Dorchen Leidholdt | |
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| Born | Dorchen A. Leidholdt |
| Nationality | American |
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| Years active | Mid-1970s–present |
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Dorchen A. Leidholdt is an activist and leader in the feminist movement against violence against women. Since the mid-1970s, she has counseled and advocated for rape victims, organized against "the media's promotion of violence against women", served on the legal team for the plaintiff in a precedent-setting sexual harassment case, founded an international non-governmental organization fighting prostitution and trafficking in women and children, directed the nation's largest legal services program for victims of domestic violence, advocated for the enactment and implementation of laws that further the rights of abused women, and represented hundreds of women victimized by intimate partner violence, human trafficking, sexual assault, the threat of honor killing, female genital mutilation, forced and child marriage, and the internet bride trade.
Leidholdt has lectured internationally on issues of violence against women, and has published articles, book chapters, and two anthologies.
Leidholdt hold a master's degree from the University of Virginia, and a JD degree from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow scholar. [1]
From 1975 to 1977, Leidholdt counseled rape victims as a graduate student at the University of Virginia and, after moving to New York City in 1978, became an activist with the Women's Anti-Rape Coalition, the educational arm of New York Women Against Rape. From 1978 through 1980, she was a member of the New York City Chapter of Women Against Violence Against Women.
Leidholdt is known for her campaigns against pornography and for her suit against Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. In 1979, after Hustler Magazine published an issue whose cover showed a naked female body being fed through a meat grinder, she joined Susan Brownmiller, Dolores Alexander (Past President of the National Organization for Women), and other New York City women's rights leaders in founding the feminist organization, Women Against Pornography (WAP).
From 1979 through 1983, she served as a leader and spokesperson for WAP, during which time she joined Gloria Steinem and other feminist leaders in initiating a suit against Hustler and Larry Flynt, appeared on numerous television and radio programs, organized educational events, and spoke in Washington D.C. before the U.S. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (a.k.a. The Meese Commission) at the commission's invitation. [2] There Leidholdt testified, "Pornography perpetuates the devaluation of women. It sexualizes bigotry, promotes rape and undermines women's self esteem."
Flynt published an attack on her in the magazine's "Asshole of the Month" column (July 1985). [3]
In 1987, at New York University School of Law, she was the lead organizer of the conference, "The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism", and in 1988, she was the lead organizer of the first global conference on trafficking in women and girls.
Leidholdt is an opponent of "sex-positive feminism". Her main argument is that prostitution is exploitative towards women and has historically benefited men, not women.
Leidholdt is the Director of the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City. Under Leidholdt's leadership since 1994, the center has become the largest legal services program for domestic violence victims in the country. It has grown from two to twenty-four lawyers and eight support staff members, and has strengthened its advocacy efforts on behalf of under-served populations of women, especially those in New York City's immigrant communities. [4] The center has spearheaded state litigation that set new legal precedent expanding the protections available to domestic violence victims petitioning for orders of protection and federal litigation preventing child protective agencies from charging battered mothers with "engaging in domestic violence". [5]
Leidholdt also serves as a board member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), which she helped found in 1988. She has represented the Coalition at numerous international meetings, including the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995). On 6 December 1996, in a special session commemorating the abolition of slavery, Leidholdt and a survivor of sex trafficking together addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. [1]
Leidholdt has taught Criminal Procedure at City University School of Law, and, since 1998, has taught Domestic Violence and the Law at Columbia University School of Law. [5]
In 1990, Leidholdt became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). [6] WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Sex-positive feminism, also known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, or sexually liberal feminism, is a feminist movement centering on the idea that sexual freedom is an essential component of women's freedom. They oppose legal or social efforts to control sexual activities between consenting adults, whether they are initiated by the government, other feminists, opponents of feminism, or any other institution. They embrace sexual minority groups, endorsing the value of coalition-building with marginalized groups. Sex-positive feminism is connected with the sex-positive movement. Sex-positive feminism brings together anti-censorship activists, LGBT activists, feminist scholars, producers of pornography and erotica, among others. Sex-positive feminists believe that prostitution can be a positive experience if workers are treated with respect, and agree that sex work should not be criminalized.
Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an American feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she has been tenured since 1990, and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. From 2008 to 2012, she was the special gender adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child prostitution is illegal as part of general prohibition on prostitution.
Susan Brownmiller is an American journalist, author and feminist activist best known for her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which was selected by The New York Public Library as one of 100 most important books of the 20th century.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress when prosecutors chose to not prosecute cases. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department of Justice.
