable about
pornography…is its abusive and degrading portrayal of females and female
sexuality, not its sexual content or explicitness” – Diana Russell Dangerous relationships: Pornography, misogyny, and rape. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998 (p. 5).
What is pornification?
Pornification, sometimes referred to as pornographication or ‘raunch
culture’ is the increasing distribution and acceptance of pornography as
well as the fragmenting and blurring of pornography and pornographic
imagery into popular culture. Pornography and pornographic imagery are
infiltrating popular music videos, outdoor advertising, fashion and art
to name but a few. While pornographication is sometimes viewed as simply
the increasing acceptance of sexual themes in media, it is actually the
promotion of a particular model of sex which is harmful to women. The
mainstreaming of this type of pornographic sexuality which fundamentally
objectifies women, is already harming the development of young women
and girls. The American Psychological Association, for example, has
linked the rise of this unhealthy model of sexuality to increases in
mental health problems such as eating disorders, low self-esteem, and
depression. See: Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of
Girls (2007). Available from:http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.
Legalisation of Prostitution
Brothels without Walls: The Escort Sector as a Problem for the Legalization of Prostitution, bySheila Jeffreys 2010
What Happens When Prostitution Becomes Work? An Update on Legalisation of Prostitution in Australia. A paper by Mary Sullivan, 2005 (CATWA)
Submission to New Zealand Parliament, CATWA 2003
Prostitution Culture: Legalised Brothel Prostitution in Victoria, Australia Sheila
Jeffreys 2002. Talk given at Swedish Ministry of Gender Equality
Seminar on the Effect of Legalisation of Prostitution. Stockholm, 6
November 2002.
The Legalisation of Prostitution: A failed social experiment, by Sheila Jeffreys
Legalising Prostitution is not the Answer: The example of Victoria, Australia by Mary Sullivan and Sheila Jeffreys
Trafficking
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (2000) (Known as the Palermo Protocol)
A Guide to the UN Trafficking Protocol (2001)
Sex Trafficking and Human Rights
Marriage Trafficking
Pornography and Pornification
The global industry of pornography is growing rapidly. The business
of pornography is now worth in excess of $57 billion worldwide. More
than $10 billion is generated in the United States alone. Pornography is
an industry which, like prostitution, makes its ever increasing profits
from the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Women in both the
pornography and prostitution industries suffer abuse and violence.
Despite this grim reality, tolerance for pornography is increasing in
Australia and many other Western nations. Through the ‘mainstreaming of
pornography’ or ‘pornification,’ pornographic imagery and even
pornography itself are gaining legitimacy and a degree of glamour and
cultural chic. Porn stars are becoming household names, advertising
mimics pornographic conventions and poses, and Playboy is not
just a magazine but a global brand that markets everything from clothing
to stationery. The mainstreaming of pornography is also changing our
conceptions of sexuality. Women are increasingly becoming required to
perform sex acts straight from pornography in their everyday
heterosexual relationships, and the pornographic model of sexuality is
harming girls’ and women’s concepts of self. As pornography continues to
become more prominent and pornographic imagery becomes more
‘mainstreamed’ we become accustomed to living in a pornified world in
which it is acceptable that women and girls can be bought and sold.
Boyle, Karen (ed). (2010). Everyday Pornography. Oxford: Routledge.
Dines, Gail. (2010). Pornland: How Porn has Highjacked our Sexuality. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Dines, Gail & Jensen, Robert & Russo, Ann. (1998). Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. New York: Routledge.
Dworkin, Andrea. (1979) Men Possessing Women. New York: Pedigree Books.
Long, Julia. (2012). Anti-Porn: The resurgence of Anti-Pornography Feminism. Zed Books.
Tankard Reist, Melinda & Bray, Abigail (eds) (2011). Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Tyler, Meagan (2011). Selling Sex Short: The Pornographic and Sexological Construction of Women’s Sexuality in the West. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Strip Clubs
Read CATWA’s indepth report on strip clubs in Victoria (2010).
The sex industry and business practice: An obstacle to women’s equality, by Sheila Jeffreys 2010
Jul 2014: Business women suffer discrimination because of the male executive culture of strip club visits.
