In this essay, author outlines some historical precedents for the current feminist attack on commercial sex, as represented by the women against pornography campaign. The radical feminist attack on commercial sex has it roots in earlier feminist campaigns against male vice and the double standard.
'This paper redresses the limited attention to Boadicea in research on suffrage feminists of the twentieth century. It analyses her importance through the lens of dramaturgical theory that privileges a reading of social protest groups engaged in symbolic acts (protests, theatre, violence) and expressions (artwork, writing, manufacture, dress and costuming). Examining an appropriation of a historical figure like Boadicea this way enables emphasis to be placed on ‘the significance of ritual for expressing solidarity and evoking widely shared feelings among dominated groups.’ (Taylor and Whittier 164) It also builds on the work of Barbara Green (1997) on performativity and the spectacular in suffrage protests by examining how such strategies play out in terms of a particular icon.'