Only Words (Cobe) - Hardcover

Mackinnon, Catharine A

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674639332 ISBN 13: 9780674639331

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1993

Synopsis

When is rape not a crime? When it's pornography--or so First Amendment law seems to say: in film, a rape becomes "free speech." Pornography, Catharine MacKinnon contends, is neither speech nor free. Pornography, racial and sexual harassment, and hate speech are acts of intimidation, subordination, terrorism, and discrimination, and should be legally treated as such. "Only Words" is a powerful indictment of a legal system at odds with itself, its First Amendment promoting the very inequalities its Fourteenth Amendment is supposed to end. In the bold and compelling style that has made her one of our most provocative legal critics, MacKinnon depicts a society caught in a vicious hypocrisy. Words that offer bribes or fix prices or segregate facilities are treated by law as acts, but words and pictures that victimize and target on the basis of race and sex are not. Pornography--an act of sexual domination reproduced in the viewing--is protected by law in the name of "the free and open exchange of ideas." But the proper concern of law, MacKinnon says, is not what speech says, but what it does. What the "speech" of pornography and of racial and sexual harassment and hate propaganda does is promote and enact the power of one social group over another. Cutting with surgical deftness through cases of harassment in the workplace and on college campuses, through First Amendment cases involving Nazis, Klansmen, and pornographers, MacKinnon shows that as long as discriminatory practices are protected as free speech, equality will be only a word.

About this title

Review

In "Only Words..".Catharine MacKinnon makes a compelling, lucid and concise argument for reframing the debate �over limiting pornography�. -- Nina Schuyler "California Lawyer" In this thoroughly documented work, MacKinnon traces America's obsession with expressive freedom to the trauma of the McCarthy era...An entertaining read as well as a challenge to take another look at what constitutes freedom of expression. In "Only Words," �MacKinnon� presents the most lucid and concise presentation of her argument that porn is more than just words...Her argument is making significant legal inroads and, to understand where she would like to take us, "Only Words" provides a clear road map. In her most cogent and accessible book to date...MacKinnon lashes absolutists who maintain that all forms of expression including pornography and hate propaganda should be constitutionally protected. MacKinnon counters that pornography and hate messages do the same thing: enact the abuse. �This book� will almost certainly reconfigure the national debate over pornography, harassment, free speech, and equality. It merits careful study by scholars in rhetoric, communication, free speech, women's studies, and law--in fact, by anyone wishing to participate in the political and legal process as an informed citizen. -- Lester Olson "Quarterly Journal of Speech" In "Only Words,.".Catharine MacKinnon makes a compelling, lucid and concise argument for reframing the debate [over limiting pornography]. -- Nina Schuyler "California Lawyer" Three passionate, intellectually fascinating essays...[MacKinnon's] ideas are original and gripping, her references are wide-ranging, her legal logic is provocative--and her latest is must reading for anyone interested in either fairness or free speech. In "Only Words," [MacKinnon] presents the most lucid and concise presentation of her argument that porn is more than just words...Her argument is making significant legal inroads and, to understand where she would like to take us, "Only Words" provides a clear road map. "Only Words" is a deftly crafted indictment of an absolutist free-speech doctrine that is applied hypocritically and inconsistently to protect pornography and other acts of inequality.--Amy Willard Cross "Toronto Globe & Mail " MacKinnon's book is an eloquent plea to Americans to move beyond what she sees as the prejudiced limitations of current doctrine, in particular of current liberal doctrine.--Bernard Williams "London Review of Books " Only words, yet look at the responses, look at the rage directed toward the professor. These responses and the anger and fear that lurk within them have in a sense become part of the text of "Only Words"; to read them is to read a part of what MacKinnon aimed to show...MacKinnon's words have engendered real abuse, directed at her as a woman. In short, she has proved her point.--David C. Dinielli "Michigan Law Review " This little book might as well come with a fuse and matches, lighting a fire as it does under the complacent acceptance of pornography and inequality, racial and sexual, in this country.--Susan Salter Reynolds "Los Angeles Times " [This book] will almost certainly reconfigure the national debate over pornography, harassment, free speech, and equality. It merits careful study by scholars in rhetoric, communication, free speech, women's studies, and law--in fact, by anyone wishing to participate in the political and legal process as an informed citizen.--Lester Olson "Quarterly Journal of Speech " In "Only Words"...Catharine MacKinnon makes a compelling, lucid and concise argument for reframing the debate [over limiting pornography].--Nina Schuyler "California Lawyer "

From the Back Cover

Catharine MacKinnon depicts a society caught in a vicious hypocrisy, in which the law of equality and the law of freedom of speech are on a collision course. Equality laws, which are beginning to address harms to the powerless through speech, conflict with older laws of free expression, which effectively protect the speech of racists and pornographers, and do nothing for their victims.

'Only Words' exposes the role of speech in perpetuating inequality and envisions the role of quality in speech. MacKinnon shows that as long as discriminatory practices are protected as free speech, and the law silences and denies the voices of abused women, equality will be only a word.

'Her larger arguments, ablaze with all her characteristic fury about sexuality and violence, about the relationship between racism and misogyny, about vulnerability and voicelessness, are of pressing urgency'
MARINA WARNER, 'Independent on Sunday'

'An eloquent plea to move beyond the prejudiced limitations of current doctrine'
BERNARD WILLIAMS, 'London Review of Books'

'Those of us who have on liberal grounds heavily criticised our own law as too restrictive and anti-libertarian must now consider the position afresh in the light of these new arguments'
NEIL MACCORMICK, 'Times Literary Supplement'

'MacKinnon fuses legal theory, disturbing case histories, and emotive analogies, with realistic analysis of our different society and idealistic visions for the future, the whole is impressive.'
NATASHA WALTER, 'Independent'

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674639332
• ISBN 13: 9780674639331
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 112