> Moreover, gender equality is more than creating markets with
> proportionally representative consumer bases.
Sure it is, but where there is no product in the market when there is a need for one, that is a problem. Katha Pollitt wrote at the now defunct M-Fem about the formerly existing socialist countries' neglect of women's needs and desires in production for daily consumption (which I cited in a message to PEN-l at <http:// archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2000m12.1/msg00229.htm>: "Plenty of vodka, plenty of cigarettes and friendship pins and tee shirts and bouquets of flowers -- but when women got their periods, they used old rags like my grandma back in the shtetl in l914. (the Yugoslav writer Slavenka drakulic has puckishly suggested that the absence of tampax was what made communism fall -- such a clear proof of the indifference of the govt to the people's needs)."
In my view, women's desire for porn that appeals to them, as well as men's desire for fashion that appeals to them, is a very valid desire. Almost every woman likes to masturbate at least occasionally inspired by attractive sexual images, and almost every man likes to dress cool and look good when he can. The fashion market has responded to men's desire much better than the straight porn market has to women's desire. Pointing out such a market failure may be thought of as a Marxist as well as feminist job.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>