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Why Women: Judging Transnational Courts And Tribunals, Bridget J. Crawford, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Calls for greater representation of women on the bench are not new. Many people share the intuition that having more female judges would make a difference to the decisions that courts might reach or how courts arrive at those decisions. This hunch has only equivocal empirical support, however. Nevertheless legal scholars, consistent with traditional feminist legal methods, persist in asking how many women judges there are and what changes might bring more women to the bench. This essay argues that achieving diversity in international courts and tribunals – indeed on any bench – will not happen simply by having more …

California Dreaming?, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Over the past few years, California became the setting for shocking tales of sex inequality and abuse in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Decades after women achieved educational parity. men still run the corporate world. In response to these stories exposed by the #MeToo movement, California joined the transnational corporate board quota movement by converting its voluntary quota into a hard one. Will California's first mover status overcome constitutional objections and inspire other jurisdictions to act. Or is just Utopian dreaming, California-style? This Essay argues that despite its many flaws, the quota may succeed in curbing male over-representation on corporate boards. …

The Devil You Don’T Know: Implicit Bias Keeps Women In Their Place, Michele N. Struffolino

Pace Law Review

While men’s claims of gender bias in the family law system are acknowledged, this article focuses on how bias, whether implicit or explicit under the guise of unconscious attitudes or behavior, continues to place women at a systemic disadvantage. Although implicit bias also impacts outcomes in child abuse and neglect actions involving the state, the focus of this article is the impact of implicit bias in actions between women and men in the family courts, in particular those issues involved in the dissolution of the relationship and the family unit. First, the emergence of implicit social cognition theory will be …

When Does Sex Diversity On Boards Benefit Firms?, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Firms embrace diversity, especially with regard to sex. Overtly optimistic predictions of a diversity dividend, some built on sex stereotypes, lead these firms to count on profits that may never materialize. This Article attempts to reset the agenda on how to study corporate board diversity. We can only assess if and how sex diversity yields benefits by understanding the who, what, and where of diversity. Whether sex diversity produces a "diversity dividend" depends on three key factors: ( 1) the nature of the benefit of including women (whether for their experience or other qualities); (2) the kind of firm and …

More Than A Woman: Insights Into Corporate Governance After The French Sex Quota, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In 2011, France enacted a Corporate Board Quota to establish a forty percent floor for either sex on corporate boards. Existing literature presumes that women will change the way firms function and that their presence in upper management will improve both governance and financial returns. To assess the potential impact of the quota, we interviewed twenty-four current and former corporate board members. Our analysis of these interviews generates two findings. First, our results indicate that, at least in the view of board members, the sex quota has had an impact on the process of board decision-making, but adding women has …

Portability, Marital Wealth Transfers, And The Taxable Unit, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Prior to 2011, the most efficient estate tax planning for married couples required a minimal level of asset equalization. In order to take maximum advantage of all existing wealth transfer tax exemptions and credits, each spouse needed to own, in an estate tax sense, enough assets to be able to fully utilize the estate tax credit or applicable exemption. This changed with the enactment of estate tax portability in the Economic Growth and Economic Recovery and Relief Act of 2011, which became permanent under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. “Portability” refers to the ability of a surviving spouse …

Norway’S Companies Act: A 10-Year Look At Gender Equality, Kristen Carroll

Pace International Law Review

This analysis assesses the amendment to Norway’s Companies Act, in light of the 10-year anniversary of the mandate of female representation on corporate boards. First, I discuss the implementation of the quota, Section 6-11a. Second, I compare three statistical studies that analyze the effects of the quota on corporate profitability, overall firm performance, and the changing dynamics of the managerial positions. Finally, I evaluate the various avenues to fully achieving diversity, such as the successes and failures of a quota-type system and possible initiatives that governments and companies can enact to achieve gender-balance in the workplace. While some hypothesize that …

Corporate Governance Sex Regimes: Peripheral Thoughts From Across The Atlantic, Horatia Muir Watt

Pace International Law Review

The very recent and highly mediatized “Declaration of the 343 Salauds”, where 343 (male) signatures in support of prostitution in a form designed to echo the highly significant declaration of as many women in 1971 in favor of the legalization of abortion, sheds particularly interesting light upon debate about sex regimes in connection with French law. France has recently introduced compulsory quotas for women in corporate boards after imposing la parité for public appointments. A comparative perspective, confronting this recent legislative development from across the Atlantic with policy views on affirmative action and philosophical conceptions of diversity in the United …

Gender Quotas For Corporate Boards: Options For Legal Design In The United States, Anne L. Alstott

Pace International Law Review

Recently, U.S. activists, scholars, and policy makers have turned their attention to one notable effort to address the gender gap in management: gender quotas for corporate boards of directors. Twelve European countries have pioneered quotas in this context. France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium now have mandatory quotas ranging from 30%-40%. Spain, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Austria, and Slovenia have voluntary quotas, and Germany and the EU are considering legislation to mandate quotas. Gender quotas for corporate boards represent an intriguing option, even if the case for quotas is not airtight. The argument for gender quotas rests on a …

