Pornography

To the Editors of the Crimson:

The Pi Eta Club newsletter is not simply an issue of free speech for Pi Eta members (as has been suggested); it is also an issue of free speech and freedom generally, for women. Women are neither free nor equal in a society which commonly views them as sub-human sexual objects who may freely be subjected to male sexual violence.

The Pi newsletter must be recognized for what it is: pornography in the feminist sense. That is, it presents the violent, sexual degradation of women as erotic. The pornography industry makes $8 billion a year depicting women in exactly the same way as the Pi newsletter. The danger of this pornographic view of women lies not only in the represetnation of women as sub-human "slobbering bovines fresh for the slaughter," but in its message that women enjoy male sexual violence and aggression; "grateful heffers (sic)" As Chris Hayes pointed out in her insightful letter to The Crimson, the rape mentality created by pornography, and the Pi Eta club, allows men to sexually coerce and rape women with impunity. After all, "she wanted it."

This view of women is a particular kind of speech--an incitement to commit violence against women. The message could not be much clearer if there were posters all around campus proclaiming that sexual violence against women is "fun," "exciting" and "okay." This is the kind of speech which our Constitution has never protected without qualification (direct incitement to criminal violence). The courts have upheld other limitations of speech where direct harm of this kind (or actually, much less direct harm) has been shown. The question, as Catherine MacKinnon (an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the proposed Minneapolis anti-pornography ordinance) put it in a speech at the Law School last week, is "will they do it for women?" MacKinnon and other feminist scholars are presently arguing, and I agree, that we ought to consider pornography (such as the Pi Eta letter) as a question of competing rights to free speech. We must weigh the rights of the pornographers against the rights of women who are silenced by pornography--who must live in fear of the sexual violence which pornographers portray as erotic and enjoyable.

The connection of pornography and the rape mentality exhibited in the Pi newsletter with real acts of sexual violence against women is not merely academic. Rape and sexual harassment are not the "extreme outgrowths" of this view of women, they are the natural result. Studies clearly show that pornography increases male subjects' acceptance of rape and sexual violence. Moreover, it clearly communicates that such violence is "fun," "exciting" and "okay." In fact, many of the most heinous sex crimes are performed using pornography as a text-book. Still closer to home, the Harvard study of sexual harassment among peers found that at least 2 percent of Harvard women had been raped by a fellow Harvard student (this does not include the number of women from other colleges who are raped on the Harvard campus). Nationally, one of every three women has been raped, according to FBI statistics.

Most alarming of all is the implication in the Pi Eta newsletter that "get[ting] laid" is one of the benefits of paying membership, dues. How respected will a female guest's "no" be in light of this guarantee? Many of the women, especially those from other schools, were not aware that they were to be considered open game at the Pi party. Far beyond issues of free speech, the newsletter presents a real safety issue for women where such a party is represented in a very different fashion to club members and their invited female guests. (Women at other schools received polite, engraved invitations.)

I believe that on a national level we need to seriously consider the issue of pornography as a direct threat to women's safety, freedom of movement and freedom of speech. Within the Harvard community, we must also recognize the threat to women presented by the Pi Eta's depiction of women as sub-human prey for sexual violence. If Harvard can shut the Pi Eta down because of the club's initiation rites, it can certainly do so on the basis of this (especially given that it is already on probation). Harvard has demonstrated its muscle in cases of student misconduct, under similar circumstances, in the past. The big question is, will Harvard do it on behalf of women? Chris Spaulding '84