Before I begin this post, I would like to offer a trigger warning. This post contains sensitive discussions on sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Please refrain from reading this post if discussions on such topics are triggering for you. If you are currently dealing with sexual violence, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-4673.
Catharine MacKinnon is the ultimate public intellectual. A prominent radical feminist American legal scholar, MacKinnon has created transformative legal innovations that strive for gender equality. She has grappled with sexual harassment, rape, prostitution, sex trafficking, and pornography within the framework of the law. Catharine MacKinnon’s contributions to feminist legal theory has been instrumental to the United States, especially for women who have encountered sexual harassment. MacKinnon’s book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination was pivotal in establishing the legal claim that sexual harassment is sex discrimination. Her book, Are Women Human?: And Other International Dialogues discusses the transnational status and treatment of women in a gendered critique of the international plane. Her brilliant contributions to the public sphere have illuminated the ways in which women have been made to be subordinate through sexual exploitation.
Catharine MacKinnon has transformed the legal world by opening up numerous legal systems to the unique experiences and injuries women experience in a society where there is a male and masculine bias. However, MacKinnon’s work is not without controversy. MacKinnon has radical opinions on the societal and legal issues that perpetuate sex discrimination. She is critical of pornography and sex work, maintaing that their existence leaves women at a stalemate for progress. Despite criticisms of her approach, MacKinnon offers compelling insight into what it would mean to propel towards a world where women are more than what they offer to men, towards the ideals of equality democracy clings to with white knuckles. Despite her work being grounded in legal theory and sociological analysis, her advocacy for women is ignited by an almost religious conviction in the dignity of all human beings, the foundation of liberal society.
In this post, I will illuminate Catharine McKinnon’s most influential contributions to the public sphere. I will analyze MacKinnon’s works on sexual harassment, pornography, and prostitution. Additionally, I will highlight the controversy around her positions, showcasing how being a public intellectual in critical legal theory welcomes criticism from various opposing sides. Through dissecting Catharine MacKinnon’s approach to feminism in the law, I will show that, in MacKinnon's view, women will continue to be subject to discrimination and violence until the law adequately addresses their sexual exploitation. To strive for democratic ideals of equality, non violence, and progress, advocacy for women must persist with the diligence and commitment MacKinnon embodies.
In 1979 Catharine MacKinnon published her influential legal scholarship pertaining to sexual harassment, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination. This book revolutionized how people viewed sex discrimination. In an article by The New York Times, the author Gina Bellafante illuminates the sort of dynamics at play within the workforce when MacKinnon wrote her book. Bellafante tells the story of a married, working man, Blake, who invited his secretary “Miss Lent, Miss Dent, or Miss Bent” (he did not know her name) for drinks . After a few drinks flowed, he ended up at his secretary’s apartment where they had a sexual encounter . The very next day, in a haze of regret and disgust, Blake fired his secretary because of her sloppy handwriting .
This sort of environment was pervasive for women in the workforce in the 70’s when MacKinnon began cultivating her legal theory on harassment. In her book, MacKinnon characterizes how women were viewed as wives of the workplace. They were assigned organizational tasks; they were “ego builders.” MacKinnon argues, “women tend to be economically valued according to men’s perceptions of their potential to be sexually harassed” . Thus, women’s positions in the work place, oftentimes, were dependent on the amount of sexual pleasure they could evoke. When they ceased to be useful for these roles, or after the pleasure of their company faded, women were discarded as objects. Sexual harassment was seen as something women just had to live through, it wasn’t seen as discrimination or a human rights violation, and there was no legal remedy for it.
Catharine Mackinnon changed this. She served as co-counsel in a pivotal case, Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson. In a unanimous Supreme Court opinion, the Court found that sexual harassment is sex discrimination which is prohibited under Title IX, and is actionable. In fact, The Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission reported that sexual harassment cases grew from 10 cases being registered per year before 1986 to 624 cases being reported in the subsequent following year. The number of reported cases rose to 2,217 in 1990 and then 4,626 by 1995. This case was only the beginning, nowadays, businesses invest in sexual harassment seminars, students are taught about sexual harassment as early as in elementary school. Thus, MacKinnon is an essential figure in fighting for women’s rights against sexual harassment.
Catharine MacKinnon argues that unequal power dynamics between men and women will continue to persist in all of its forms, sexual harassment included, until the sexual exploitation of women is controlled and eradicated. Mackinnon also advocates that a vehicle for implementing this needed change is through the law; she expresses that there are ways to manipulate constitutional amendments, and laws to create that protect women from sexual exploitation forcefully.
Pornography and prostitution are two major forces of sexual exploitation that Mackinnon discuses in detail. Both of these systems, that are so ingrained into society, leave women at the bottom, subjecting them to perpetual abuses and violence. In Mackinnon’s article on pornography, she illuminates how “depictions of subordination tend to perpetuate subordination. The subordinate status of women in turn leads to affront and lower pay at work, insult and injury at home, battery and rape on the streets.” Thus, violent depictions of women in pornography’s persistence, and prostitution’s persistence can only perpetuate feminine subordination.
While her goals to eradicate violence against women seem unsurmountable, Mackinnon’s steadfast, almost religious belief and aggressive advocacy for this change, is the cornerstone of democratic ideals. Professor Stephen Mack from the University of Southern California highlights,
American democracy has always depended on public figures—and public intellectuals—whose work has been animated by strong faith. Billy Graham’s efforts to promote racial harmony during the 1950s, and Reinhold Neibuhr’s work for economic justice throughout his career come quickly to mind. A deep religious sensibility has the power to make us feel a real kinship with others. And kinship tempers self-interest.