Gender Diversity On Corporate Boards: How Racial Politics Impedes Progress In The United States, Cheryl L. Wade

Pace International Law Review

The excellent conference organized by Darren Rosenblum comparing global approaches to board diversity inspired me to think about how progress in this context has unfolded in the United States. Even though the issue of diversity on corporate boards has become a global issue, few U.S. boards have moved beyond mere tokenism when it comes to female directors. One reason for the lack of diversity among corporate directors is that board selection has been based on membership in a particular network. This essay, however, focuses on the persisting problem of discrimination—a more invidious explanation for the fact that very few corporate …

A Difficult Conversation: Corporate Directors On Race And Gender, Kimberly D. Krawiec, John M. Conley, Lissa L. Broome

Pace International Law Review

This symposium essay summarizes our ongoing ethnographic research on corporate board diversity. This research is based on fifty-seven interviews with corporate directors and a limited number of other persons of interest (including institutional investors, executive search professionals, and proxy advisors) regarding their views on race and gender diversity in the boardroom.

Using a method rooted in anthropology and discourse analysis, we have worked from a general topic outline and conducted open-ended interviews in which respondents are encouraged to raise and develop issues of interest to them. The interviews range from forty-five minutes to two hours in length and each interview …

Diversity In The Boardroom: A Content Analysis Of Corporate Proxy Disclosures, Aaron A. Dhir

Pace International Law Review

My work in this field has focused on regulation by quota and regulation by disclosure. With regard to quotas, strikingly, the Norwegian law is not located in regulation that explicitly deals with human rights or equality issues; rather, it is found in the heart of the legal regime that gives life and personality to corporations – in Norwegian corporate law. I have conducted qualitative, interview-based research with Norwegian corporate directors, both men and women. It is only through understanding how the goals of the law have translated into the day-to-day existence of these individuals that we can begin to consider …

Comparative Sex Regimes And Corporate Governance: An Introduction, Darren Rosenblum

Pace International Law Review

In February 2013, on the day of the worst snowstorm in many years, Pace International Law Review conducted a symposium on “Comparative Sex Regimes and Corporate Governance.” Despite a total shutdown of all transport networks and the consequent absence of a few stranded scholars, we met to discuss the fraught questions posed by corporate board quotas and formulate answers.

Led by Norway in 2003, several nations have begun to mandate certain levels of women’s inclusion on corporate boards. In the face of widespread exclusion of women from corporate power that suggests structural biases, these quotas appear radical and compelling. The …

Upholding A 40-Year-Old Promise: Why The Texas Sonogram Act Is Unlawful According To Planned Parenthood V. Casey, Vicki Toscano, Elizabeth Reiter

Pace Law Review

This Article begins with a brief review in Part II of the three crucial Supreme Court cases on abortion rights: Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, and Gonzalez v. Carhart. Based on these cases, Part III formulates a constitutional test that courts should be using to determine whether an abortion regulation is constitutional that includes all of the factors identified by the Supreme Court as part of the “undue burden” analysis, factors that have been overlooked by many courts. Finally, Part IV applies this constitutional test to the Texas Sonogram Act, concluding that the act is …

Quotas And The Transatlantic Divergence Of Corporate Governance, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The French adoption of a corporate board quota for women reflects Europe's increasingly stakeholder-oriented approach to corporate governance, one that stands in marked contrast with that of the United States. This Article discusses how the corporate board quota will shift French and European corporate governance. The change accentuates an already established stakeholder corporate culture widespread in Europe, most notably evidenced by the presence of worker representation on boards. In contrast, the United States' corporate governance structure increasingly places the shareholder at its center. The proliferation of quotas for women on corporate boards in the national and transnational European contexts is …

An Equal Rights Amendment To Make Women Human, Ann Bartow

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Though the Fourteenth Amendment' provides women with partial legal armament (a dull sword, a small shield), equal protection requires something twice as powerful in the form of a Twenty-Eighth Amendment that would expressly vest women with equal rights under the law. The Fourteenth Amendment has completed only half of the job.

Paying Women For Their Eggs For Use In Stem Cell Research, Pamela Foohey

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Women And The Law: How Far We’Ve Come And Where We Need To Go, Michelle S. Simon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Introduction to the program on “Women and the Law: How Far We've Come and Where We Need to Go” held at Pace Law School, October 24, 2008.

