Free Speech Law and the Pornography Debate: A Gender-Based Approach to Regulating Inegalitarian Pornography

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By examining the highly contested legal debate about the regulation of pornography through an epistemic lens, this book analyzes competing claims about the proper role of speech in our society, pornographys harm, the relationship between speech and equality, and whether law should regulate and, if so, upon what grounds. In maintaining that inegalitarian pornography generates discursive effects, the book contends that law cannot simply adopt a libertarian approach to free speech. While inegalitarian pornography may not be determinative of gender inequality, it does contribute, reinforce, reflect and help maintain such unfairness. As a result, we can place reasonable gender-based regulations on inegalitarian pornography while upholding our most treasured commitments to dissident speech just as other liberal democracies with strong free speech traditions have done.

Reviews

An original and deeply insightful analysis of indirect strategies employed by American law to regulate pornography and the sex industry. Building on a wide range of feminist and critical race scholarship, Eckert's book displays the historically and culturally biased systems of knowledge production that shape what counts as harms, and offers a new theory of discursive harm. By rejecting simplistic accounts of objectivity, evidence, and neutrality, Eckert challenges us to deepen the liberal and egalitarian aspirations that underlie our constitution. A terrific book!--Stephen Macedo, Princeton University

Author Bio

Lynn Mills Eckert is associate professor of political science at Marist College.