Why did Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin campaign against sexual harassment and pornography?

Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin campaigned against sexual harassment and pornography because they viewed these practices as fundamental mechanisms of inequality that foster the subordination, exploitation, and abuse of women.12

MacKinnon pioneered the legal argument that sexual harassment in the workplace constitutes sex discrimination, a position eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her work centered on a concept of equality predicated on eliminating dominance rather than merely enforcing sameness.1

Similarly, Dworkin identified pornography as a primary weapon used by men to control women. Together, MacKinnon and Dworkin argued that pornography violates civil and human rights. They drafted a controversial ordinance that defined pornography as a form of sex discrimination, which would have allowed victims of sexual assault to sue producers and distributors if a specific work could be proven as a direct cause of the violence. Their efforts were driven by the ethical conviction that the legal system must be opened to address the injuries women face and to expose the gendered basis of sexual abuse.21