Catharine A. MacKinnon

This book presents MacKinnon's powerful analysis of politics, sexuality, and the law from the perspective of women. Using the debate over Marxism and feminism as a point of departure, MacKinnon develops a theory of gender centered on sexual subordination and applies it to the state.

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

The miniscule motion of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado half a world away, according to chaos theory. Catharine A. MacKinnon’s collected work on gender inequality—including new pieces—argues that the right seemingly minor interventions in the legal realm can have a butterfly effect that generates major social and cultural transformations.

Butterfly Politics

More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse? The cutting edge is where law and culture hurts, which is where MacKinnon operates in these essays on the transnational status and treatment of women. Taking her gendered critique of the state to the international plane, ranging widely intellectually and concretely, she exposes the consequences and significance of the systematic maltreatment of women and its systemic condonation. And she points toward fresh ways--social, legal, and political--of targeting its toxic orthodoxies. MacKinnon takes us inside the workings of nation-states, where the oppression of women defines community life and distributes power in society and government. She takes us to Bosnia-Herzogovina for a harrowing look at how the wholesale rape and murder of women and girls there was an act of genocide, not a side effect of war. She takes us into the heart of the international law of conflict to ask--and reveal--why the international community can rally against terrorists' violence, but not against violence against women. A critique of the transnational status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights, this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared.

And Other International Dialogues

Are Women Human?

An analysis of the legal status of women includes discussions of discrimination, rape, sexual harassment, and pornography

Discourses on Life and Law

Feminism Unmodified

In an incisive compilation of essays, the author of Feminism Unmodified explores some of the momentous and ongoing changes that reframe the law of men in terms of their foundation in the lives of women, covering such topics as sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence, sexual discrimination, and pornography.

Women's Lives, Men's Laws

Only Words

Türkan Yöney

Sabir Yücesoy

Feminist bir devlet kuramına doǧru

Sex Equality

Liberalism and the Death of Feminism

Professor Catharine A MacKinnon

A comprehensive legal theory is needed to prevent the persistence of sexual harassment. Although requiring sexual favors as a quid pro quo for job retention or advancement clearly is unjust, the task of translating that obvious statement into legal theory is difficult. To do so, one must define sexual harassment and decide what the law's role in addressing harassment claims should be. In Sexual Harassment of Working Women,' Catharine Mac-Kinnon attempts all of this and more. In making a strong case that sexual harassment is sex discrimination and that a legal remedy should be available for it, the book proposes a new standard for evaluating all practices claimed to be discriminatory on the basis of sex. Although MacKinnon's "inequality" theory is flawed and its implications are not considered sufficiently, her formulation of it makes the book a significant contribution to the literature of sex discrimination. MacKinnon calls upon the law to eliminate not only sex dis- crimination but also most instances of sexism from society. She uses traditional theories in an admittedly strident manner, and relies upon both traditional and radical-feminist sources. The results of her effort are mixed. The book is at times fresh and challenging, at times needlessly provocative. -- https://www.jstor.org (Sep. 30, 2016).

A Case of Sex Discrimination

Sexual Harassment of Working Women

Andrea Dworkin

A New Day for Women's Equality

Pornography and Civil Rights

More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? She exposes the consequences and significance of the systematic maltreatment of women and its systemic condonation as she points toward fresh ways of targeting its toxic orthodoxies. A critique of the transnational status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights, this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared.

Andrea Dworkin, N.D.

This book contains the oral testimony of victims of pornography, spoken on the record for the first time in history. Speaking at hearings on a groundbreaking antipornography civil rights law, women offer eloquent witness to the devastation pornography has caused in their lives. Supported by social science experts and authorities on rape, battery, and prostitution, discounted and opposed by free speech advocates and absolutists, their riveting testimony articulates the centrality of pornography to sexual abuse and inequity today. At issue in these hearings is a law conceived and drafted by Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon that defines harm done through pornography as a legal injury of sex discrimination warranting civil redress. From the first set of hearings in Minneapolis in 1983 through those before the Massachusetts state legislature in 1992, the witnesses heard here expose the commonplace reality of denigration and sexual subordination due to pornography and refute the widespread notion that pornography is harmless expression that must be protected by the state. Introduced with powerful essays by MacKinnon and Dworkin, these hearings--unabridged and with each word scrupulously verified--constitute a unique record of a conflict over the meaning of democracy itself--a major civil rights struggle for our time and a fundamental crisis in United States constitutional law: Can we sacrifice the lives of women and children to a pornographer's right to free "speech"? Can we allow the First Amendment to shield sexual exploitation and predatory sexual violence? These pages contain all the arguments for protecting pornography--and dramatically document its human cost.

The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings

In Harm's Way

Reva B. Siegel

div When it was published twenty-five years ago, Catharine MacKinnon’s pathbreaking work Sexual Harassment of Working Women had a major impact on the development of sexual harassment law. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted her theory of sexual harassment in 1986. Here MacKinnon collaborates with eminent authorities to appraise what has been accomplished in the field and what still needs to be done. An introductory essay by Reva Siegel considers how sexual harassment came to be regulated as sex discrimination. Contributors discuss how law can best address sexual harassment; the importance and definition of consent and unwelcomeness; issues of same-sex harassment; questions of institutional responsibility for sexual harassment in both employment and education settings; considerations of freedom of speech; effects of sexual harassment doctrine on gender and racial justice; and transnational approaches to the problem. An afterword by MacKinnon assesses the changes wrought by sexual harassment law in the past quarter century. /DIV

Directions in Sexual Harassment Law

Hacia una teoría feminista del Estado

Nel 1948 la Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti dell'Uomo ha sancito a cosa un essere umano ha diritto. Sono passati oltre cinquanta anni e sorge un dubbio: anche le donne sono umane? Catharine A. MacKinnon risponde senza esitazioni. Quel che accade alle donne ha poco a che fare con i diritti umani perché, nonostante i buoni propositi, la società, il diritto e la politica restano maschili e a molte, troppe, donne è negato il dominio di sé.«Originalità di sguardo, pensiero forte, retorica felice. Avvocata e filosofa del diritto, MacKinnon è una pensatrice radicale con mentalità riformatrice, una donna che ha fatto dell'impegno intellettuale una costante di vita. Nel tempo dai primi scritti degli anni Ottanta agli ultimi del nuovo millennio cambiano i riferimenti teorici, cambia il quadro storico, ma non cambia l'assunto di base: le donne sono assoggettate agli uomini e la sessualità è il luogo primario di esercizio del potere maschile».Dall'Introduzione di Antonella Besussi e Alessandra Facchi

Le donne sono umane?

MacKinnon contends that pornography, racial and sexual harassment, and racial hate speech are acts of intimidation, subordination, terrorism, and discrimination, and should be legally treated as such.

Catharine A. MacKinnon

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