Practicing Justice by Practicing Method: A Brief Rethinking of Feminist Analytics of Obscenity and Indecency Law in Canada

Abstract

This paper briefly explores the feminist responses to several Supreme Court obscenity and indecency rulings in the Canadian context. The authors argue that the feminist academic debates, have, to some extent, been absorbed into the legal debate, and lost some of their foundational impetuses. The authors thus argue for a rethinking of the critical arguments in the context of obscenity law in Canada, and suggest that methodological approaches that are descriptive in tone might provide an interesting counterpoint to the activist debates. The authors suggest that the governmentality methodology might be one such appropriate descriptive vehicle for analyses.