Reading Circle meets the 2nd and 4th Monday of the month at 4pm PST/7pm EST/12am UTC.
Reading Circle is a space for women to explore feminist literature as a group. Every week, we will read a short essay or excerpt of writing about feminist theory or women’s herstory, then discuss. Please read or listen to the text before each session, so we can come together for a thoughtful discussion!
About The Author
Catharine MacKinnon is known not only as an author, but also as a feminist lawyer and scholar. She has been a professor at the University of Michigan for many years and before that, she taught at York University in Canada. She has also been a visiting professor at many other schools around the world.
As a feminist lawyer and theorist, she has focused most of her career on sexual harassment/assault, prostitution/pornography and political theory. In her 1989 book Towards a Feminist Theory of the State, she delved into political theory, using radical feminist analysis to interrogate established political philosophies.
Along with Andrea Dworkin and other feminists, Catharine MacKinnon took on pornography as a civil rights issue in both legal battles and policy making. In 1983, the city of Minneapolis hired both MacKinnon and Dworkin to draft an anti-pornography civil rights ordinance as an amendment to the Minneapolis city human rights ordinance. It was initially successful but was eventually overturned as unconstitutional.
In Canada, she co-authored the brief for R v. Butler, arguing that pornography is hate propaganda. You can learn more about her legal arguments on the topics of pornography in her in 1993 book Only Words.
Recording
You can listen to a recording of this week's reading here.
Text
You can read this weeks text by following this link.
Our reading starts on page 19/253 and ends at the bottom of 29/253.
You can also download a PDF version here:
Key Concepts
Liberalism
Liberalism is a political philosophy and tradition that centers on the primacy of individual liberty, equality before the law, and the protection of civil and political rights. It asserts that a legitimate political order must be grounded in principles that allow individuals to freely pursue their chosen ends, tolerate diverse beliefs and lifestyles, and participate in a system of government that is accountable to its citizens. A liberal society typically features constitutional limits on state power, the rule of law, and institutions designed to protect freedoms such as speech, religion, and association.
Although interpretations of liberalism vary across time and context, the core values remain consistent: non-authoritarian governance, equal basic rights, and a framework that supports both personal autonomy and social cooperation. In economic terms, liberalism is often associated with competitive markets and private property, though there are different strands—classical, social, and neoliberal—that emphasize different balances between individual freedom and government intervention. (Oxford University Press, 2016.)
The Women's Liberation Movement
The women’s liberation movement was a grassroots feminist movement that emerged in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, as part of the broader second-wave feminist struggle for gender equality. It sought not only legal and political reforms but also a fundamental transformation of societal structures and cultural norms that upheld patriarchy and treated women as inferior in both public and private life. Liberationists emphasized that “the personal is political,” believing that personal experiences of sexism, from workplace discrimination to domestic roles, were rooted in broader systems of male dominance and required collective feminist action to change. (Women’s liberation movement, n.d.)
Reading Questions
- What are your initial thoughts about this essay?
- When the author explains what the women's movement was critical of, she describes these terrible acts being done to "us" and states that "we were critical." How does that affect the way her message comes across to you as a reader?
- Explain how you understand the author's criticism of the concept of "equality." Do you agree or disagree with her position?
- When the author describes "freedom," she is very direct, saying it is actually "the freedom to abuse." How do you think this should be addressed; through government, social, or other means?
- The author says that the reason the women's movement took those actions was that they valued women and wanted to know substantively where women were. Do you think most modern-day feminists are successful at balancing their analysis of systemic patriarchal power with their love for women?
- If the strength of the women's movement was its collectivism, unity, diversity, and commonality, why do you think liberal feminism has been so successful in its mischaracterization of it? What tools do liberal feminists use to undermine those core strengths?
- How do you think radical feminists can combat that fairly successful abstraction of "choice" in liberal feminist thinking?
- Why and how do you think the status quo of privacy and gender-neutral legal language conceals the modern reality of women's lives within the patriarchal household?
- On the last page, the author articulates how society and lawmakers are very aware of sex inequality and have many tools to maintain the status quo while giving the appearance of progress and "equality." What do you think feminists can do to shatter this illusion for others?
- What do you think a fearless, visible, energized, loud and self-loving "sex-based hope" looks like after reading this essay?
References
Code of Participation
If you have questions, please read and review our Feminist Code Of Participation.
