The Lawyer Who Gave Sexual Harassment Its Name

A look back at the early career and contribution of lawyer and legal scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon. Her 1979 book, “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace,” was instrumental in transforming a kind of workplace abuse so common it was hardly recognizable into a social justice issue, and eventually into a cause of action. Seven years after its publication, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized sexual harassment as a Title VII violation, and almost 40 years later the status quo was roiled worldwide with the emergence of the #MeToo movement. Today MacKinnon credits that movement with advancing profound change of a sort that sporadic progress on the legal front could not quite bring home.