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More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse?
The cutting edge is where law and culture hurts, which is where MacKinnon operates in these essays on the transnational status and treatment of women. Taking her gendered critique of the state to the international plane, ranging widely intellectually and concretely, she exposes the consequences and significance of the systematic maltreatment of women and its systemic condonation. And she points toward fresh ways--social, legal, and political--of targeting its toxic orthodoxies.
MacKinnon takes us inside the workings of nation-states, where the oppression of women defines community life and distributes power in society and government. She takes us to Bosnia-Herzogovina for a harrowing look at how the wholesale rape and murder of women and girls there was an act of genocide, not a side effect of war. She takes us into the heart of the international law of conflict to ask--and reveal--why the international community can rally against terrorists' violence, but not against violence against women. A critique of the transnational status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights, this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared.
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This is not a bunch of hate-filled, venom-fuelled invective, as the work of others who deal with and confront similar subject matter has been called (notably, MacKinnon's friend and collaborator, the late Andrea Dworkin). It is an excellently written fact-based examination of the extent, and causes and effects of the systematic mistreatment of women on a global scale (for which the evidence is indisputable).
I found it a very depressing read, because it is dealing with subject matter so upsetting and depressing that it is more comfortable to look away and not think about it. On the positive side, MacKinnon's rationally-argued approach does provide a modicum of hope that the insidious and flawed beliefs that underly the perpetuation of the daily atrocities committed against women can be combatted in some measure by applying logical argument to the law, in particular human rights law. If we were brave enough to face the facts, we wouldn't need MacKinnon to question whether women are human - the facts of how women are treated by men, but also by governments and legal systems speak for themselves. Her argument is essentially that torture and murder is no way to treat a human being, that pornography, prostitution, rape, trafficking and so forth deny the humanity of those to whom it is done, and that these things are overwhelmingly (though not solely) done to women by men. It is simply not consistent to effectively condone these things by inaction, while at the same time claiming to seriously believe that women are human.
I found this book intellectually challenging - in particular, MacKinnon introduces and elucidates a (to me) novel approach to the notion of equality, which I am not smart enough to sum up adequately here, but which definitely makes the price of the book worthwhile. Essentially, she argues that the prevailing Aristotelian concept of equality (and its flip-side, difference) is inadequate, flawed and biased. Difference, of course, is relative, but historically, it is women who have systematically been viewed as "different" to the male norm - the fact that men are, by the same token "different" to the female norm has gone largely ignored, and this has formed the underpinning of what constitutes equality in prevailing thought - treating likes alike and unalikes unalike.
I liked too the mention of those who died on 9/11 in reference to the daily death toll of women killed by men in the USA alone. The number is the same. Round about 3000. She gives an interesting analysis of why it is that one set of 3000 deaths gets one massive unified response, and 365 others get very little effective response at all.
I fear I am not doing justice to this book - this review is a paltry shadow of a totally excellent mind-blowing read for those who have the courage and stamina to face an unpleasant and uncomfortable reality and seek to understand it, and/or who hope to effect change.
This book could change the world for the better, it's a must-read read.
Very easy to read too.
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