According to Katharine MacKinnon, women have never been considered wholly human. Starting from this standpoint, this paper argues that patriarchal violence creates the conditions in which women’s humanity is particularly and actively vilified, attacked and denied. In the context of male domestic violence, sexual aggressions, and prostitution, women are treated as objects or animals, their auto-determination is impeded, thwarted their feelings are ignored; in prostitution they are also considered fungible and commodified. When women look for help or justice, they risk to be further de-humanized, for their testimony is still considered as less credible than their aggressor’ testimony. There is today some hints of an increasing social awareness of women’s dehumanization: it is hoped that will be a step in the path to be considered and treated as human beings.
