SOURCE: Hart, Vivien. Review of Feminism Unmodified, by Catharine A. MacKinnon. Journal of American Studies 23, no. 1 (April 1989): 147-48.

In the following review, Hart compliments Feminism Unmodified as a “tightly-argued, consistent and provoking work of social theory.”

MacKinnon is a feminist lawyer, first known (and widely applauded) for her role in winning recognition by American courts of sexual harassment as a legal claim. That principle was detailed and derived from her version of feminism in her first book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women, published by Yale in 1979. Since then she has been known, or perhaps notorious, above all for her collaboration with Andrea Dworkin to find a new legal route to the banning of pornography.

The present volume [Feminism Unmodified] is a collection of academic lectures and public speeches in which MacKinnon updates earlier causes, reports upon and justifies her recent activities and spells out the philosophy which inspires...