Most people might find the statement, "all men are potential rapists" problematic. It is unfortunate that the speaker and the group she represents fell silent.

It reminded me of the ban on Eve Ensler's play, the Vagina Monologues by City Hall in February 2002. Women's groups failed to rally behind young director Hariyati Azizan who directed the Five Arts Centre's production of the play.

Judging from some of the discussions on selected mail-lists at that time, Hari was apparently censored by several women's groups in the Klang valley. She was told not to discuss the play or speak to the press. There were grouses that any debate may jeopardise a local fund-raiser based on the play staged by a women's group for International Women's Day in March that year.

The absence of informed engagement on both counts does not further the political agenda of the women's rights discourse in the longer run.

The failure to act on the impulse generated by the 2002 ban and concerns to the recent statement may be construed as an inability of women's groups to engage effectively in public on a "sensitive" issue; namely sexuality.

The silence of women's groups indicates little support for younger women and the community of actors, potential allies to the cause. Hari Azizan had introduced a more creative way of exploring sexuality issues through theatre. This is a cause for celebration. I hate to think that there is a generational gap in the struggle.

The statement on men being potential rapists was seen as gender-insensitive by some. All men are potential allies (Eric Paulsen July 25 letter) as are all women.

Pornography

If one seeks to understand a context, the statement may have its origins from theoretical discussions on rape and the culture of rape.

There are important writings on the culture of rape in feminist writings and it is not possible to explore the literature of agreements and divisions here.

Susan Brownmiller (1975) who first talked about coerced sex as rape say that rape is nothing more or less than a process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.

This was seen as a groundbreaking statement at that time when no men spoke out against the sexual assault of women.

Andrea Dworkin (1981) and Christine MacKinnon (1987) developed concerns that pornography subordinates women. Both drew links between rape and pornography which led to the mantra of anti-pornography activists that pornography is the theory and rape the practice.

MacKinnon's working definition of pornography is the "graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanised as sexual objects, things, or commodities; enjoying pain or humiliation or rape; being tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt; in postures of sexual submission or servility or display; reduced to body parts, penetrated by objects or animals, or presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture; shown as filthy or inferior; bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual. "

Erotica

MacKinnon argues that pornography is violence as it "causes attitudes and behaviours of violence and discrimination that define the treatment and status of half of the population." She distinguishes erotica from pornography, the former being sexually explicit materials premised on equality.

It is a part of MacKinnon's and Dworkin's thesis that there is no equality between men and women in the area of sex. Sex (heterosexual sex as "natural"), in itself is regarded as a form of coercion. In a society where a woman's 'no' is taken as a 'yes', any representation of heterosexual activity, according to MacKinnon is a representation of sexual coercion.

A query is often posed to this thesis. If heterosex is coercion what is erotica unless it is presumed to be lesbian sex? It is overly presumptious to think that lesbian relationships are per se equal. To also attack pornography and at the same time equate it with heterosexual sex is to condemn women who sleep with men.

Not all feminists are convinced of the erotica-pornography debate. They say that it is impossible to make clear-cut distinctions between "authentic" sexual impulses and those conditioned by patriarchy.

Erotica/pornography conveys all sorts of mixed messages that elicit complicated and private responses. In practice attempts to sort out good erotica from bad porn inevitably come down to "What turns me on is erotic; what turns you on is pornographic."

Women are victims

Some women fought back. Katie Rophie (1993), for instance rebelled at "victim-feminism". She alleged that "rape-crisis feminists" were poisoning the sexual atmosphere by casting all men as potential rapists and encouraging women to view sexual experiences that were merely unpleasant as rape. Just assert your will and all will be well, she seemed to be saying.

According to some, Rophie represented a new generation that had no memory of the bad days that had given birth to feminism. Rophie at some point was cast as a "privileged white girl".

While there are troubling features about the pornography-rape thesis, there is much support about how women are represented in pornography.

Ros Coward (1987) expanded the idea by drawing a distinction between sexual relationships and representations of sex. Her concern is not that these images cause men to rape, but that the pornographic genre is becoming the dominant form, silencing other voices and representations; and making an alternative erotica impossible because "it necessarily collapses into the pornographic".

According to Coward, women's bodies are increasingly encoded as having pornographic meaning. For example, the display of women's breasts is seldom perceived as a sign of liberation, rather it signifies the process of encoding representations of women as pornographic.

I remembered a conversation with poet, Rahmat Haron (2003) who mass-copied 27 of his "proseks" (prosa eksperimen) in a booklet for RM2 on the streets. His buddy had drawn images of naked women's bodies for the book of poems. We differed in opinion over the images-whether as signs of liberation or whether these encode representations of women as pornographic especially as there were no images of naked male bodies!