Jul 2014: Executive director of UN Women Australia calls for zero tolerance of strip club visits
Dec 2010: ABC radio interview with Sheila Jeffreys on ’Why strip clubs are harmful to women and the community’. Includes transcript
Dec 2010: Corporate functions and Christmas parties at strip clubs
On the feminist activist struggles against woman-battering, rape, misogyny (Right Wing and Left
Wing), gendered oppression, hatred of lesbians, prostitution,
pornography, societal stockholm syndrome, female-only spaces and more.:
Letters from a War Zone, by Andrea Dworkin
Our Blood, by Andrea Dworkin
Right-Wing Women, by Andrea Dworkin
Pornography: Andrea Dworkin (1991) - Documentary
Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by Andrea Dworkin
http://radfem.org/dworkin/
Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller
Femininity, by Susan Brownmiller
Rape In Marriage, Diana Russell
Women-Only Spaces: An Alternative To Patriarchy, by Jennie Ruby
Exploring the Value of Women-Only Space, by Kya Ogyn
Women, Health and the Politics of Fat, Amy Winter, in Rain And Thunder, Autumn Equinox 2003, No. 20
Free Space: A Perspective on the Small Group in Women’s Liberation
by Pamela Allen
1970 Download PDF
Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives
by Dee Graham, Roberta Rigsby, Edna Rawlings
1995 Download PDF
Nothing Mat(t)ers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism
by Somer Brodribb
1992 Download PDF
A deafening silence: Hidden violence against women and children
by Patrizia Romito (translation by Janet Eastwood)
2008 Download PDF
Are Prisons Obsolete?
by Angela Y. Davis
2003 Download PDF
Refusing to be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice
by John Stoltenberg
2000 2nd Ed. Download PDF
I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde
ed by Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall
2011 Download PDF
Beyond the Frame: Women of Color and Visual Representation
ed by Neferti X. M. Tadiar, Angela Davis
2005 Download PDF
Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West
by Sheila Jeffreys
2005 Download PDF
The Spinster and Her Enemies
by Sheila Jeffreys
1997 Download PDF
The Lesbian Heresy
by Sheila Jeffreys
1993 Download PDF
The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade
by Sheila Jeffreys
2008 Download PDF
The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism
Edited by Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond. 1990 Download Full PDF (5MB)
Liberalism and the Death of Feminism, Catharine A. MacKinnon (PDF)
Sexology and Antifeminism, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)
Woman-Hating Right and Left, Andrea Dworkin (PDF)
Taking Our Eyes Off the Guys, Sonia Johnson (PDF)
Family Matters, Ann Jones (PDF)
Confronting the Liberal Lies About Prostitution, Evelina Giobbe (PDF)
The New Reproductive Technologies, Gena Corea (PDF)
Mothers on Trial: Custody and the “Baby M” Case, Phyllis Chesler (PDF)
Sexual and Reproductive Liberalism, Janice G. Raymond (PDF)
In the Best Interest of the Sperm: The Pregnancy of Judge Sorkow, Pauline B. Bart (PDF)
Abortion and Pornography: The Sexual Liberals’ “Gotcha” Against Women’s Equality, Twiss Butler (PDF)
When Women Defend Pornography, Dorchen Leidholdt (PDF)
Eroticizing Women’s Subordination, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)
Resistance, Andrea Dworkin (PDF)
Sex Resistance in Heterosexual Arrangements, A Southern Women’s Writing Collective (PDF)
Toward a Feminist Praxis of Sexuality, Wendy Stock (PDF)
Sexual Liberalism and Survivors of Sexual Abuse, Valerie Heller (PDF)
The Many Faces of Backlash, Florence Rush (PDF)
Liberals, Libertarianism, and the Liberal Arts Establishment, Susanne Kappeler (PDF)
You Can’t Fight Homophobia and Protect the Pornographers at the Same Time—An Analysis of What Went Wrong in Hardwick, John Stoltenberg (PDF)
A View from Another Country, Susan G. Cole (PDF)
Women and Civil Liberties, Kathleen A. Lahey (PDF)
Be-Witching: Re-Calling the Archimagical Powers of Women, Mary Daly (PDF)
Not a Sentimental Journey: Women’s Friendships, Janice G. Raymond (PDF)
Femicide
Fetishize female vulnerability
Handmaidens of the patriarchy
Harm reduction/refusal to name the agent
Joke’s on women
Male bonding over misogyny
