Catherine MacKinnon--Only Words
Along with other mere words like “not guilty” and “I do,” such words are uniformly treated as the institutions and practices they constitute, rather than as expressions of ideas they embody or further….Words unproblematically treated as acts in the inequality context include “you’re fired,” “help wanted—male,” “sleep with me and I’ll give you an A,” “fuck me or you’re fired,”…These statements are discriminatory acts and are legally seen as such.
Pornography makes the world a pornographic place through its making and use, establishing what women are said to exist as, are seen as, are treated as, constructing the social reality of what a woman is and can be in terms of what can be done to her, and what a man is in terms of doing it.