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Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Friends With Benefits?, Laura A. Rosenbury Nov 2007

Friends With Benefits?, Laura A. Rosenbury

Michigan Law Review

Family law has long been intensely interested in certain adult intimate relationships, namely marriage and marriage-like relationships, and silent about other adult intimate relationships, namely friendship. This Article examines the effects of that focus, illustrating how it frustrates one of the goals embraced by most family law scholars over the past forty years: the achievement of gender equality, within the family and without. Part I examines the current scope of family law doctrine and scholarship, highlighting the ways in which the home is still the organizing structure for family. Despite calls for increased legal recognition of diverse families, few scholars …


Judging Magic: Can You See The Sleight Of Hand?, Rebecca Johnson Apr 2007

Judging Magic: Can You See The Sleight Of Hand?, Rebecca Johnson

Michigan Law Review

Cultural critic bell hooks says, "Movies make magic. They change things. They take the real and make it into something else right before our very eyes." Movies do not, of course, have an exclusive hold on this ability to change one thing into something else. Law, too, possesses this power. Certainly, one must acknowledge some significant differences in the "magic" of filmic and legal texts. For the most part, as willing consumers of cultural products, we "choose" to subject ourselves to the magic of film. We sit in a darkened theater and let ourselves be taken away to a different …


Custody, Maintenance, And Succession: The Internalization Of Women's And Children's Rights Under Customary Law In Africa, Allison D. Kent Jan 2007

Custody, Maintenance, And Succession: The Internalization Of Women's And Children's Rights Under Customary Law In Africa, Allison D. Kent

Michigan Journal of International Law

In this Note, the author examines the process of international human rights norm internalization into areas traditionally governed exclusively by customary law, and the resulting evolution of customary law. Assuming, arguendo, that customary law is to be modified, I argue that a societal norm internalization approach is the most effective means to bring customary law into conformity with international human rights law. After a brief discussion of the fieldwork on which I rely, this Note describes the historical influence of colonialism on the development of customary law in Africa, with a particular focus on the repugnancy clauses of the …


Refusal To Dispense Emergency Contraception In Washington State: An Act Of Conscience Or Unlawful Sex Discrimination?, Dana E. Blackman Jan 2007

Refusal To Dispense Emergency Contraception In Washington State: An Act Of Conscience Or Unlawful Sex Discrimination?, Dana E. Blackman

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will demonstrate that a pharmacist's refusal to fill a valid prescription for emergency contraception constitutes sex discrimination and violates the WLAD. Part I explains the nature and function of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) as well as their role in basic health care for women and the importance of their accessibility. Part II addresses federal civil rights protections and the failure of these protections to provide relief for women facing refusals. Focusing on the WLAD, Part II also explains how state public accommodation statutes protect women from discrimination in places of public accommodation. It further sets forth the prima …


Sex-Separation In Public Restrooms: Law, Architecture, And Gender, Terry S. Kogan Jan 2007

Sex-Separation In Public Restrooms: Law, Architecture, And Gender, Terry S. Kogan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article challenges the common assumption that legally mandated sex-separation of public restrooms is a benign recognition of natural anatomical differences between men and women. Relying on legal history, gender history, and architectural theory, my central thesis is that, contrary to common intuitions, there was nothing benign or gender neutral about the social and historical origins of the first laws adopted at the end of the nineteenth century that mandated such separation.


Toward A Third-Wave Feminist Legal Theory: Young Women, Pornography And The Praxis Of Pleasure, Bridget J. Crawford Jan 2007

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

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this Article explores the general themes of third-wave feminist writings. The Article begins with an overview of third-wave feminist literature and its predominant concerns. These concerns are (1) dissatisfaction with earlier feminists; (2) the multiple nature of personal identity; (3) the joy of embracing traditional feminine appearance and attributes; (4) the centrality of sexual pleasure and sexual self-awareness; (5) the obstacles to economic empowerment; and (6) the social and cultural impact of media and technology. Textual analysis reveals third-wave feminists' reliance on non-legal tools for remedying gender inequality. Although third-wave feminists acknowledge the law's role in women's …


The Use Of Drug Testing To Police Sex And Gender In The Olympic Games, Haley K. Olsen-Acre Jan 2007

The Use Of Drug Testing To Police Sex And Gender In The Olympic Games, Haley K. Olsen-Acre

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Part I of this Article discusses the history and development of sex testing and drug testing and argues that the two are both historically and ideologically linked. Part II examines the current Code in detail and argues that the Code's focus on hormone-based controls acts to police sex and gender in Olympic athletes, thereby extending historical sex testing practices to a new era. This Article ultimately concludes that without recognizing and addressing the need for further research into the role of "sex" hormones in the body and the interplay of social context and biological circumstances, the IOC cannot maintain an …


Preserving The Seeds Of Gender Fluidity: Tribal Courts And The Berdache Tradition, Andrew Gilden Jan 2007

Preserving The Seeds Of Gender Fluidity: Tribal Courts And The Berdache Tradition, Andrew Gilden

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article outlines the particular cultural characteristics giving rise to traditional berdachism, the means by which American policies fostered their decline, and the Navajo tribal courts' re-infusion of these characteristics into contemporary jurisprudence. By tracking the interplay between the traditional values of child autonomy, gender equality, and tribal collectivism, the rise, fall and potential reemergence of the berdache tradition can be analyzed as resulting from shifts in its determinative cultural elements.


Technological Advancement And International Human Rights: Is Science Improving Human Life Or Perpetuating Human Rights Violations?, Christine A. Khalili-Borna Jan 2007

Technological Advancement And International Human Rights: Is Science Improving Human Life Or Perpetuating Human Rights Violations?, Christine A. Khalili-Borna

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note assesses the practices of pre-implantation and prenatal genetic screening and sex-determination through an international human rights framework founded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Universal Declaration), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).


Les Papiers De La Liberté: Une Mère Africaine Et Ses Enfants À L'Époque De La Révolution Haïtienne, Rebecca Scott, Jean M. Hebrard Jan 2007

Les Papiers De La Liberté: Une Mère Africaine Et Ses Enfants À L'Époque De La Révolution Haïtienne, Rebecca Scott, Jean M. Hebrard

Articles

During the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1867-1868, the young Edouard Tinchant proposed measures to protect the civil rights of women. He suggested that the State adopt legal measures to allow all women, regardless of race or color, to more easily bring complaints in the event of a breach of a marriage promise. He also proposed additional measures to prevent women from being forced into “concubinage” against their will. While that constitutional Convention was open to men of color and guaranteed a number of the rights for which Tinchant and his friends were fighting, the assembly did not adopt his propositions …