Male entitlement
Mansplaining/women’s perspective is wrong
Necrophilia
Normalize abuse/neglect
Normalize porn/prostitution
PIV-centric narrative
— Goal is to “land a man”
— Normalize exaggerated/simulated female pleasure
— Normalize reproductive stress and pain
— Pathologize menstruation
— Pathologize older women and menopause/fetishize female youth
— Rape and rape culture
Pornify girl children/infantilize adult women
Primacy of the nuclear family
Reversal
Support patriarchal institutions (medicine/religion/law)
Woman as “useful object”
Crimes Against Women: The Proceedings of the International Tribunal
On the feminist analysis of beauty standards and oppressive femininity: Beauty & Misogyny, by Sheila Jeffreys
On the feminist analysis of queer theory:
Gender Hurts, by Sheila Jeffreys
Unpacking Queer Politics Download PDF,
LibFem vs. RadFem views on Gender
On the feminist analysis of the sex industrial complex:
The Industrial Vagina Download PDF,
Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry. (Anthology),
Accounting for Pornography, Prostitution, and Patriarchy. by
Pala Molisa, PhD student,
Women, Lesbians, and Prostitution: A Workingclass Dyke Speaks Out Against Buying Women for Sex, by Toby Summer, in Lesbian Culture: An Anthology, Julia Penelope and Susan Wolfe, eds
Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant, eds.
Sex critical & Kink critical text:
Against Sadomasochism (Anthology)
Ten Lies About Sadomasochism, by Melissa Farley
Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties, by Irene Reti, ed.
How Orgasm Politics Has Hijacked the Women’s Movement, by Sheila Jeffreys
Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin
Theological feminist criticism:
Beyond God The Father, by Mary Daly (1974)
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Mary Daly
The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas
Woman, Church and State, Matilda Joslyn Gage
The Women’s Bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Pure Lust, Mary Daly
On the feminist criticism of sexual liberalism:
“The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism” Anthology, (1987, edited 1990), http://radfem.org/the-sexual-liberals/
Incest:
The Great Incest War: Introduction to The Secret Trauma
Making an Issue of Incest, Louise Armstrong (PDF)
Activism:
Lone Radical Feminist Actions
Best Strategies to Advance the Global Struggle Against Femicide
Feminists Threaten Larry Flynt: My Personal Contribution
Bin the Bunny. This is an anti-pornography campaign from London. It began in response the opening of a Playboy shop in 2007.
Object. A UK group committed to challenging the objectification of women.
No Porn Northampton. This site, based in USA, contains information about campaigns and many papers and resources relating to pornography.
Routes Out. This is a Glasgow based organisation founded to help women exit prostitution.
Turn Off the Red Light An
Irish organisation working for an end to prostitution and sex
trafficking in Ireland. It advocates the adoption of the Nordic Model.
Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution
A UK coalition who believe that prostitution is male violence against
women and are working to achieve Swedish style legislation. The site
contains many useful links and resources.
Abolicion de la Prostitucion. This web site, in Spanish, was set up by a group of 77 women’s organisations to fight prostitution in that country.
Centre for Women’s Human Rights. This Korean feminist organistion was established in 2005.
The Polaris Project. Anti Trafficking organisation with a focus in Japan and USA
Websites with other resources (video clips, documentaries, quotes, articles, essays, interviews, graphics, etc):
http://www.antipornography.org
http://www.stoppatriarchy.org/
https://radicalhubarchives.wordpress.com/radfem-101/
http://www.feminist-reprise.org/fembib.html
Ever wanted to read a feminist text that you’ve heard about online but not known where to find a copy? I know I have!
I obviously don’t agree with everything here or endorse the positions of every woman here, but this is a great masterpost imo because of how many links to free PDFs it has!
Read and form your own opinions!
Access to women’s education for all women!