Digital Commons Network^™

Promoting The General Welfare: Legal Reform To Lift Women And Children In The United States Out Of Poverty, Jill Engle

Jill Engle

American women and children have been poor in exponentially greater numbers than men for decades. The problem has historic, institutional roots which provide a backdrop for this article’s introduction. English and early U.S. legal systems mandated a lesser economic status for women. Despite numerous legal changes aimed at combating the financial disadvantage of American women and children, the problem is worsening. American female workers, many in low-paying job sectors, earn roughly twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Nearly forty percent of single mothers and their children subsist below the poverty level. The recession exacerbated this problem, mostly because unemployment …

Women, Law And Patriarchal Relations: Perspectives Within The Sociology Of Law, Shelley Gavigan

Shelley A. M. Gavigan

In this paper I wish to examine three important theoretical perspectives within the sociology of law, with a view to determining their usefulness and relevance in the development of an analysis that integrates sexual difference.e and gender relations or in other words, a sociology of law that is not blind to the significance of gender and the specificity of men's and women's lived experience. The literature in the area of sociology of law has begun to flower, and sophisticated critical scholarship has emerged. The work of a feminist in the sociology of law is thus well assisted with an excellent …

Rethinking Women's And Gender Studies, Gender And Education, Colleen Mcgloin

Colleen McGloin

This compilation of scholarly articles examines the (inter)disciplinary field of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) looking at the genealogy of WGS, its foundational principles, its language and practices. The work considers the use of language, in particular the way certain terminology within the field invites engagement with the political aims of WGS, or limits its potential for more rigorous pedagogical practices and analytic frameworks. Chapters are organised into five sections: ‘foundational assumptions’, ‘ubiquitous descriptions’, ‘epistemologies rethought’, ‘silences and disavowals’, and ‘establishment challenges’. Within these themes, specific terms (among them ‘feminism’, ‘interdisciplinarity’, ‘pedagogy’, ‘intersectionality’, and ‘community’) are examined for their application …

Home Front Ww2: Myths And Realties, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

This is a revised version of the author's 2014 Brisbane Labour History Association Alex McDonald lecture. In this paper the author takes apart the right-wing accounts, particularly by Hal Colebatch ('Australia's Secret War, 2013), that demonise the Australian trade union leadership and the Communist Party of Australia for 'treasonous' industrial disputation during World War II.

California Egg Toss - The High Costs Of Avoiding Unenforceable Surrogacy Contracts, Jennifer Jackson

Jennifer Jackson

In an emotionally charged decision regarding surrogacy contracts, it is important to recognize the ramifications, costs, and policy. There are advantages to both “gestational carrier surrogacy” contracts and “traditional surrogacy” contracts. However, this paper focuses on the differences between these contracts using case law. Specifically, this paper will focus on the implications of California case law regarding surrogacy contracts. Cases such as Johnson v. Calvert and In Re Marriage of Moschetta provide a clear distinction between these contracts. This distinction will show that while gestational carrier surrogacy contracts are more expensive, public policy and court opinions will provide certainty and …

California Egg Toss - The High Costs Of Avoiding Unenforceable Surrogacy Contracts, Jennifer Jackson

Jennifer Jackson

In an emotionally charged decision regarding surrogacy contracts, it is important to recognize the ramifications, costs, and policy. There are advantages to both “gestational carrier surrogacy” contracts and “traditional surrogacy” contracts. However, this paper focuses on the differences between these contracts using case law. Specifically, this paper will focus on the implications of California case law regarding surrogacy contracts. Cases such as Johnson v. Calvert and In Re Marriage of Moschetta provide a clear distinction between these contracts. This distinction will show that while gestational carrier surrogacy contracts are more expensive, public policy and court opinions will provide certainty and …

Veiled Discrimination, Sahar F. Aziz

Sahar F. Aziz

Should employees have the legal right to “be themselves” at work? Most Americans would answer in the negative because work is a privilege, not an entitlement. An employer’s workplace rules that define professionalism, therefore, are his prerogative and defined by the demands of the marketplace. Underlying this conclusion is the false premise that objective and neutral factors shape modern notions of professionalism. To the contrary, professionalism is a subjective concept dependent on the decision makers’ worldview, norms, values, and definitions of propriety. Employees who belong to the employer’s social group or fall within society’s majority are advantaged as minimal effort …

Killers Shouldn't Inherit From Their Victims . . . Or Should They?, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

The article offers a profound reassessment of so-called “Slayer Rules,” laws that, in all states, bar killers from inheriting from their victims. For the first time in the literature, this piece questions the underlying rationale for these rules by examining the context of family violence and mental illness in which these killing occur, and argues that, given that context, these rules are often neither legally nor morally justified. My argument is as follows: at first glance, the idea behind Slayer Rules seems reasonable, indeed, morally obvious: a killer should not be able to profit from his or her crime. This …

Wie Featured Person Of The Month Highlights (Katina Michael), Keyana Tenant, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

The WIE Featured Person of the Month is Katina Michael, editor-in-chief of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. After working at OTIS Elevator Company and Andersen Consulting, Katina was offered and exciting graduate engineering position at Nortel in 1996; and her career has been fast track from there. Read Katina’s story on Page 7.

Terrorism And Violent Conflict: Women's Agency, Leadership, And Responses, Candice Ortbals, Lori Poloni-Staudinger

Candice D. Ortbals

This book explores how gender intersects with political violence, and particularly terrorism. We ask how gender relations and understandings of femininity and masculinity influence political violence, which includes politics related to terrorism, state terrorism, and genocide. We investigate how women cope with and influence the politics of terrorism and genocide. The book’s goals are descriptive and analytical. We (1) describe in what ways women are present (and/or perceived as absent) in political contexts involving violence, and (2) analyze what gender assumptions, identities, and frames women face and themselves express and act upon regarding political violence encountered in their lives. The …

Dirty Harry Meets Dirty Diapers: Masculinities, At-Home Fathers & Making The Law Work For Families, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Who is the “man”? Implicit in that question is whether the man at issue demonstrates traits traditionally associated with masculinity: traits such as power, rejecting all things associated with being female, aggression, and being the family breadwinner. If a man, then, abandons paid work and stays at home full-time with his children, is he still a “man” as typically defined? The answer to this question bears both on whether families are truly evolving away from the gendered construct that places men as family breadwinners and women as caregivers and whether work-family balance law meets the needs of these—and all—families. This …

Killers Shouldn't Inherit From Their Victims . . . Or Should They?, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

The article offers a profound reassessment of so-called “Slayer Rules,” laws that, in most states, bar killers from inheriting from their victims. For the first time in the literature, this piece questions the underlying rationale for these rules by examining the context of family violence and mental illness in which these killing occur, and argues that, given that context, they are often neither legally nor morally justified. at first glance, the idea behind Slayer Rules seems reasonable, indeed, morally obvious: a killer should not be able to profit from his or her crime. This truism, however, may not necessarily be …

Essay: A Decade After Abu Ghraib: Lessons In "Softening Up" The Enemy And Sex-Based Humiliation, Johanna Bond

Johanna Bond

A DECADE AFTER ABU GHRAIB: LESSONS IN “SOFTENING UP” THE ENEMY AND SEX-BASED HUMILIATION Johanna Bond* A decade after Abu Ghraib, there remains a dearth of analysis exploring the role that women played as perpetrators of violence and the socio-cultural factors that supported the abuse. This essay fills that gap in the legal literature. Although women were among the perpetrators of sexual abuse and men among its victims, the abuse played upon and reinforced gender-subordinating stereotypes that serve to regulate male and female behavior, enforce heterosexuality, and privilege whiteness. The sexual abuse became a process whereby the enemy was “feminized,” …

Taxing Polygamy: Married Filing Jointly (And Severally?), Samuel D. Brunson

Samuel D. Brunson

The tax law treats married and unmarried taxpayers differently in several respects. Married persons, for example, can file and pay their taxes as a unified taxpayer, with rates that are different than those that apply to unmarried taxpayers. This different treatment of married persons has elicited criticism over the years. Some of the more salient criticisms include that married persons do not necessarily function as an economic unit, that joint filing discourages women from working, and that the various exclusions from the joint filing regime—including gay couples—is unfair.

This Article looks at joint filing through the lens of polygamy. Polygamy …

A Gender Gap In Policy Representation In The U.S. Congress?, Brian Newman, Christina Wolbrecht, John Griffin

Brian Newman

In the first article to evaluate the equality of dyadic policy representation experienced by women, we assess the congruence between U.S. House members' roll-call votes and the policy preferences of their female and male constituents. Employing two measures of policy representation, we do not find a gender gap in dyadic policy representation. However, we uncover a sizeable gender gap favoring men in districts represented by Republicans, and a similarly sizeable gap favoring women in districts represented by Democrats. A Democratic majority further improves women's dyadic representation relative to men, but having a female representative (descriptive representation) does not.

Rethinking The Moral Significance Of Micro-Inequities: The Case Of Women In Philosophy, Samantha Brennan

Samantha Brennan

No abstract provided.

Killers Shouldn't Inherit From Their Victims . . . Or Should They?, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

The article offers a profound reassessment of so-called “Slayer Rules,” laws that, in most states, bar killers from inheriting from their victims. For the first time in the literature, this piece questions the underlying rationale for these rules by examining the context of family violence and mental illness in which these killing occur, and argues that, given that context, they are often neither legally nor morally justified. My argument is as follows: At first glance, the idea behind Slayer Rules seems reasonable, indeed, morally obvious: a killer should not be able to profit from his or her crime. This truism, …

江戸時代女性の噂話, Cecilia S. Seigle Ph.D.

Cecilia S Seigle Ph.D.

江戸時代の女性は家庭の主婦としての忙しさからか、残念ながら随筆や見聞記をあまり残していない。江戸時代でも後半にはかなり多くの女性が日記を書いたらしいけれど、男性の見聞酒随筆集に比べると非常に少ない 。 しかし女性は特殊な興味の対象としてうわさ話の種になったので、この本では女性中心のうわさ話を調べてみた。記録された女性の噂話も男性についての噂話に比べれば少ないのだが、全体的には膨大な量である。

“The Good Mother” Mothering, Feminism, And Incarceration, Deseriee A. Kennedy

Deseriee A. Kennedy

No abstract provided.

Body Matters, Meenakshi Durham

Meenakshi Gigi Durham

An essay is presented on genderscapes, the physical conditions of women's lives that challenge the notion of a virtual disembodied self in cyberspace as people focus on social networking, tweeting and texting. Hidden beneath cyberscapes are what the author terms genderscapes as more women are reportedly becoming victims of injustice including domestic violence, and women's bodies experiencing real pain. The author discusses materiality in terms of economics, social power and opportunity which lead to corporeality.

Body Matters, Meenakshi Durham

Meenakshi Gigi Durham

An essay is presented on genderscapes, the physical conditions of women's lives that challenge the notion of a virtual disembodied self in cyberspace as people focus on social networking, tweeting and texting. Hidden beneath cyberscapes are what the author terms genderscapes as more women are reportedly becoming victims of injustice including domestic violence, and women's bodies experiencing real pain. The author discusses materiality in terms of economics, social power and opportunity which lead to corporeality.

Hiv And Women: Incongruent Policies, Criminal Consequences, Aziza Ahmed

Aziza Ahmed

The new agency UN WOMEN must play an active role in the standardization of laws and policies at the global and national level where their incongruence has negative and often criminal consequences for the health and lives of women and girls. This article focuses in on three such examples: opt-out testing for HIV, criminalization of vertical transmission, and the new World Health Organization guidelines on breastfeeding.

The Abortion Informed Consent Debate: More Light, Less Heat, Nadia N. Sawicki

Nadia N. Sawicki

State abortion informed consent laws – including those requiring physicians to disclose that abortion terminates the life of a “whole, separate, unique, living human being” or display ultrasound images to patients seeking abortions – are being adopted at a rapid pace. Health law scholars who oppose these laws uniformly criticize them as being fundamentally inconsistent with the doctrine of informed consent. This Article directly challenges this conventional approach. It argues that the doctrine of informed consent does not impose nearly as significant a barrier to abortion disclosure laws as many critics claim. Rather, the ethical and legal principles of informed …

Teaching Controversial Topics, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

At the 2009 Future of Family Law Education conference at the William Mitchell School of Law, the authors participated in a panel discussing strategies for teaching controversial topics, which focused on teaching reproductive rights and related gender issues. This essay collects some of the strategies discussed at the conference. First we address what constitutes a “controversial” legal topic, outlining the several different ways in which a topic might be or become controversial within the context of a particular class. Next, we discuss the importance of laying the groundwork, throughout the semester, for the anticipated—and unanticipated— discussions surrounding controversial topics and …

A Charade Of Change: Qisas And Diyat Ordinance Allows Honor Killings To Go Unpunished In Pakistan, Stephanie Palo

Stephanie Palo

This article begins with the story of Samia Sarwar. At age 17, Samia was forced to marry her cousin by arranged marriage. After enduring years of abuse, she hoped to obtain a divorce and sought the advice of her parents. Instead of advice, her parents threatened her life. While her parents were making their Hajj pilgrimage, Samia fled and met with human rights lawyer, Hina Jilani. While visiting in her offices, Samia was shot dead by an assassin hired by her parents.

Even though there is no doubt that Samia Sarwar was murdered, the current law in Pakistan has allowed …

"The Woman Is Out:" A New Look At The Law In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Carla Spivack

Carla Spivack

No abstract provided.

Gender And The Digital Economy: Perspectives From The Developing World, Margaretha Geertsema Sligh

Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh

Editors Cecilia Ng and Swasti Mitter address an important and timely topic in their new book. The book sets out to do exactly what the title says: the authors interrogate the participation of women in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) industry, particularly in developing countries. As the editors point out in the introduction, there are concerns that globalization will increase inequalities and asymmetrical power relationships between the rich and the poor. Yet, they are quite optimistic about the potential enabling power of new technologies.

Escogedoras And Molineras In Veracruz, Mexico (1928-32): Exploring The Political Role Of Popular Women In Post-Revolutionary Society, Ernesto A. Hernandez-Lopez

Ernesto A. Hernandez

This article suggests that during Revolutionary state formation (1928-32) in Mexico, Veracruzano women had active roles in state politics. This political participation existed despite women in Mexico being denied legal rights to vote or to hold political office. This essay demonstrates how escogedoras (coffee sorters) and molineras (maize grinders) used their economic influence to negotiate with central and regional governments in Mexico. For escogedoras their participation in an export industry provided 'negotiation power' to participate in politics. For molineras working in an industry which dramatically decreased a woman's work-week from 30 plus hours to 4 hours provided them with similar …

Finding A Place For Women In Australian Cultural History: Female Cultural Activism In Sydney, 1900-1940, Jane Hunt

Jane Hunt

With only a few exceptions, the endeavours of culturally active women appear as irrelevant or marginal to the history of Australian culture. Australian cultural historiography dwells on antithetic relationships, whether between cultural-political elites, gendered spaces and practices, or elitist and popular culture. However, this historical preoccupation with dichotomous notions of class, gender, and culture has deflected attention from other aspects of the struggle to define culture. Cultural definitions were far from fixed for most of the first half of the twentieth century in Australia. Negotiations on what constituted appropriate cultural form, content, and practice are apparent inside and outside establishment …