Feminists Against Censorship was formed in 1989 by a group of long-time feminist academics and campaigners who wished to fight censorship from a feminist perspective. In the intervening years, we have been joined by younger women, including those in other professions, such as computer programming, photography, secretarial work, law, and the sex industry. Censorship is a dangerous tool that is primarily used to suppress dissent from those who would challenge oppression by society and the state, and particularly victimizes minorities. Censorship is used by those in power as a way to avoid dealing with serious, intractable problems in society that require real, imaginative action, and are not solved by banning words and images. Women must have recourse to free expression in order to explore the truth of our own experience and sexuality that has been forcibly hidden from us for millennia, and the state must no longer be permitted to interfere with this discourse.
Censorship can never eliminate evil ideas, and so the best answer to bad speech is MORE speech.
Censorship gives unacceptable powers to the police to invade our privacy and harass individuals who they find threatening although they pose no threat to others. Research attempting to demonstrate a causal link between images and violence has not been able to show such a link. Research on serious sex offenders demonstrates that rapists and abusers have been taught repressive messages about sex, masturbation, and pornography, and that anti-pornography activism actually exacerbates the problems that lead to sexual assault and abuse. We write books, leaflets, letters and articles to try to get information out. We also send out newsletters to supporters to keep them updated on censorship news and FAC activities.