MacKinnon on Pornography, Free Speech, and Women's Rights

Introduction: Agreeing and Disagreeing with MacKinnon

I agree with much of what Catharine MacKinnon says about how women are abused on hard-core pornography websites, in magazines, and elsewhere. She is right to protest that crimes are committed by men who are deeply involved in viewing pornography on a daily basis, because some of those men hold the idea that it is acceptable to use women's bodies to relieve their carnal cravings. Violence against women should never be protected by the Constitution. Rape and child pornography are unconscionable acts of felony violence and should be punished accordingly.

However, I do not accept that all pornography should lose its protected status under the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Soft-core pornography photos and videos, and adult films using women who are willing to be portrayed in those media and are paid fairly and not harmed or degraded, should be protected. It is a woman's right to earn a living in any way she chooses, provided it is a legal occupation. If she wants to appear partially unclothed so that a website can attract men who are willing to pay to view those photos, who has the right to tell her she cannot do that?

Moreover, there are thousands of popular books, movies, television shows, and other forms of media in which soft-core pornography plays a role. Whether it is Joyce Carol Oates, Ernest Hemingway, a cable television program, or the Book of Solomon—which is itself quite sensual and explicit—one could define certain content in those media as soft-core pornography. I therefore differ from MacKinnon on some of her contentions, as noted above, but overall she raises important points, and her brilliant scholarly writing style is very impressive.

What Catharine MacKinnon Has to Say

Catharine MacKinnon begins her essay by building the argument that there is no equality between men and women, relating this specifically to the feminist movement. Her analysis moves from broad theoretical claims about feminism to a pointed critique of pornography's role in sustaining gender hierarchy.

MacKinnon on Feminism and Inequality

MacKinnon opens by asserting—in what she acknowledges is a cryptic formulation—that "feminism is the discovery that women do not live in this world, that the person occupying this realm is a man," especially if that man is white and wealthy. The privilege of belonging to this universe, she continues, is based on "gender," and the feminist movement has discovered that the "social content of humanism" has not been articulated from the woman's standpoint.

In a clearer passage on the first page of her essay, MacKinnon argues that feminism is the "first theory, the first practice, the first movement" to take the situation of every woman "seriously." Feminism, she explains, examines the position of women's social life "as a whole," which is the first time women's legal and social perspectives have been advanced as a theory of humanism.

It is important for her to establish this definition of feminism because, as the alert reader will understand, the media has sometimes made the concept of "feminism" appear to be the viewpoint of a special interest group, or the viewpoint and strategy of lesbians and bisexual women exclusively. Clarifying this at the outset of her essay prepares the reader to understand what drives her position on pornography.

Defining feminism "in a way that connects epistemology—the study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge—with power as the politics of women's point of view," she writes, can be "summed up by saying that women live in another world," and that world is not one of equality, but of inequality.

The First Amendment and Harm to Women

One of MacKinnon's main arguments is that while pornography is protected—in most cases, though not when child pornography is at issue—by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press, there is harm being done to women that has nothing to do with those freedoms. That harm becomes visible, she argues, when one examines the First Amendment's application and practical meaning closely. The person who argues that First Amendment protection for pornography is justified, she suggests, is actually authorizing males and the legal establishment to exercise power over sexuality and, as a result, to allow a woman's sexuality to be manipulated and abused.

Conclusion: Evaluating MacKinnon's Argument

MacKinnon has some powerful thoughts about the exploitation of women through pornography, and she is right on many points. But to suggest that because men watch soft-core pornography they are somehow indoctrinated to the point of wanting to commit rape is really carrying the argument to an extreme. Her insights about violent and coercive hard-core material are compelling and deserve serious legal consideration. Her broader claim, however, that all pornography operates as an instrument of gender oppression—including consensual soft-core content—requires a more carefully drawn distinction between exploitation and protected expression.

Works Cited

MacKinnon, Catharine. "Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech." Harvard Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Law Review, 1985.