Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

Gagné, Anne

Private Spear to World Stage from Austen to Eliot

Pikula, Tanya

Paris Times Eight: Finding Myself in the City of Dreams

Davydova, Darja

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME198
it in the academy. Its relevancy for 
women who have not made it, not 
made it yet, or will never make it, is 
perhaps more ambiguous. 
Ela Przybylo is a Ph.D. student of the 
Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies 
Program at York University, Toronto. 
While her primary research project is 
on the sexual identity of asexuality, 
she has broader interests in feminist 
approaches to sexuality, the body, and 
science. Her work has been published 
and is forthcoming in journals such 
as Sexualities and Feminism and 
Psychology, as well as in a couple of 
book collections on asexuality. Ela is a 
lover of mountains, trees, shrubs, and 
wildflowers.
Due to its anti-sexual attitudes and 
affiliation with radical right-wing 
politics the contemporary anti-por-
nography feminism gained a negative 
reputation of a moral crusader among 
academics and sex workers. However, 
as Carolyn Bronstein demonstrates in 
her chronological account of Ameri-
can activism against violence against 
women, second-wave feminism has 
not always conceptualized pornog-
raphy as inherently evil and harmful 
for women. It also has not always 
promoted its complete abolition. 
In fact, what we know today as the 
anti-pornography activism started 
up with a quite different grassroots 
agenda.
BATTLING 
PORNOGRAPHY: THE 
AMERICAN FEMINIST 
ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY 
MOVEMENT, 1976-1986
Carolyn Bronstein
Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 2011
reviewed by darja 
davydova
Battling Pornography is an engag-
ing and nuanced historical book 
addressing the rise and decline of the 
nation-wide American anti-violence 
and anti-pornography movements in 
’70s and ’80s. The book puts feminist 
grassroots activism against pornogra-
phy in the socio-cultural context of 
sexual revolution and proliferation of 
public advertising. It demonstrates 
how the movement arose from 
women’s concerns and dissatisfaction 
with these social changes. While the 
sexual revolution was liberating for 
men, many women found themselves 
being unable to refuse unwanted sex 
and resisted the culture that glori-
fied sexual accessibility of women. 
The emergence of radical feminism 
provided a theoretical grounding 
for these concerns as it maintained 
that there was an innately positive 
female way of life that has potential 
to challenge sexually oppressive pa-
triarchal culture.
Using original archival research, 
Bronstein documents the initiation 
and evolution of three key feminist 
anti-violence movements—the 
Women Against Violence Against 
Women (wavaw), the Women 
Against Violence in Media and Por-
nography (wavmp),  and the Wom-
en Against Pornography (wap). The 
wavaw organized against depiction 
of rape and violence in films, adver-
tisement, and on record covers. Even 
though it opposed pornographic 
horror movies, this movement 
avoided identifying pornography 
as a primary target of anti-violence 
activism. By contrast, wavmp 
saw a causal relationship between 
pornography and female abuse. It 
protested against the porn industry 
and media, seeing advertising that 
used female bodies as inevitably 
pornographic. In the early ’80s, 
the wap, which united specifically 
against pornography, came to dom-
inate the nation-wide anti-violence 
movement due to its strong alliance 
with the state, elite feminism, and 
right-wing, and religious groups. It 
campaigned for legal restrictions of 
pornography and quickly progressed 
towards opposing the depiction of 
any sexual activity in the media. 
Bronstein’s analysis effectively 
demonstrates that for a wide range of 
feminist movements across the coun-
try pornography became a unifying 
issue providing strategy to confront 
patriarchy and sexism permeating 
the image-saturated Western culture. 
However, the focus on pornography 
also turned many feminists away from 
the anti-violence activism, as they 
found it dangerous to invite the state 
to regulate sexual speech and become 
a primary protector of women. In 
conclusion, the book chronicles the 
failure of the movement’s attempts 
to install censorship, sex workers’ 
criticism and campaigns against 
wap, and the technological change 
that made pornography accessible 
to everyone. These challenges led to 
the marginalization and decline of 
pro-censorship feminism.
Bronstein’s description of the tur-
bulent history of anti-pornography 
activism shows how conceptualizing 
pornography as violence against 
women easily leads to campaigning 
for censorship and marginalizing 
non-normative sex. At the same 
time, her analysis challenges our 
understanding of the anti-pornogra-
phy movement as elitist, static, and 
unified. Bronstein does not provide 
an easy answer to the question of 
how to address violence in the media 
and pornography without giving up 
sexual freedoms. However, this book 
contributes not only to the history 
of sexual regulation in the United 
States, but also to the history of social 
movements, as it demonstrates that 
they always consist of differently 
organized groups, subcultures, and 
individuals who share a common 
recognition of a social problem, but 
differ regarding desirable solutions.
Darja Davydova is a Ph.D. student 
in Women’s Studies at York University. 
She has previously conducted ethno-
graphic research on homophobia and 
nationalist activism in Lithuania. 
Her current interests include sexual 
politics, sex work, social movements, 
and nationalism
 


Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976-1986

Wilkinson, Shelagh

Quite a Journey: A History of the Bridging Programme

Martonfi, Ilona

The Stepfather’s Photos

Agyepong, Rosina

Spirituality and Empowerment of Black Women in the Academy

Ricciutelli, Luciana

Shelagh with family and friends

de Bosset, Farideh

Incest

Eginton, Kay

VOLUME 29, NUMBER 3 95
Stewart, D. E., A.M. Cheung, L. E. 
Ferris, I. Hyman, M.M. Cohen, 
and J. I Williams. Ontario Women’s 
Health Status Report. Toronto: 
Ontario Women’s Health Council, 
2002. Print. 
Strategic Plan: Above All, We Care. 
Toronto: Toronto East General 
Hospital, Confidential Report, 
2006. Print. 
Sunnybrook and Women’s College 
Health Sciences Centre Act. Bill 
51, 2nd Session, 36th Legislature, 
Royal Assent 26 June 1998. 
Ontario. 
Thomas, J.E., and M.K. Zimmerman. 
“Feminism and Profit in American 
Hospitals: The Corporate Con-
struction of Women’s Health 
Centers.” Gender and Society 21.3 
(2007): 359–383. Print.
University of Toronto, Faculty of 
Medicine. Med.E.Mail 4.10 (6 
Nov. 1995). Web. 28 Sept. 2007. 
Woodward, C., H. Shannon, C. 
Cunningham, J. McIntosh, B. 
Lendrum, D. Rosenbloom and J. 
Brown. “The Impact of Re-Engi-
neering and Other Cost Reduction 
Strategies on the Staff of a Large 
Teaching Hospital: A Longitudinal 
Study.” Medical Care, 37.6 (1999): 
556–569. Print.
Zboril-Benson, L. “Why Nurses 
Are Calling in Sick: The Impact 
of Health-Care Restructuring.” 
Canadian Journal of Nursing 
Research 33.4 (2002): 89-107. 
Print.
KAY R. EGINTON
Icy Wind
No sound floats on an icy wind.
 Incapable of sound
We walked the distance from school
 through the snow
One lone light visible
 in the kitchen, through the trees
My mother peeling potatoes at the sink
 for the evening meal.
She cried sometimes, as we carved a way
 through the snow.
We were cold and alone
 my brother and I
My mother always alone, though always a neighbor
 someone nearby with a sly smile.
It was winter in many ways
That shy mother alone in the afternoon
As we walked home.
Kay R. Eginton has published four times with Canadian Woman Studies 
(2003, 2007, 2010, and 2011). She also has published with Lyrical Iowa 
and self-published one volume, Poems (Penfield Press, 1981). Kay lives in 
Iowa City, Iowa.
“And Neither Have I Wings to Fly”: 
Labelled and Locked Up in Canada’s Oldest Institution
by Thelma Wheatley
Powerful exposé of a part of Canadian history kept secret — 
this book exposes the role of psychiatrists and leading eugenicists 
in Canada in the abuse of intellectual and physically handicapped 
children’s civil rights in Canada.
www.inanna.ca
inanna.publications@inanna.ca.
Smart books for people who want to read and think about real women’s lives. 
fall 2012                                           inanna publications


Icy Wind

Zwissler, Laurel

Second Nature: Contemporary Pagan Ritual Borrowing in Progressive Christian Communities

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