MacKinnon's Objection to the Theory and
Practice of Human Rights
Only rights that protect
men have been extended to women.
Important rights that affect women only have been invisible. "Atrocities committed against women are
either too human to fit the notion of female or too female to fit the notion of
human."(p. 528)
What does this mean[WJT1] ?
MacKinnon thinks that
there are many kinds of invisible human rights violations against women:
(2) rape
(for more on the history, see Susan Brownmiller, Against
Our Will[WJT3] );
(3) prostitution[WJT4] ;
(4) pornography[WJT5] .
RAPE AS A HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATION
The Bosnia-Herzogovina
example: "[T]he rapes are an
instrument of war."(531) Ethnic cleansing: Rape
as genocide. At the time, there was no
precedent for trying sexual atrocities in international law[WJT6] .
Even the U.N. troops
committed rape[WJT7] .
Prosecutions in Bosnia-Herzogovina were the result of women from outside the
country taking a role in interviewing victims.
Human rights develop when a group that has previously been silenced finds
a voice.
THE CRUCIAL ANALOGY: The analogy between violence in a civil war
and violence in the private sphere:
state sovereignty and family sovereignty. ("A man's home is his castle[WJT8] .")
Conclusion: "[V]iolence against women violates human rights."(540)
HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE PRIVATE
SPHERE: RAO ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
1. The "two spheres" theory makes a
sharp distinction between public (outside the family) and private (within the
family) spheres[WJT9] .
2. The limitation of rights to the public
sphere. (For more, see Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family[WJT10] .)
3. The problem of invisible human rights
violations in the private sphere.
Need to reconceptualize the private
realm "as a legitimate area of human rights concern at the highest
level"(507[WJT11] )
Issue: Is the problem a conceptual problem in the content of
human rights theory or is it a problem in the application of the theory (what Rao calls
a “strategic inadequacy”)?
ANDROCENTRICITY: A PROBLEM OF BLINDNESS IN HUMAN RIGHTS THEORY
OR IN HUMAN RIGHTS THEORISTS?
1. Rao's
argument concerning torture[WJT12] . Here Rao echoes
MacKinnon's argument that torture is "too human to fit the notion of
female". Is her problem with the AI
definition or with its application?
2. Rao's
ambivalence about the individualism of human rights theory[WJT13] . Where
does she stand on the disagreement between Scales, Olsen, and Pateman?
3. Rao's
argument against the abstractness of human rights theory, constructed around
the "denatured, dehistoricized, disembodied, disembedded,
individual self"(p. 516[WJT14] )
The example of Rawls's Original Position
behind the 'veil of ignorance'.
Consider a further generalization of Rawls’s idea: The Intergalactic Original Position. Explain why it makes sense to think of the
self in the intergalactic original position as a "denatured, dehistoricized, disembodied, disembedded,
individual self". Is this a
problem, from a moral point of view?
4. The Two
Spheres: Public and Private[WJT15] . Rao's argument on
the status of the family in human rights documents: There is a large category of rights missing
from the UNUDHR[WJT16] .
5. Does Rao think the problem is better understood as a
"conceptual contradiction" or "strategic inadequacy[WJT17] " (523)? What
do you think?
[WJT1]See 527
[WJT2]527
[WJT3]the main topic of this article
[WJT4]536
[WJT5]537;
with Andrea Dworkin:
[WJT6]531
[WJT7]529
(letter from Natalie Nenardic) and 537; the current
example from
[WJT8]All
rape is a human rights violation: the
example of Muktaran Bibi in
Violence against women by intimate partners is the larger human rights violation.
[WJT9]507; also discussed on pp. 514-516 and 518.
[WJT10]Published 1989: criticism of Rawls: basic institutions, but assumed households 1971; 1993 he acknowledged that theory applies to family, but said nothing about it; finally in 2001 he addressed the family in "Justice as Fairness".
[WJT11]Talbott 93-94 on violence against women;
1997: 1/3 of ER visits by women;
Joyner v. Joyner;
Mehrangiz Kar
in
referee for my manuscript.
[WJT13]Ann Scales 509 and "nomads". Response: Frances Olsen: 509; Pateman on the logical alliance between liberalism and feminism 515.
[WJT14]Explain each term.
[WJT15]507
[WJT16]Read
from 518-519. marital
rape, domestic violence, contraception, rights against husband, etc.;
[WJT17]523