Women's Destiny

Pornography eroticises women. It is not that women themselves become the pornographic model, but that the expectation grows that this is women's potential and destiny.

Women may be increasingly viewed in this light and pornography comes to inform the everyday viewing of women (Eckersley 1987). It is this extension of the pornographic genre which causes concern. Not only does it eroticise women, sexual difference and various forms of domination, but it also silences alternative discourses and interpretations which might promote feminist, anti-racist or equality values.

This concern is different to the pornographic-as-violence concern of MacKinnon that pornography promotes attitudes which cause men to enact sexual assaults.

Other feminists do not share MacKinnon's views of the causal link between pornography and violence against women. Writers note that the claim of the causal link has not been proved by positivistic social science even if it serves a political purpose for feminists.

The assumption that men confuse sexual desire with predatory aggression reflects a sexist system, not male biology. There are no good (chaste) or bad (lustful) women, just women who are like men, sexual beings. Thus to lump pornography with rape may be simplistic.

These feminist writings in all their wonderful diversity are important in imagining policy and law-making in the area of violence against women and equality issues.

As the Federal Constitution has amended Article 8 to include non-discrimination on the basis of gender (through lobby by women's groups), it has become increasingly important for women's groups and rights advocates to refer to theoretical foundations of the women's rights discourse.

Censorship

One important challenge to the work of MacKinnon and Dworkin relates to censorship. Opponents to the anti-pornographic campaign (to censor pornography) accuse both theorists as playing into the hands of the moral right. The moral right argues that all representations of sex are degrading.

Women-against-pornography (WAP) campaigners claim that free or protected speech is limited to political dissent and not expressions of women-hating violence. This stand poses a danger to civil libertarians as it cedes to government a right to define (selectively) what is or is not "political".

Obscenity laws, guidelines and codes are often used to deny the right of free expression to those who transgress "official" standards of propriety. Obscenity laws reinforce cultural taboos on sexuality and suppress feminism, homosexuality and other forms of sexual dissidence.

We need to only remember the event in 2002 when City Hall banned women's expressions of sexuality by revoking the permit to the second run of the Vagina Monologues.

In reflection, women activists who had prevented Hari Azizan's right to express her views on the ban or who put blame on her expressions of sexuality in the play, are arguably no better than the moral right. It would be important for women and rights advocates to distinguish their positions from the pro-censorship stance of conservatives.

Despite this debate on censorship of pornography no case has been brought to court by WAP campaigners in the United States. Public education is the key strategy for campaigners.

There were however initiatives to adopt MacKinnon's anti-pornography ordinances in the United States. These were struck down as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech under the First Amendment.

Epistemology

MacKinnon's work is not demolished and it continues to be studied and is the subject of numerous commentaries in her home country and abroad.

An important contribution to feminist theory is her critique of epistemology. This critique aims to include women's perspectives (knowledge and constructions of knowledge) in mainstream theory.

In the debate on pornography, liberal analysis frames the debate in terms of liberty and censorship. It fails to recognise the gendered character of pornography, and the fact of its different impact on men and women.

For law, this would mean that harms women suffer as women would be recognised and remedied. Case law has developed this aspect in Canada (R v Butler(1992) 89 DLR (4th) 449 (Supreme Court)).

In the debate on sexual equality, MacKinnon suggested that sexual equality and discrimination be analysed in terms of a framework of domination and subordination. Gender relations concern power and are not construed by or limited to sexual or individual differences, whether originating in nature or nurture.

Recently, the menteri besar of Terengganu, Abdul Hadi Awang offers the view that women are disabled from leadership on account of physical or biological difference.

If we take MacKinnon's thesis on sexual equality, the fact that women menstruate (as different from men as men do not mensturate) do not make us unequal to men.

Women are different from men (the nature of menstruation) and that is accepted. The difference is however not a legitimate measure of sexual equality between women and men.

Where women and men are not similarly situated it is wrong to deal with questions of sexual equality by using a discrimination analysis based on comparability.

If Abdul Hadi Awang's views are reflected in state policy and state law we should be able to challenge these as discriminatory under Article 8 of the Federal Constitution under MacKinnon's framework.

NOTES

Brownmiller, S. (1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, London: Secker & Warburg

Coward, R. (1987) "Sexual violence and sexuality", in Feminist Review (ed.), Sexuality: A Reader, London: Virago.

Dworkin, A (1981) Pornography: Men Possessing Women, London: The Women's Press.

Eckersley, R. (1987) "Wither the feminist campaign? An evaluation of feminist critiques of pornography", International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 15 (2): 149-78.

MacKinnon, C. (1987) "Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law", London: Harvard University Press.

Rahmat Haron. (2003) Bogela Testikal: Himpunan Sajak-Sajak Terpilih, Kuala Lumpur.

Rophie, K. (1993) The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus, Boston: Little, Brown and Co.