ABSTRACT
The burgeoning women's liberation movement in the 1960s and 70s recognized and sought to correct the myths associated with femininity which have accrued through depictions of women in various influential discourses: myths, for example, that linked virtue to virginity (as in the Christian archetype of the Virgin Mary), charm and attractiveness to suffering (as in the Marilyn Monroe-style Hollywood icon), femaleness to 'lack' (as in psychoanalysis' Oedipus Complex), and sexual agency to whorishness (as in pornography). Whereas the women's movement was able to unite behind the project of demythologizing the majority of such representations, pornography has proved an ongoing source of division among feminists.1
