Catherine MacKinnon, excerpts from "Introduction" and chapter on Torture  from Are Women Human? (2006) at http://www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/MACARE_excerpt.pdf

Warning.  Some of the examples MacKinnon uses in the excerpt from the chapter on Torture are graphic and disturbing.

1.  How does MacKinnon see a women’s model of human rights emerging out of events such as genocide and rape? (see especially p. 2)

2.  Why has it often been hard to have human rights atrocities recognized?  (p. 3)

“Put another way, human rights can be observed to be a response to atrocity denied. Before atrocities are recognized as such, they are authoritatively regarded as either too extraordinary to be believable or too ordinary to be atrocious.”  (3)

3.  How does MacKinnon see men as defining the universal?   What does she mean by saying the state is “an institution of male dominance” (3)?  How does male dominance then play out in international law and transnational forms?

4.   How does MacKinnon answer her own question, “Is gender a transnational force—both from the top down, ensuring male dominance, and, with women’s emergence as a global force, from the bottom up, challenging that dominance—that has long been largely overlooked?” (4)  MacKinnon writes, "State behavior that promotes and institutionalizes male dominance has been found to distinguish public from private, naturalize dominance as difference, hide coercion behind consent, and obscure sexual politics behind morality. (4)"  How does she see these four playing out on the international stage? Note:   She discusses this at length in the following pages.  How is sovereignty a concept that protects men in her view?

5.  Where and how has progress been made for women according to MacKinnon? See pp. 7-11. What does she mean by "the formal equality approach

6.  How does the fact/value split play into sex equality?  How do differences betwee CEDAW and CERD illustrate this?

7.  In the excerpts from the chapter on torture, how does MacKinnon define torture?  What is the double standard she sees?  Why does she see pronography and rape as political?   Why is power not just state power?  And, how can the state be complicit?

8.  Why are rape, torture, pornography, and battering of women paradigm cases for MacKinnon in the excerpts from the Introduction and the chapter on Torture?

9.  Even though these are relatively recent pieces, how do they fit into the category of "radical" feminism?

10.   After reading MacKinnon's ideas, what strengths and weaknesses do you see?

Note:   Many of MacKinnon's ideas about difference and dominance, can be seen in the chapter by the same name on e-reserve.