Catharine mackinnon biography template

In the USA a small number of unsuccessful workplace sexual harassment law suits were brought in the mid-1970s, with African-American women – Paulette Barnes, Margaret Miller and Diane Williams – playing a leading role as claimants. A key turning point came in 1976, in response to further litigation pursued by Diane Williams, when a federal judge held that ‘sexual advances coupled with retaliation for their refusal constituted actionable sex discrimination’ (Mackinnon, p63). In 1980 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the USA issued guidelines (influenced by Mackinnon’s legal work) stating that that civil rights’ legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in employment also rendered harassment unlawful (Mackinnon, 5-6).

In the UK the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 did not directly mention sexual harassment but it did make it unlawful to treat a woman ‘less favourably’ than a man ‘on the ground of her sex’ or, in relation to employment, to subject ‘her to any other detriment’

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Catharine

A.

MacKinnon

MacKinnon pioneered the legal claim for sexuell harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation and the Swedish model (Equality 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, MacKinnon, along with her co-counsel, won 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.

Among the schools at which she has taught are Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Harvard, Osgoode Hall (Toronto), Basel (Switzerland), Hebrew University (Jerusalem), and Columbia. She was awarded residential fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study, Stanford, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berl

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Catharine A. MacKinnon

American feminist scholar and legal activist

For the Canadian actress and singer, see Catherine McKinnon. For the comedic actress and former Saturday Night Live cast member, see Kate McKinnon.

Catharine A. MacKinnon
MacKinnon at the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, 2006
Born	Catharine Alice MacKinnon (1946-10-07) October 7, 1946 (age 78) Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Education	Smith College (BA) Yale University (MSL, JD, PhD)
Influences	Andrea Dworkin, August Bebel, György Lukács, Karl Marx, Simone de Beauvoir
Discipline	Legal scholar
Institutions	University of Michigan York University University of Minnesota
Main interests	Radical feminism, socialist feminism, feminist legal theory
Influenced	Andrea Dworkin, Martha Nussbaum

Catharine Alice MacKinnon (born October 7, 1946) is an American feminist legal scholar, activist, and author. She is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michi