It is very strange to me that Andrea Dworkin is such a big figure in the feminist anti-pornography movement. I suppose it is due to the fact that she was one of the first that really got things moving in the 1980s when the movement began. I read Dworkin's book "Intercourse" which is a controversial book as she seems to think that all intercourse equates to rape. While Dworkin has many good points throughout the book I found it difficult to get through her rage.
I do think that there are plenty of reasons for women to be angry or frustrated when it comes to sexism. However, I think much of Dworkin's points were anecdotal.
Robert Jensen is the author of several books and I am quite impressed with his viewpoints. I admit it is quite refreshing to hear such words from a man.
- All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice (2009)
- Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (2007)
- The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (2005)
- Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (2004)
- Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream(2002)
- Co-author with Gail Dines and Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (1998)
- Co-editor with David Allen of Freeing the First Amendment: Critical Perspectives on Freedom of Expression (1995)
Real Men, Real Choices Robert Jensen at the National Feminist Antipornography Conference: Pornography & Pop Culture Wheelock College, Boston March 24, 2007
"i'm very used to being part of movements that lose.......one can be right and lose. We all know we're right here (audience laughter) but being right isn't enough, i would like to win once."
-------------Robert Jensen
(http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/robert_jensen.html)
Robert Jensen Portrait by Robert Shetterly
The below is from AmericansWhoTelltheTruth.org
"This is the simple discovery which we must confront. We were given a place in the creation, with a beauty beyond telling, and we have failed to care for it. And as our collective contempt for the non-human world has intensified, so has our contempt for each other. We have failed to care for each other."
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen is a prolific writer, speaker, and activist. His project is to engage people into critical analysis of the way in which we all live, working toward a more humane and ecologically sustainable world. In his words, “… we know there can be no difference between how we treat those we love and those on the other side of the world whom we will never know and never touch…if by virtue of being human we have a claim to life and dignity in living – then everyone must have that same claim.”
Jensen defines the leftist political position as “anti-capitalist and anti-empire”, and argues that as Americans make up a small percentage of the world’s population, yet consume about a fourth of the world’s energy, we are “living a life that is unsustainable, a life that would be impossible without the inequality produced by global capitalism and US imperial adventures.” His ideas ask us, as “citizens of the empire”, to re-examine our sense of supremacy and entitlement and work to dismantle it. Jensen also engages the issues of race and inequality. He acknowledges that as a white man, he has benefited from some form of unearned white privilege in his life and achievements, and asserts that “the moral task of white America is to do something that doesn’t come naturally to people in positions of unearned power and privilege: Look in the mirror honestly and concede that we live in an unjust society and have no right to some of what we have.”
Jensen also challenges men to reject the typical concept of masculinity – aggressive, competitive, looking to conquer and control – as being destructive to both sexes and antithetical to creating a just world. His is a strong feminist voice against male dominance and cruelty toward women, and he is an activist against pornography.
Robert Jensen drew widespread attention and criticism for an article he wrote soon after the terrorist attack against the US on September 11, 2001, in which he asserted that this act was “no more despicable as the massive acts of terrorism – the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes – that the US government has committed during my lifetime.” His published books include The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege; Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity; Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream; and Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality, co-authored with Gail Dines and Ann Russo.
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