Word: millet
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...flirting with the familiar Man vs. Woman oppositions that deodorant commercials of the '70's depicted as feminist chic. The prevailing themes of conflict are now heard through a polyphony of women's voices--straight, gay, and other--marking the shift in strategy from reactionary to constructive politics. Millet's comment that women should focus their energies on "creating eroticism rather than fighting porn" drew loud applause from a packed audience consisting of scholars, housewives, critics, social workers, professionals, conservatives, students, and lesbians, in addition to radical feminists and men--strange bedfellows...
...question of pornography as cause or symptom becomes, in effect, the dividing line among feminist positions: a question of strategy. While MacKinnon supports direct legal action, critics such as Millet and journalist Marsha Pally, who also spoke at the symposium, favor what they consider to be a more longterm strategy of reforming cultural institutions...
...PROBLEM WITH the anticensorship position is its vague prescription and its complacency. At one point during the heated exchange, a member of the audience spoke up angrily against Millet's lack of "seriousness," recalling the case of a rape victim in Minnesota who later learned that photos taken during the rape had been sold to pornographers. Millet's unfamiliarity with the incident and forms of legal redress available in such instances appeared to disappoint and frustrate many. The legalistic and practical tone of MacKinnon's forceful argument, in contrast, emphasizes the critical failure of current laws to provide any redress...
...differences in the two women's politics and the opposing strategies they outline come down to differences in style, or language. Compared to the "radical" reputation Millet earned in the late '60s with her groundbreaking book, the mellowed-out tone of her largely-improvised talk carried a sense of uninformed complacency, emphasized by an outdated rhetoric of "sex slaves," "deflated ego," and "male chauvinism." Her message of "make love not war" sounded at times like an apologia for the '70s image of aggressive feminism...
...SEXUAL REVOLUTION first formulated the equation between individual freedom and sexual selfexpression, thus raising the Freudian lid on both the porn industry and gay liberation. Millet, a self-proclaimed anarchist and lesbian in her fifities, places first priority on "freedom of expression," less out of respect for constitutional law than because she distrusts all legal institutions. She depicts anti-porn legislation as handing over "the power of judgment" to the "puritannical" realm of "patriarchal" authority--not necessarily male--whose legitimacy she mocks...