News Releases
Valparaiso Law to host sex equality expert
Thursday, March 13, 2008
One of the world’s foremost experts on gender equality issues under international law will present the Valparaiso University School of Law’s 25th annual Edward A. Seegers Lecture on March 28.
Dr. Catharine MacKinnon, a widely published author who works with the international women’s rights organization Equality Now, will discuss “Women’s Status, Men’s States” at 4 p.m. in Wesemann Hall (656 S. Greenwich St.), with a reception to immediately follow. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public.
Dr. MacKinnon will discuss the masculinity of nations as an overlooked and crucial dimension of international politics and survey the status of women around the world during her lecture. She also will explain her conclusion that international approaches to women’s rights offer a distinctive promise for addressing inequality of the sexes.
Dr. MacKinnon, Long professor of law at the University of Michigan, pioneered the legal claim for sexual harassment and helped create ordinances recognizing pornography as a civil rights violation. She represented Bosnian women survivors of Serbian sexual atrocities as co-counsel in Kadic v. Karadzic, which first recognized rape as an act of genocide and resulted in a damage award of $745 million in 2000. Her books include “Sex Equality,” “Toward a Feminist Theory of the State,” “Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws” and “Are Women Human?”
The lecture is named in honor of the late Edward A. Seegers, a Chicago attorney who was generous in his support of Valparaiso, including contributions for scholarships and buildings. He also endowed a law school professorship in honor of his parents.
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