Law Commons^™

Remembering Mary Dunlap As A Student, Herma Hill Kay

Herma Hill Kay

Recounts the experience of having Mary C. Dunlap as a student at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California in Berkeley. Introduction by Dunlap and fellow students, Nancy Davis and Wendy Webster Williams of a course on Women and the Law into the Boalt Hall curriculum; Establishment of the Davis, Dunlap and Williams women' rights law firm, which was later reorganized as the public interest women's rights firm of Equal Rights Advocates, Inc.; Admittance of Dunlap of being involved in a lesbian relationship; Reason given by Dunlap for studying law.

The Future Of Women Law Professors, Herma Hill Kay

Herma Hill Kay

No abstract provided.

Women Law School Deans: A Different Breed, Or Just One Of The Boys, Herma Hill Kay

Herma Hill Kay

No abstract provided.

Workshop On Judging: Does Gender Make A Difference, Herma Hill Kay, Geraldine Sparrow

Herma Hill Kay

No abstract provided.

Women Of Color In Law Teaching: Shared Identities, Different Experiences, Katherine Vaughns

Katherine L. Vaughns

No abstract provided.

Women Law Journals In The New Millennium: How Far Have They Evolved? And Are They Still Necessary?, Katherine L. Vaughns

Katherine L. Vaughns

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Same-Sex Marriage In California, Elizabeth Hollis

Elizabeth Hollis

This article will discuss in detail the issues relating to the rights of same-sex couples wishing to get married in California. First the article examines the history of same-sex marriage in California prior to the most recent Perry v. Brown ruling. The article then focuses on the named plaintiffs in this case, concentrating particularly on their history and how they became involved in the case. Next, the litigation process of Perry v. Brown and the recent decision handed down by Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will be reviewed. Finally, the …

The New Paternalism: War On Poverty Or War On Women?, Martha F. Davis

Martha F. Davis

No abstract provided.

Valuing Women: A Case Study, Martha F. Davis

Martha F. Davis

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. 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 …

Rural Inheritance: Gender Disparities In Farm Transmission, Hannah C. Alsgaard

Hannah C Alsgaard

Farmers are farmers’ sons. Notable in our modern day, heralded by many as a gender-neutral society, it is farmers’ sons, not farmers’ daughters, who become farmers and take over ownership and management of the family farm. It has long been true that agricultural knowledge and land have passed through generations of men. In contrast, daughters, even today, are neither considered to be farmers nor likely to inherit family farm land. This article begins by chronicling how farmland is inherited (by sons) then discusses why the pattern of excluding women continues. There have been substantial legal changes in the United States …

Politics As Usual: Black Stereotypes And President Obama's Racialization, Lynnette Jenkins

Lynnette R Jenkins

President Barack Obama attempted to transcend race by running a colorblind campaign and administration. Nevertheless, the President and First Lady Michelle Obama have been racialized by media as the result of stereotyping and white supremacy. This paper will demonstrate that racism is not a relic of the past by drawing parallels between previous racist imagery and current media depictions of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Taking Religion Out Of Civil Divorce, Julia Halloran Mclaughlin

Julia Halloran McLaughlin

Lessons About Reform From “A Very Dangerous Woman”, Sherry Penney, James Livingston

Sherry Penney

We discuss reform in antebellum America through the life of Martha Coffin Wright, an activist in the abolition and early women’s rights movements. Consideration of her motivations for reform; the obstacles faced by these movements; their methods, successes, and failures, may offer guidelines for reformers of today.

Disabled Kids And Their Moms: Caregivers And Horizontal Equity, Karen S. Czapanskiy

Karen Czapanskiy

No abstract provided.

Navigating Gender In Modern Intimate Partnership Law, Alicia Kelly

Alicia B. Kelly

With women edging up to become half the workforce, claims of women’s economic empowerment now abound. But the reality is that gender equality has not been mainstreamed. The truly eye-opening new data is how marginalized and partial many women’s attachment to the labor force continues to be. Simultaneously, another misleading narrative also circulates—that of separateness—of disconnected individualism. In the context of intimate partnership and feminist legal theory, this Article pushes back against these accounts and demonstrates their problematic link. Contrary to the storylines, many women’s lives in fact remain characterized by deep bonds with partners, children, and extended family, and …

Soul Of A Woman: The Sex Stereotyping Prohibition At Work, Kimberly A. Yuracko

Kimberly Yuracko

In 1989 the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins declared that sex stereotyping was a prohibited from of sex discrimination at work. This seemingly simple declaration has been the most important development in sex discrimination jurisprudence since the passage of Title VII. It has been used to extend the Act’s coverage and protect groups that were previously excluded. Astonishingly, however, the contours, dimensions and requirements of the prohibition have never been clearly articulated by courts or scholars. In this paper I evaluate four interpretations of what the sex stereotyping prohibition might mean in order to determine what it actually …

Embryo Disposition Agreements: The Effect Of Personal Autonomy, Constitutional Rights, And Public Policy On Enforceability, Damages, And Remedies, Nicholas Seger

Nicholas D. Seger

No abstract provided.

