ABSTRACT
An overview and defense of the civil-rights approach to pornography that was first proposed in the United States in the 1980s by law professor Catharine A. MacKinnon and author Andrea Dworkin. They argued for local ordinances that would allow individuals harmed in the making, use, or distribution of pornography to bring suit in civil court. The chapter explains how this civil-rights approach to pornography would work: how and why this legislation was developed, what it would and wouldn’t do, how it differs—both legally and politically—from obscenity law, and how it could materially advance justice under the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.
