immediately in court by the pornographers or those who front for them. This means a protracted legal struggle, again without
the legal or economic resources that the pornographers take
for granted. Every cent they use to try to defeat the Ordinance
from being passed or in court they made off of women’s exploited bodies. This makes it especially painful to be poor.
The Ordinance wil never be law unless you decide to make
it law. If you won’t, don’t assume that someone else wil . If you
believe that women have a right to equality and dignity, you
wil probably find the Ordinance a pret y good idea. Then
you have to start working for it. This is not a movement that
has top-down leadership; it is a grass-roots movement, a decentralized movement, a movement that depends on everyone’s courage and commitment. It is a movement that wil succeed or fail depending on you, on what you do or do not
do. The Ordinance represents integrity for the women’s
movement and it is the only source of hope for women hurt
by pornography. The Ordinance is a new way of approaching
civil and sexual equality. It is rooted in a recognition of the
ways in which women are really hurt; it challenges real power.
The Ordinance is the real thing, a legal tool with which feminists can redistribute power and radically alter social policy.
Feminists have been fighting pornography for eighteen
years. Pickets, demonstrations, slide shows, debates, leaflets,
civil disobedience, al must continue. In fact, political dissent
from the world created by the pornographers and their friends
must intensify and escalate. In these eighteen years, feminists
have confronted pornography in cities and towns and villages
and in theaters and grocery stores and adult bookstores everywhere in this country. Passing the Ordinance
women to cool out and calm down and grow up and talk nice
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Pornography and Civil Rights
to your Congresspeople. On the contrary: we are saying, make
demands. Make them loud. Make them strong. Make them persistently. Make the Ordinance one of your demands.
Q: Can we win?
A: The Ordinance was passed twice in Minneapolis by two
different city councils (an election occurred between the two
votes). Both times, the mayor vetoed it. The Ordinance was
passed in Indianapolis and signed into law by the mayor. The
city was sued for passing the law within one hour after it was
signed by the mayor. The Ordinance was on the bal ot for
popular vote in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where 42 percent
of the voters voted for it. We did not win, but we got a higher
percentage of the votes than feminists did on the first referendum ever held on women’s suf rage.
The Ordinance has already transformed the way people
think about pornography. It is no longer a question of “dirty”
books; it is now a question of women’s rights. For the first time,
the women in the pornography are counted among the
women who must have rights.
This is a long struggle for equality and dignity against a