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,” …

Reconciling Liberty And Equality In The Debate Over Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Jessica Knouse

Jessica A. Knouse

This article draws on postmodern theory to develop a framework for analyzing situations in which liberty and equality appear to conflict. It uses the debate over non-therapeutic preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) as an example. While PGD is, at present, almost entirely unregulated within the United States, there seems to be relative consensus that “therapeutic” or “medical” trait selection – e.g., selection against certain genetic and chromosomal disorders – should per permitted. There is, however, substantial disagreement as to whether “non-therapeutic” trait selection – e.g., selection based on parental preference for a particular sex, disability, eye color, hair color, or skin …

The Failure And Promise Of Equity In Domestic Abuse Cases, Jeffrey Baker

Jeffrey R Baker

In a generation, American law has experienced dramatic reforms in response to domestic abuse, including innovative criminal law enforcement schemes, liberalized divorce standards and civil protection orders. Feminist activism prompted and drove these reforms and related cultural understanding of domestic abuse, and they have yielded more effective legal options for victims of domestic violence. Virtually all of these reforms built upon existing structures to afford specific process and remedies to victims of domestic abuse, but why were innovations necessary if existing legal structures could have intervened on their own extant authority? Customary, common law equity might have intervened effectively to …

Marching Across The Putative Black/White Race Line: A Convergence Of Narrology, History And Theory, Carol Zeiner

Carol Zeiner

When a woman in the South, whether African American or white, made the decision to become active in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, she did so in the face of reprisals that ranged from loss of friends and alienation of relatives, to outright social ostracism, loss of employment for family members, physical harm and even violent death. Her choice exposed not only herself, but also members of her family, to those risks. She had to deal with the fear of not knowing which of those reprisals would come her way and, if she had children or were married, which of …

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 …

Screaming To Be Heard: Black Feminism And The Fight For A Voice From The 1950s - 1970s, Preston D. Mitchum

Preston D. Mitchum

No abstract provided.

Why Roe V. Wade Is Wrong, Richard Maloy

Richard Maloy

No abstract provided.

Penny Wise But Pound Foolish In The Heartland: A Case Study Of Decriminalizing Domestic Violence In Topeka, Kansas, Shelley Santry

Shelley M. Santry

Exchange As A Cornerstone Of Families, Martha Ertman

Martha M. Ertman

This essay up-ends critical theorist Ivan Illich’s critique of economic thinking as replacing households defined by vernacular gender with married pairs in “inhumane” sex-neutral economic partnerships. It challenges Illich’s view of exchange as a destroyer that has meddled in families for only a few hundred years, citing sociobiological literature to counter his case against exchange with one valorizing two exchanges that I call “primal deals” that played crucial roles in the evolution of humans, families, and day-to-day life. These primal deals—especially the primal pair-bonding deal between men and women—continue to play a central role in families and family law today. …

Wal-Mart Stores V. Dukes: Lessons For The Legal Quest For Equal Pay, Deborah Thompson Eisenberg

Deborah Thompson Eisenberg

The Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes provides a unique opportunity to reflect on whether and how the legal system should address unjustified pay disparities between men and women who perform similar jobs. This Article describes the Court’s decision and analyzes the insights it offers about the legal quest for equal pay. First, Wal-Mart demonstrates the tension between Title VII’s focus on the employer’s intent and the economic realities of how pay discrimination happens in the modern workplace. As the women at Wal-Mart experienced and research confirms, pay disparities tend to be the greatest when employers delegate …

Reframing Roe: Property Over Privacy, Rebecca Rausch

Rebecca L. Rausch

Roe v. Wade has received much criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Though the perspectives of the two camps differ significantly, players from each share at least one common critique of the landmark decision. Specifically, both sides are skeptical about the lack of an express Constitutional right to privacy, on which the Supreme Court in Roe based its decision to find a “fundamental” right to abortion. This lack of Constitutional context and legal history renders Roe vulnerable. In addition, pro-choice advocates find fault with the privacy basis because it yields no positive rights to funding or access support …

From The Bench To The Screen: The Woman Judge In Film, Laura Ray

Laura K. Ray

Although there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women judges over the past half century, their cinematic counterparts have failed to reflect that change. This Article explores the paradoxical relationship between social reality and its representation on screen to identify a lingering resistance to the idea of women exercising judicial power. The Article first examines the sparse history of women judges as central characters in films of the 1930s, finding the tension in those films between judicial authority and domestic happiness. It then turns to Hollywood’s romantic comedies of the 1940s, which resolved that tension through the …