Are Women Human?

Read the introduction first! The answer seems to be: almost. If you're not up on currnent international law concerning women's rights and protections, MacKinnon has there some good news that will make reading the rest of the book slightly less than harrowing. As an incourigable Romantic myself, I find a good dose of hard realism tonic once in a while.

When Irigaray argued that women's feminine kind of humanity needs recongition and protection in the Law, the Convention of Belem do Para and the African Protocol are something like what she had in mind. That much is very clear. And, thus far into the book, Mac's that is, this seems like a very good thing to read.

Set aside ingrained and recieved notions that MacKinnon is somehow anti-sex or anti-men, and remember that what she's working on are the very basic ground levels of the ways in which societies prevent women's full humanity -- in this case before the Law, and thus in the culture on whole. Her premise is, it has been, and as is the case: we are what we tacitly condone.