Only Words (book)
Only Words is a 1993 book by Catharine MacKinnon. In this work of feminist legal theory, MacKinnon contends that the U.S. legal system has used a First Amendment basis to protect intimidation, subordination, terrorism, and discrimination as enacted through pornography, violating the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overview Only Words was originally presented as the Christian Gauss Memorial Lectures in Criticism in April 1992 at Princeton University, and were later developed and clarified at the Columbia Legal Theory workshop and at the Owen Fiss Feminist Legal Theory class at Yale University. It is divided into three discussions: (1) Defamation and Discrimination, (2) Racial and Sexual Harassment, and (3) Equality and Speech. Defamation and discrimination MacKinnon argues that women's reality of systemic subordination is just that: real, not an abstract representation mediated through pornography or academic deconstruction. In support of this contention, she points out, "Thirty-eight percent of women are sexually molested as girls; twenty-four percent of women are raped in their marriages. Nearly half of women are raped or are the victims of attempted rape at some time during their lives. Eighty-five percent of women who work outside the home are sexually harassed by their employers." According to