Dorchen Leidholdt

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Dorchen Leidholdt is an anti-pornography feminist writer and lawyer who was leader of Women Against Pornography from 1980 to the groups demise later in that decade, and since 1988 has been Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. She is also the Director of the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City and a lecturer at the Columbia Law School.

1 Career
2 Quotes
3 Books
4 Notable Court Cases
5 External links

[edit] Career

Dorchen Leidholdt is best known for her campaigns against pornography and for her suit against Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt after Flynt published an attack on her in the magazine's "Asshole of the Month" column (July 1985).

On December 19, 1985, Leidholdt led a street demonstration in Washington DC against the US Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (aka, The Meese Commission), conversely, before appearing before that same commission as a friendly witness at the commission's invitation.[1] Leidholdt claimed, "Pornography perpetuates the devaluation of women. It sexualizes bigotry, promotes rape and threatens women's self esteem."

Leidholdt appeared as part of an ad-hoc group, Victims of Pornography. This included victims of child molestation and rape, who say pornography motivated their attackers. It also included Linda Borman, the former porn star better known as Linda Lovelace, whom Leidholdt had befriended and had taken her to Washington, DC to testify before the commission. Lovelace testified that she had been forced to perform in movies like Deep Throat.

Dorchen Leidholdt is an opponent of "sex-positive feminism". Her main argument is that promoting all kinds of sexual practices indiscriminately merely contributes to female oppression, as certain sexual practices (eg. prostitution) have historically benefited men, not women.

[edit] Quotes

In "When Women Defend Pornography", Dorchen Leidholdt wrote:

"The problem with the ideas of the pro-sex people is that they beg important political questions - like how, why, and in whose interest. They fail both to look at sexuality as a political system and to examine women's position in that system. They make sense in the abstract, but are revealed as critically flawed when measured against women's actual condition in society. They are not feminist but "sexual liberationist." And I put "sexual liberationist" in quotes because it has never included the liberation, sexual or otherwise, of women."

"As for the hierarchy of sexual privilege, it too sounds convincing, until you examine the position of women in this hierarchy. Heterosexuality, procreation, and marriage may mean privilege for men, but they mean something very different for the married woman. Her "good fortune" is a one out of three chance of being a battered wife, one out of seven chance of being raped by her own husband, and a statistically undetermined probability that she will be her husbands domestic servant and that her identity will be subsumed in his. The so-called good fortune of lesbian feminists is either public denigration or invisibility and often loss of jobs and family."

[edit] Books

Co-Editor with Jill Laurie Goodman, Esq., Lawyer’s Manual on Domestic Violence: Representing the Victim, 4th Edition, Appellate Division, First Department, Supreme Court of the State of New York, 2005. “From Sex Trafficking to FGM: Emerging Issues Confronting Advocates for Battered Immigrant Women” in this volume.

"Prostitution and Trafficking” in Melissa Farley, Ph.D., et al., Prostitution and Traumatic Stress, Journal of Trauma Practice, 2004.

Interviewing Battered Women, in Ronald E. Cohen and James C. Neely, eds., Lawyer's Manual on Domestic Violence: Representing the Victim, First, Second, Third, and Fourth Editions, Appellate Division, First Department, Supreme Court of the State of New York, 1998.

Trafficking in Women in Europe, chapter in Amy Elman, ed., Sexual Politics and the European Union, Berghahn, Oxford, England, 1995.

Pornography in the Workplace: Sexual Harassment Litigation Under Title VII, chapter in Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds., The Price We Pay: The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Hill and Wang (U.S.) and Harper Collins (Canada), 1995.

Pimping and Prostitution as Sexual Harassment: Amicus Brief on behalf of the New York State Women's Bar Association and the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault in Dilorenzo v. Guccione, Journal of Gender and Law, University of Michigan Law School, Jan. 1994.

Prostitution: A Violation of Women's Human Rights, Cardozo Women's Law Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1993.

Co-Editor, with Dr. Janice Raymond, The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, Pergamon Press, 1991. ISBN 0-08-037457-3