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Catharine MacKinnon is a feminist legal theorist, activist, and professor of law at the University of Michigan. She is recognised internationally for her innovations in the area of sexual harassment legislation and for her controversial Minneapolis ordinance on pornography. That a hostile work environment can be understood to constitute sexual harassment, and that sexual harassment itself is considered a form of discrimination under American law, is due largely to MacKinnon's efforts. Representations of 'woman' have been linked to images of insanity throughout the history of western thought and culture. Feminists understand the impact of these dominant assumptions as an important factor in the historical overrepresentation of women in mentally ill populations. Jane Roland Martin introduced philosophy of education to feminist theorists and feminist theory to philosophers of education. Martin identifies an epistemological inequality in contemporary analytic philosophy of education that excludes, distorts, and devalues women as subjects and objects of educational thought.