  There is no single version of the feminist critique of privacy, yet it can be said in general that many feminists worry about the darker side of privacy, and the use of privacy as a shield to cover up domination, degradation and abuse of women and others. Many tend to focus on the private as opposed to the public, rather than merely informational or constitutional privacy. If distinguishing public and private realms leaves the private domain free from any scrutiny, then these feminists such as Catharine MacKinnon (1989) are correct that privacy can be dangerous for women when it is used to cover up repression and physical harm to them by perpetuating the subjection of women in the domestic sphere and encouraging nonintervention by the state. Jean Bethke Elshtain (1981, 1995) and others suggest that it appears feminists such as MacKinnon are for this reason rejecting the public/private split, and are, moreover, recommending that feminists and others jettison or abandon privacy altogether. But, Elshtain points out, this alternative seems too extreme.