The latter publication is now in its third edition and won the Myers Centre Award for the Study of Human Rights. Widely published, Gail is the co-author of Pornography: the Production and Consumption of Inequality and the co-editor of best selling text-book, Gender, Race and Class in Media. She writes that contemporary idealised femininity has been reduced to a “Hypersexualised, young, thin, toned, hairless and, in many cases, surgically enhanced woman with a come-hither look on her face”. Similarly, her work shows how the prevalence of cruelty against women in modern pornography denigrates the position of women in society and has a devastating effect on teenage girls, their self-image and their view of sexuality. Gail’s work puts forward the view that young men and boys are continually exposed to pornography which is increasingly violent towards women, and that this has a harmful effect on them, distorting their view of sex and sexuality, and making it difficult for them to pursue intimate relationships with women. For three decades Gail has taught, researched and written extensively on the porn industry and its influence. Her research, writing and teaching has focused on the hypersexualisation of our culture and the way the images of pornography filter into the mainstream media, how this shapes gender and racial identity and the role pornography plays in the validating of violence against women and children. She has taught there for over 30 years and, until very recently, she was the Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and the Chair of the American Studies Department. Moving to the USA in 1986, Gail embarked on her academic career, undertaking a position at Wheelock College in Boston. There, aged just 22, she volunteered at a rape crisis centre in Tel Aviv and set up the feminist movement, Woman to Woman, in her own living room. In 1980, soon after attaining her doctorate, Gail moved to Israel. She achieved her PhD in Sociology with a thesis that centred on a sociological investigation of cartoons with particular reference to those of Playboy. She was born in Manchester and studied at Salford University as an undergraduate and later, as a postgraduate.

Academic, writer, speaker and political activist, Gail Dines is a tireless campaigner in the fight against the global pornography industry, and one of the most important and respected voices on the subject. “Dines understands both the economics and cultural power of the pornography industry perhaps better than anyone ever has”, wrote Jackson Katz in his 2006 book, The Macho Paradox.

Pornland by gail dines