by Catharine A. MacKinnon
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Product Description
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.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 If not for class then not at all..., 2007-10-29
I want to state from the outset that I understand the importance of this book and Catharine A. McKinnon in general, but her ideas in this book will tend to be too extreme for even most radical liberals. I graduated from a fairly liberal California university, and we read this book in class, and students simply had a hard time connecting with McKinnon. She is so abrasive that she will tend to offend even those who agree with her. She is a feminist leader, and the reader should know that going in, but her writing style doesn't lend much to the reader in terms of being able to connect with her ideas through her writing.
Perhaps some readers will simply extrapolate her ideas and turn a deaf ear to her dismissive and accusatory tone, but her rape imagery, reaching analogies, and (at times) false logic will prove to be too much for many readers. There are many negative responses to this work from other leaders in the feminist movement and my classroom found it difficult to side with McKinnon's viewpoints in the wake of other more modern, convincing arguments.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Believe the people who review this book as unsound , 2007-07-12
Read those other reviews first. MacKinnon does indeed address a great deal of legal precedent but does not make meaningful interpretations of any of the data: sometimes it's as if she's citing the existence of the moon to infer that the sun should rise.
One thing to add is that MacKinnon never mentions the important differences between images and words where pornography is concerned. This is somewhat astonishing, given the title, but less astonishing given the underthought quality of the book and its guiding concepts as a whole. Passionate defense of women's rights can be important, but invoking righteous hysteria by strongly misdescribing facts is a misguided tactic toward that end.
2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Worthless, 2005-05-16
I bought this book because I was intrigued by the title. I expected a book that considered words used with criminal intent, in general.
I am disappointed that pornography is the only crime considered here. I wish the author had examined other kinds of cases--not to mention many many more specific examples. There is probably a wealth of legal material on such crimes, if only the author had broadened her horizons.
While I agree that pornography can be a crime, I find the author's arguments used to ban it fundamentally flawed. As other reviewers have noted, this book is argued poorly, uses a shoddy set of examples, and definitely runs afoul of logic.
Had I been interested in an anti-pornography book, I would have preferred one showing practical means to legally limit its damage.
This book does not argue cogently that the first and 14th amendments are NOT considered equally in cases of criminal use of words.
Neither does it effectively show that words can be criminal, or suggest means to prosecute such crimes. A pity.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
4 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
 115 pages of brilliant analysis, 2004-09-15
For so few words, MacKinnon really covers a tremendous amount of legal history, free speech precendent and experiential examples. The power of words is detailed better than a linguist could have done it, and the legal framework she argues from is backed up by citing real-world cases.
As i read I found myself shaking my head in agreement because she states her theories extraordinarily well and grounds them in truths most readers will be familiar with and able to recognize. Like a sign saying "Whites Only" is not considered "free speech" but is considered in itself an act of discrimination, breaking through the porn fundamentalist's tired excuse of "it's only words/images". Words have the power to promote prejudice, and in the modern technological age these words are a terrific force indeed.
Words and images contain real social content that can be really damaging to the humanity of certain classes of people when those with more power promote hate speech through them. That the legal system is set up by men for men's benefit comes across clearly with the history of rape law MacKinnon provides.
Isn't it odd that some people keep insisting snuff films don't exist without suggesting why men who videotape themselves raping women, killing animals, destroying property, etc. wouldn't videotape this crime as well? There are several court cases around the US where men have been convicted of murdering women and the videotapes they made doing it were entered as evidence at their trials. I've heard no cogent argument as to how, especially after Abu Ghraib, anyone could believe people really wouldn't do and record the horrors they visit on others.
This book is ahead of its time and should be considered must-read material for all lawyers and gender equity activists.
7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
lunatics like this are few and far between..., 2004-07-26
A joy to read. One is left wondering how a mind can get this obsessively warped. Mentions "snuff" porn on nearly every page - despite the fact that in over 30 years the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have never found a single shred of evidence. The only disturbing thing is that she actually has a doctorate - so much for university standards of integrity...
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