What Mackinnon fosters in her discussions on sexual exploitation is a kinship with women and with the feminine. Women have long been silenced; their voices were unwelcome in the endless pursuit for democratic ideals. Backed by brilliant intellect, and a reverence for the plight of human beings, Mackinnon became a voice for voiceless women bombarded by violence, struggling for safety. Like Billy Graham’s efforts and Reinhold Neibuhr’s work, Mackinnon’s radical critiques are grounded by the ideals she holds to be sacred: women deserve equality, women deserve to feel and to be safe.
MacKinnon accredits pornography as a major contributor to perpetual violence against women. Pornography addictions have been cited as insanity pleas for rape and murder. In fact, the serial killer Ted Bundy attributed the birth of his desire to murder to his insatiable porn addiction. These mere facts alone suggest that there is some problem with it. Mackinnon brings forward, “ for more than three decades, researchers have documented that [pornography] desensitizes consumers to violence and spreads rape myths and other lies about women’s sexuality. In doing so, it normalizes itself, becoming ever more pervasive, intrusive and dangerous, surrounding us ever more intimately, grooming the culture so that it becomes hard even to recognize its harms.” MacKinnon has been a forceful advocate against the harms that she sees, the harms she sees are undeniable. Mackinnon states plainly “we are living in the world pornography has made.” One study conducted to measure men’s propensity for violence towards women found that “men who were more frequently exposed to pornography, men’s magazines, and reality TV were more likely to perceive women as sex objects than men who were less frequently exposed to these media. And, men who were more apt to perceive women as sex objects were also more likely to agree with statements such as ‘Sometimes the only way a man can get a cold woman turned on is to use force’ and ‘A woman who is stuck-up and thinks she is too good to talk to guys on the street deserves to be taught a lesson.’”
Pornography pushes power dynamics that cause real harm. Women are being brutalized for pleasure, and this brutalization extends into exchanges in daily life. Yet, pornography is widely protected speech. MacKinnon advocates for an aggressive approach to pornography; she thinks it ought to be banned or regulated by the government as a form of hate speech or obscenity. She argues for this regulation because she sees a paradox where society condemns rape and murder, but not the underlying systems that cause rape and murder. As a society, she urges, we do not have to wait for a life to be lost. Instead, we should go to the root of the problem, and find solutions there.
MacKinnon’s stance on pornography is that it ought to be banned or limited in some way. However, she has gained criticism on this absolutist approach. Legal scholars, and the general public fear what it would mean to limit speech and ideas. This creates a major problem. Without widespread approval, it is highly unlikely that pornography can just be done away with, especially given the explosion of the internet. However, there is something that can remedy the debate in a way that is not entirely superficial. One way to get to the root of the issue in pornography, how it objectifies women, is through media literacy. Using media literacy on adolescents to explain that the sexual encounters in porn are not real reduces the likelihood they will view women as sexual objects. A study on media literacy for adolescents on pornography found that “individuals who learned from porn literacy education at schools showed no relationship between sexually explicit internet material (SEIM) use and notions of women as sex objects." While media literacy will not eliminate the systemic oppression of sexual violence perpetrated against women, the data is a beacon of hope that a compromise is possible.
Catharine Mackinnon also takes a strong stance against prostitution as an institution, and she has made incredible contributions to the international sphere on this topic. Currently, the debate on prostitution takes two positions: one of the autonomous sex worker who engages in consensual sexual encounters and is liberated by his or her sexual autonomy, the other is the prostitute who is destitute of opportunity, using the annihilation of her body to survive. While there is increased discourse on how sex work can lead to sexual liberation for women, the harsh reality is the vast majority of women engaging in the institution of prostitution are battered by the former position. MacKinnon illuminates this reality. She argues “women in prostitution are denied every imaginable civil right in every imaginable and unimaginable way.” Thus, the continuation of prostitution is a civil rights violation; they cannot exist together. In a world where freedom and peace is ideal, this is a major problem. However, MacKinnon fights for a solution. She has assisted in creating new policy in Sweden, The Nordic Model of Prostitution, that discourages prostitution in such a way where prostitutes are decriminalized, and solicitors of prostitution face more than just an infraction fine. The Nordic model decriminalizes all who are prostituted, provides resources for those who wish to exit prostitution, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offense. This model reduces the demand that drives prostitution as an institution. MacKinnon is adamant that “ending prostitution by ending the demand for it is what sex equality under law would look like.” The implementation of this innovative model across the globe would substantially reduce the demand for prostitution, and could be responsible for saving millions of lives. The Nordic model has been widely accepted, and successful thus far. It has gotten countries like Sweden one step closer to gender equality.
Catharine MacKinnon’s contributions to women in society and the law exemplify what it means to be a public intellectual. Not only has she created legal innovations that help women across the globe, she has refused to relent in her pursuit of what is sacred: equality, peace, non violence. Despite criticisms and controversy, MacKinnon’s fight is for all people. Through her various positions on sexual exploitation, her central argument is the humanity and dignity of all human beings. She is grounded and ignited by her reverence for democratic ideals: equality and progress. The fervor and zeal of her work “enlarges our sense of justice, moving it beyond a concern for individuals alone toward a personal investment in the well being of our countrymen.” Mackinnon has lit a match in a dark room. While women suffered in silence, MacKinnon cultivated legal theories and fostered debates that became loud. She has made monumental strides for the betterment of women, from this, the betterment of society. From all walks of life, people aspire to dreams of equality, peace, and dignity that are intrinsic. MacKinnon has opened the floodgates to moving toward this ideal, and continues to do so.