Women And The Law: How Far We've Come And Where We Need To Go, Michelle S. Simon

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Leiper, Bar Codes: Women In The Legal Profession; Mossman, The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study Of Gender, Law And The Legal Professions, Renee Newman Knake

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Feminizing Capital: A Corporate Imperative, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that Norway’s Corporate Board Quota Law (“CBQ”) fosters a productive symbiosis between the public and private spheres. Recent studies indicate that higher numbers of women in executive positions result in stronger rates of corporate return on equity (“ROE”). Countries with higher levels of women's political representation also tend to have higher levels of economic growth. Increasing women's workforce participation outside the home can drive overall economic growth. These factors prompted the CBQ's proponents to argue for the economic imperative of women's corporate leadership. The CBQ will not only ameliorate gender inequality, but will bring new life to …

The "Fetal Protection" Wars: Why America Has Made The Wrong Choice In Addressing Maternal Substance Abuse - A Comparative Legal Analysis, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Democracy, Gender, And Governance: Introduction, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Since at least the mid 1990s and the Fourth World Conference for Women in Beijing, gender as an analytic category and as a programmatic concern has become a mainstream part of international law. While feminists have traditionally understood their relation to international law in critical terms and from their position as outsiders, this turn toward gender equality places at least some feminists and some of their projects within the governance structure of international law itself. This crucial shift from exclusion to partial inclusion merits examination.

Toward A Third-Wave Feminist Legal Theory: Young Women, Pornography And The Praxis Of Pleasure, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article critically examines a growing body of non-legal writing by women who have proclaimed a third-wave of feminism and suggests the ways that legal theory might be enriched by this work. Scholars typically label the nineteenth-century woman suffrage movement as the first wave of feminism, and view the legal and social activism of the 1970s as the second wave of feminism. The third wave of feminism, with its intellectual origins in the response to the Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings, is a reaction to the popular stereotype that feminists are humorless man-haters. Third-wave feminists proclaim their difference from second-wave …

Internalizing Gender: International Goals, Comparative Realities, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article uses the example of international women's political rights to examine the value of comparative methodologies in analyzing the process by which nations internalize international norms. As internalized in Brazil and France, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women suggests possibilities for (and possible limitations of) interdisciplinary comparative and international law scholarship. Indeed, international law scholarship is divided between theories of internalization and neorealist challenges to those theories. Comparative methodologies add crucial complexity to internalization theory, the success of which depends on acknowledging vast differences in national legal cultures. Further, comparative methodologies expose important …

The New "Fetal Protection": The Wrong Answer To The Crisis Of Inadequate Health Care For Women And Children, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will expand upon the feminist critique by focusing on children's health as well as the health and liberty interests of their mothers. In the first part of this article, I examine the legal and cultural underpinnings of “fetal protection” and explore its current manifestations. In the second part, I place “fetal protection” in a broader context, documenting the ways in which American law currently promotes fetal life, while simultaneously neglecting the lives and health of born children. The third part of the article offers concrete recommendations about how government, both state and federal, can actually achieve the goal …

Daughter Of Liberty Wedded To Law: Gender And Legal Education At The University Of Pennsylvania Department Of Law 1870-1900, Bridget J. Crawford

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Using the University of Pennsylvania's Law Department and, to some extent, the figure of Carrie Burnham Kilgore as lenses, this article examines a thirty year period of major changes in legal education. In Part I, Prof. Crawford describes the historical roots of the school and its halting establishment in light of the predominant role individual lawyers played in training students through law office clerkships. Part II details several related changes in the legal profession in the 1870s: the law office declined in prominence; bar associations became more active; and law schools developed rigorous requirements. In particular, Prof. Crawford describes the …

The Utility Of International Law For Protecting Women's Health Rights, Vanessa Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

There is one area, however, where international law seems to hold promise; certain cultural practices that pose special, direct threats to the lives and health of women (although male infants and children often share women's vulnerability in this regard). I have in mind sexual slavery, coercive prostitution and pornographic exploitation, rape, compulsory marriage, coerced impregnation and its converse, coerced abortion and sterilization; spousal abuse, dowry deaths and coerced suicide, female infanticide and sex-specific abortion. All of these practices are the product not of microbes, poor hygiene, or a lack of health care, but of deliberate human behavior. All these practices …

Ladies In Red: Learning From America's First Female Bankrupts, Marie Stefanini Newman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Several years ago, the Honorable Joyce Bihary, a bankruptcy judge in Atlanta, Georgia, asked me3 why our country's first bankruptcy law specifically referred to debtors using “he” or “she” rather than a gender-neutral noun (such as “bankrupts”) or the male possessive pronoun “he.” Implicitly, she was also asking whether there were any women debtors under our early bankruptcy laws. Although I had read the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 more than once, I did not recollect its use of these gender-inclusive pronouns. Nor did I know why the Act employed them. Despite having given considerable thought to contemporary women in debt, …

Operation Rescue Versus A Woman's Right To Choose: A Conflict Without A Federal Remedy?, Randolph M. Mclaughlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article discusses the need for federal protection of women seeking abortion-related services and the denial of protection of those women by the Supreme Court's narrow holding in Bray. Part II examines the precedents leading up to the Bray decision. A review of these cases demonstrates that Operation Rescue is a national conspiracy aimed at eliminating the right to abortion. The group uses physical force and blockades clinics in order to deny women and health care workers access to these facilities. In light of the inability or unwillingness of local law enforcement agencies to provide access to the clinics and …