Janice G. Raymond is an American lesbian radical feminist and professor emerita of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is known for her work against violence, sexual exploitation, and medical abuse of women, and for her controversial work denouncing transsexuality.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is an international non-governmental organization opposing human trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of commercial sex.
Women Against Pornography (WAP) was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City that was influential in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s.
The feminist sex wars, also known as the lesbian sex wars, sex wars or porn wars, are terms used to refer to collective debates amongst feminists regarding a number of issues broadly relating to sexuality and sexual activity. Differences of opinion on matters of sexuality deeply polarized the feminist movement, particularly leading feminist thinkers, in the late 1970s and early 1980s and continue to influence debate amongst feminists to this day.
Rape in the Philippines is considered a criminal offense. In Philippine jurisprudence, it is a heinous crime punishable by reclusión perpetua when committed against women. Rape of males is also legally recognized as rape by sexual assault, which is penalized by imprisonment of six to twelve years.
Laura J. Lederer is a pioneer in the work to stop human trafficking. She is a legal scholar and former Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons in the Office for Democracy and Global Affairs of the United States Department of State. She has also been an activist against human trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and hate speech. Lederer is founder of The Protection Project, a legal research institute at Johns Hopkins University devoted to combating trafficking in persons.
Florence Rush was an American certified social worker, feminist theorist and organizer best known for introducing The Freudian Coverup in her presentation "The Sexual Abuse of Children: A Feminist Point of View", about childhood sexual abuse and incest, at the April 1971 New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) Rape Conference. Rush's paper at the time was the first challenge to Freudian theories of children as the seducers of adults rather than the victims of adults' sexual/power exploitation.
Feminist views on pornography range from total condemnation of the medium as an inherent form of violence against women to an embracing of some forms as a medium of feminist expression. This debate reflects larger concerns surrounding feminist views on sexuality, and is closely related to those on prostitution, BDSM, and other issues. Pornography has been one of the most divisive issues in feminism, particularly in Anglophone (English-speaking) countries. This division was exemplified in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, which pitted anti-pornography activists against pro-pornography ones.
Melissa Farley is an American clinical psychologist, researcher and radical feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activist. Farley is best known for her studies of the effects of prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. She is the founder and director of the San Francisco-based organization, Prostitution Research and Education.
Donna M. Hughes is an American academic and feminist who chairs the women's studies department at the University of Rhode Island. Her research concerns prostitution and human trafficking; she was a prominent supporter of the campaign to end prostitution in Rhode Island, and has testified on these issues before several national legislative bodies. She sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society, a journal examining the impact of sexualized media.
Feminism has affected culture in many ways, and has famously been theorized in relation to culture by Angela McRobbie, Laura Mulvey and others. Timothy Laurie and Jessica Kean have argued that "one of [feminism's] most important innovations has been to seriously examine the ways women receive popular culture, given that so much pop culture is made by and for men." This is reflected in a variety of forms, including literature, music, film and other screen cultures.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
Elizabeth A. Kelly CBE is a British professor and director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University, former head of the, now defunct, Women's National Commission, and co-chair, along with Marai Larasi, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Carceral feminism is a critical term for types of feminism that advocate for enhancing and increasing prison sentences that deal with feminist and gender issues. The term criticises the belief that harsher and longer prison sentences will help work towards solving these issues. The phrase "carceral feminism" was coined by Elizabeth Bernstein, a feminist sociologist, in her 2007 article, "The Sexual Politics of the 'New Abolitionism'". Examining the contemporary anti-trafficking movement in the United States, Bernstein introduced the term to describe a type of feminist activism which casts all forms of sexual labor as sex trafficking. She sees this as a retrograde step, suggesting it erodes the rights of women in the sex industry, and takes the focus off other important feminist issues, and expands the neoliberal agenda.
Feminist perspectives on sex markets vary widely, depending on the type of feminism being applied. The sex market is defined as the system of supply and demand which is generated by the existence of sex work as a commodity. The sex market can further be segregated into the direct sex market, which mainly applies to prostitution, and the indirect sex market, which applies to sexual businesses which provide services such as lap dancing. The final component of the sex market lies in the production and selling of pornography. With the distinctions between feminist perspectives, there are many documented instances from feminist authors of both explicit and implied feminist standpoints that provide coverage on the sex market in regards to both "autonomous" and "non-autonomous" sex trades. The quotations are added since some feminist ideologies believe the commodification of women's bodies is never autonomous and therefore subversive or misleading by terminology.
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