Liberalism and the Death of Feminism

by Catharine A. MacKinnon

Once there was a women's movement. I first heard about it from the liberated issue of Rat, which Robin Morgan and a collective of intrepid women put together by taking over an underground newspaper on which they had worked. What I learned from liberated Rat was that something that excluded women from equal participation, that denigrated women's voice, that silenced women's contribution, that did not take women seriously, that patronized women, that no matter what else that something did or didn't do, it had to be publicly repudiated at minimum, and at best taken over and transformed. I did not hear at that time that feminists had censored Rat, although no doubt some people thought so. To me, it was speech.

Genres: Feminism, Politics, Nonfiction

ebook

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Catharine A. MacKinnon is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (long-term). She holds a BA from Smith College, a JD from Yale Law School, and a PhD in political science from Yale, and specializes in sex equality issues under international and domestic (including comparative and constitutional) law.

Prof. MacKinnon pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation and the Swedish model for abolishing prostitution. The Supreme Court of Canada has largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech, which have been influential internationally as well. Representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian genocidal sexual atrocities, she won with co-counsel a damage award of $745 million in August 2000 in Kadic v. Karadzic under the Alien Tort Act, the first recognition of rape as an act of genocide.

(source: law.umich.edu)

Reviews

[Isabella (Feminist Reviews) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay, succinctly explains why liberalism will be the death of feminism. MacKinnon‘s sharp writing accurately describes how today we view rape, prostitution and pornography as a “choice” women make. Rather than see it for what it is; a combination of subjugation and socialisation. She explains how women are siding with the oppressors (men) instead of focusing on the true goal of feminism, which is to liberate all women.

[Caitlin]

powerful speach, I long for a feminist of this caliber for our generation. MacKinnon and similar scholars strongly emphasized the communal aspects of the feminist movement and how the rampant individualism pushed by liberal ideologies is our downfall, and this is a throughline evident in most areas of our lives. Our communities and compassion for our fellow humans will be what saves us.

"This was a movement that took women's side in everything. Of everything, it asked the question: "Is it good for women?" Each woman was all women in some way. Any woman who was violated was our priority. It was a deeply collectivist movement. In this movement, when we said "women, we," it had content. It didn't mean that we all had to be the same in order to be part of this common condition. That, in fact, was the genius, one of the unique contributions of this movement: it premised unity as much on diversity as on commonality. It did not assume that commonality meant sameness."

it's also important to remember that many feminists from this generation are TERFs and let it be known that i DO NOT FUCK WITH THAT SHIT! trans women are real women, gender is not binary, peace and luv y'all

[Aïsha]

I liked this! MacKinnon’s polemical tone and central claim that liberalism has actively hollowed out feminism by replacing grounded analysis with abstractions really does hold true. The myth of choice under constraint is more often than not a conceptual scam under our current material conditions, and what once functioned as tools to expose the subordination of women are convolutedly reabsorbed as alibis. I can’t fucking stand pornography debates where women’s material harm is somehow viewed as a “point of view” and male sexual entitlement is rebranded as civil liberty. I’ve said this before but I do find MacKinnon to come off as somewhat austere in much of her work regarding self contradiction, which is inevitable for even the truest of feminists. Feminism does not need to choose between epistemic humility and material analysis. I believe that navigating these conditions under patriarchy is often an indicator of aliveness amongst a late stage wreckage as opposed to false consciousness

[алики ✩ · Rating 4 out of 5]

liberalism is the enemy of women's rights, which are a collective reality and cannot be reduced to a matter based only on a "personal choice". Liberalism undeniably thrives on the illusion that women can somehow choose their oppression, their victimhood, or choose to enjoy it. It reduces sexual violence, abuse and violence to a matter of perception.

[nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

yh im all over this shit !!! Brilliant