Why Phyllis Schlafly is Right (But She's Wrong) About Pornography
22 Pages Posted: 29 Mar 2007 Last revised: 10 May 2009
Abstract
Phyllis Schlafly's preeminent concern is to preserve a pattern of gender-specific roles and relations that, she thinks, have helped protect women and children from desertion and abuse. She wants to suppress pornography because it helps to reinforce a vernacular masculine culture that is indifferent or hostile to the needs of women and children. Schlafly's worries about this culture are legitimate and valid. But the suppression of pornography is the wrong solution to the problem, because no workable legal rule can properly delimit the material that concerns her. The antecedents of Schlafly's views on gender, in Rousseau's political theory and the nineteenth century ideology of domesticity, and their contemporary applicability are examined.
Keywords: Public Policy
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation