Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
Bionormativity And The Construction Of Parenthood, Katharine K. Baker
Katharine K. Baker
This piece explores the relationship between legal and biological parenthood. It examines how neither history, nor evolutionary biology nor moral philosophy dictate a legal regime in which parenthood must be based on biological connection, but that attraction to a biological (or “bionormative”) regime remains strong. In explaining why, it suggests that much of what attracts people to bionormativity is not biology itself, but the way in which a biological regime constructs parenthood as a private, exclusive and binary enterprise. It is these ancillary qualities of bionormativity that people may care the most about. Today, a variety of forces put pressure …
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Katharine K. Baker
This paper examines how U.S. child support policy validates traditional divisions of labor and thereby hinders individual attempts to achieve an acceptable work/family balance. It argues that by using the household as the relevant unit of measurement for child support purposes, family law doctrine legitimates the specialization contracts that arise within households. These specialization contracts, used most extensively in wealthy, elite households, undermine attempts to distribute caretaking and provider roles more equally between parents. The article suggest that by dispensing with the household as the relevant unit of measurement and treating all parents individually, each with a responsibility to caretake …
Bargaining Or Biology? The History And Future Of Paternity Law And Parental Status, Katharine K. Baker
Bargaining Or Biology? The History And Future Of Paternity Law And Parental Status, Katharine K. Baker
Katharine K. Baker
In practice, paternity rulings are remarkably unimportant. With the exception of state welfare authorities pursuing mostly impoverished biological fathers, few paternity actions are brought, few mothers want to bring them and (even with state-sponsored pursuit) very few dollars get transferred to children as a result of them. In theory, however, paternity judgments are very and perniciously important because they keep alive the biological fatherhood ideal, an ideal that has never been reflected in law or fact and that is inconsistent with the emerging law of parental rights and responsibilities. This article challenges the biological fatherhood ideal and suggests that contract, …
Dialectics And Domestic Abuse (Reviewing Elizabeth M. Schneider, Battered Women And Feminist Lawmaking (2000)), Katharine K. Baker
Dialectics And Domestic Abuse (Reviewing Elizabeth M. Schneider, Battered Women And Feminist Lawmaking (2000)), Katharine K. Baker
Katharine K. Baker
No abstract provided.