Stop Porn Culture conference in San Diego, CA

Contemporary Radical Feminism in the Age of Porn
University of San Diego
June 18-19, 2012

Porn has moved from the back street to Wall Street, and is now a multibillion dollar global industry and a leader in technological innovation. As porn seeps into the mainstream economy, and softcore porn migrates into pop culture, the porn industry has become more hardcore and cruel. Porn images increasingly shape our visual landscape, and the pornification of the culture is played out on the bodies of younger and younger women who have grown up in a culture awash with hypersexualized representations of femininity. At the same time, much of mainstream popular and academic feminism has embraced a neo-liberal ideology that celebrates individual empowerment and agency while de-emphasizing the structural realities of gender, racial, and class inequality. In place of economic, legal and political liberation, we are supposed to be happy with individual “empowerment” in the form of stripping, waxing and hooking up.

Our goal is to rebuild a vibrant, radical, unapologetic feminist movement that energizes and mobilizes women and pro-feminist men into fighting the porn industry, and fighting for real liberation. Presentations will explore how to make radical feminism timely and relevant in the lives of young women, and how to build activist movements on the local, national and global level.

Topics include

The Pornification of Representation in Pop Culture
Heterosexuality and Hook Up Culture
The Political Economy of Porn
Sexualized Racism in Pop Culture and Porn
How “Queer” is “Queer” Porn?
Radical Feminism and the Right
Men, Masculinity, and Radical Feminism
Porn and the Culture of Humiliation
Organizing Against a Global Industry

Stop Porn Culture Slideshow Training

June 16-17, 2012
University of San Diego
San Diego, CA

Presented by the board of Stop Porn Culture

Come and get the experience, knowledge, and confidence to speak publicly against pornography in your community. The training will include in-depth presentations:

-the links between pornography and violence against women
-background on the economic industry that is pornography
-First Amendment and other free speech issues
-women in the industry
-the sexualization of children
-the question of “alternate” images
-how to organize in your community
-practice Q & A session

For more information and to register, visit http://stoppornculture.org/events/