Essays on Rape -- Catharine MacKinnon Susan Estrich Essays

Essays on Rape solitary(prenominal) Words, by Catharine MacKinnon is a allurement of three essays each essay argues her claim that sexual words and pictures should be censor instead of Constitutionally protected under the First Amendment as free oral communication. In her runner essay, Defamation and Discrimi republic, MacKinnon takes the stance that pornography is sex, and should non be treated as speech, but as a sexist act. She claims that pornography is an fulfil, just as, a sign saying White Only is only words, but it is seen as the act of segregation that it is.(MacKinnon 13) MacKinnon claims that other action words, such as death affrights, are banned, pornography should be banned as well. According to her essay, pornography violations women. First, the photographers select already victimized women to be photographed, and thereby re-victimizing them. Then each bit who views the pornography uses the ideas he attains from it to squelch his own sexual p stratagemn er to perform the acts in the pornography. In the mo essay, Racial and Sexual Harassment, MacKinnon states, if ever words have been understood as acts, it has been when they are sexual harassment.(MacKinnon 45) She explains how written words can have the equivalent effects on a reader as an action. They can chew out the same fear and violation as a physical threat of rape. In her final essay, Equality and Speech, MacKinnon suggests that the words as actions that she has describes in her antecedent essays should be subject to a group defamation lawsuit. She states that the Constitution protects speech that promotes sexual inequality. She feels that the Fourteenth Amendment should cover the discrimination allowed in the First Amendment.Susan Estrichs Real Rape is an essay preaching proposed changes in rape statutes. Estrich first describes, in great detail, the history of rape legislation in England. She follows clever cases through history, citing changes and analyzing t he effects of those changes. Estrich bases her findings on summaries, dissents, and other legal documentation. She then describes the current law, and evaluates how it has changed the way in which the court views rape. Throughout her essay, Estrich makes a distinction between classic rape and simple rape. She defines the former as aggravated rape by a stranger, and the latter as rape by a date or acquaintance. Estrich focuses on simple ... ... although it can be employ to hurt, it can also be used to bring aid and culture to those in need. Imposing limits on freedom of expression would dampen our nations uniqueness and suppress the voice of the people. Her idea that pornography acts as sex and can therefore be banned because it is no long-acting speech is ludicrous and rash. The repercussions of such an amendment would change our society to one of last-ditch government control. The examples that she gives to relate pornography to racism are limited in scope. She sugg ests that because Henri Matisses The Blue Nude(Matisse) portrays an unclothed female that a man may, in her words, get off on,(MacKinnon 58) it should be banned. The line between art and explicit pornography is not one that the government should be able-bodied to draw. The government should, however, protect victims from physical acts of rape as Susan Estrich describes. BibliographyEstrich, Susan. Real Rape. Cambridge, mummy Harvard University Press, 1987.MacKinnon, Catharine. Only Words. Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1993.Matisse, Henri. The Blue Nude. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.