Catharine MacKinnon, "Trafficking, Prostitution, and Inequality"

International Women’s Human Rights: Paradigms, Paradoxes, and Possibilities, a Sawyer Seminar organized by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, addresses contradictions within the concept and practice of women’s human rights. The year-long program will include public lectures, symposia, faculty seminars, an undergraduate workshop and a large international conference in spring quarter, “Engendering Rights in India: The Colonial Encounter and Beyond.” Made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Catharine A. MacKinnon, Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, specializes in sex equality issues under international and constitutional law. She pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and, with Andrea Dworkin, created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation and the Swedish model for addressing prostitution. The Supreme Court of Canada has largely accepted her approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech.

This talk was recorded November 14, 2011.