Catharine A. MacKinnon
Born in 1946
Feminism
Law
Catharine A. MacKinnon is a prominent legal scholar and feminist theorist.
She holds professorships at the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, with degrees from Smith College and Yale.
MacKinnon's work focuses on sex equality issues in domestic and international law.
She pioneered legal claims for sexual harassment and developed influential approaches to equality, pornography, and hate speech.
MacKinnon co-created ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation and the Swedish model for abolishing prostitution.
Her work has been particularly influential in Canada and internationally.
In 2000, she won a landmark case recognizing rape as an act of genocide, representing Bosnian women survivors of Serbian atrocities.
