Law and Gender Commons^™

A Comment On Cass Sunstein's Equality, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

No abstract provided.

Law And The Creation Of Meaning: A Brief Reflection On The Work Of Jane Larson, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

No abstract provided.

Sex Lex: Creating A Discourse, Gerald Torres

Gerald Torres

No abstract provided.

Old Habits Die Hard: Past And Current Issues With Eugenics And Forcible Sterilizations In California, Stephanie Lauren Borrowdale

Stephanie Lauren Borrowdale

While other states have been able to successfully move past their history with eugenics by acknowledging and redressing the harm caused, the issue of forcible sterilizations lingers in California. As the California legislature dealt with a new breed of eugenic policies that emerged in the state penal system, is enough being done to address California’s reliance on forcible sterilizations? This Comment addresses California’s history with forcible sterilization practices and the current issues with sterilization procedures in the California penal system, as well as what measures California has taken to remedy these issues.

Rabenmutter And The Glass Ceiling: An Analysis Of Role Conflict Experienced By Women Lawyers In Germany As Compared With Women Lawyers In The United States, Jacquelyn H. Slotkin

Jacquelyn H. Slotkin

The purpose of this article is to analyze and compare women lawyers in Germany with women lawyers in the United States: their legal education, gender proportion in the legal profession, work opportunities, satisfaction with professional choices, and role conflicts. 22 Part I of this article will describe Germany's legal education and compare it with U.S. legal education. Part II will review the literature and issues relevant to German women lawyers as compared with U.S. women lawyers and will summarize and analyze how societal attitudes have affected women's choices in Germany and in the United States. Part III will compare demographic …

A Primer On Hobby Lobby: For-Profit Corporate Entities’ Challenge To The Hhs Mandate, Free Exercise Rights, Rfra’S Scope, And The Nondelegation Doctrine, Terri R. Day, Leticia M. Diaz, Danielle Weatherby

Pepperdine Law Review

Earlier this term, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in the consolidated case of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, the first of a litany of cases in which for-profit business entities are invoking the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") in support of their claim that the Affordable Care Act’s HHS Mandate violates their freedom of religion. In particular, these plaintiffs argue that the Mandate’s requirement that employer-provided health insurance covers the costs of contraceptives, the "morning after" pill, and other fertility-related drugs conflicts with their deeply-held religious belief that life begins at conception and is, therefore, unconstitutional. …

Coercing Pregnancy, A. Rachel Camp

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Intimate partners coerce thousands of women in the United States into pregnancy each year through manipulation, threats of violence, or acts that deliberately interfere with the use of, or access to, contraception or abortion. Although many of these pregnancies occur within the context of otherwise abusive relationships, for others, pregnancy serves as a trigger for intimate partner violence. Beyond violence preceding or resulting from pregnancy, women who experience coerced pregnancies often suffer other physical, financial and emotional harms. Despite its correlation to domestic violence, reproductive coercion fits imperfectly, if at all, within our existing laws designed to combat domestic violence …

Judicial Patriarchy And Domestic Violence: A Challenge To The Conventional Family Privacy Narrative, Elizabeth Katz

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

According to the conventional domestic violence narrative, judges historically have ignored or even shielded “wife beaters” as a result of the patriarchal prioritization of privacy in the home. This Article directly challenges that account. In the early twentieth century, judges regularly and enthusiastically protected female victims of domestic violence in the divorce and criminal contexts. As legal and economic developments appeared to threaten American manhood and traditional family structures, judges intervened in domestic violence matters as substitute patriarchs. They harshly condemned male perpetrators—sentencing men to fines, prison, and even the whipping post—for failing to conform to appropriate husbandly behavior, while …

Surviving The Streets Of New York: Experiences Of Lgbtq Youth, Ymsm, And Ywsw Engaged In Survival Sex, Meredith Dank, Jennifer Yahner, Kuniko Madden, Isela Bañuelos, Lilly Yu, Andrea Ritchie, Mitchyll Mora, Brendan M. Conner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"'The Law’S The Law, Right?' Sexual Minority Mothers Navigating Legal Inequities And Inconsistencies.”, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

LGB parents face a number of legal inequities and confront a legal landscape that not only varies drastically by state but also quickly changes. Research has shown that some LGB parents and prospective parents have inaccurate knowledge about the laws relating to parenting. Drawing on data from 21 interviews, I ask how sexual minority mothers gain knowledge about the law. I found that people were very aware of the legal inequities they face and sought to become knowledgeable about the law before they had children. Sexual minority mothers reported using four primary methods to learn about the law: doing independent …

The Need To Criminalize Revenge Porn: How A Law Protecting Victims Can Avoid Running Afoul Of The First Amendment, Adrienne N. Kitchen

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Revenge porn occurs when someone posts sexually explicit images of their former paramour on the web, often with contact information for the victim’s work and home. There are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of victims. Victims lose or quit their jobs; they are harassed by strangers; some change their name or alter their appearance. Some victims resort to suicide; others are stalked, assaulted, or killed. Civil suits fail to remove the images or deter perpetrators. Current criminal laws are insufficient in several common instances. These shortcomings mean there is a need to criminalize revenge porn.

Revenge porn is obscene and …

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …

Eliminating Undue Burdens To Women's Health: Reproductive Justice Under A “Contexual Intent” Standard, Katie L. Filous

Katie L. Filous

By examining Jackson Women’s Health Organization, et. al. v. Mary Currier, et. al., this article will advocate for the position that the Supreme Court should utilize a “contextual intent” standard in reproductive justice cases in which “undue burdens” and “substantial obstacles” are being evaluated. Part I of the article will discuss the shift from reproductive “rights” to reproductive “justice” by discussing various state legislatures’ attempts at restricting abortion in conjunction with Ian Haney Lopez’s “contextual intent” theory. Part II will discuss the historical roots of varying analyses of reproductive justice cases, from public health and safety to fetal viability to …

Sentencing Pregnant Drug Addicts: Why The Child Endangerment Enhancement Is Not Appropriate, Monica Carusello

Monica B Carusello

No abstract provided.

Does The Right To Elective Abortion Include The Right To Ensure The Death Of The Fetus?, Stephen G. Gilles

Stephen G Gilles

Is the right to an elective abortion limited to terminating the woman’s pregnancy, or does it also include the right to ensure the death of the fetus? Important as this question is in principle, in today’s world the conduct that would squarely raise it cannot occur in practice. The right to elective abortion applies only to fetuses that are not viable, which by definition means that they have been determined to have no realistic chance of surviving outside the uterus. Even if abortion providers used fetus-sparing methods rather than the fetus-killing methods they currently prefer, pre-viable fetuses would die within …

In The Name Of The Child: Race, Gender, And Economics In Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, holding that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not permit the Cherokee father in that case to object to termination of his parental rights. The case is ostensibly about a dispute between prospective adoptive parents and a biological father. This Article demonstrates that it is about a lot more than that. It is a microcosm of anxieties about Indianness, race, and the changing nature of parenthood. While made in the name of the child, moreover, the decision supports practices and policies that do not forward and may …

The Role Of Political And Social Movements On Women’S Entry Into The Legal Profession In Maryland (1902-1918), Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The rise of women in the legal profession in Maryland was shaped by a wide range of factors, including national, state, and local political and social movements. As one scholar has noted, "[W] omen's lives are complex and .. . region, period, personality, and circumstance crucially influence what a subject is able to make of herself."' In this chapter, I explore how those circumstances-- personal and political-influenced the first group of eight women admitted to the Maryland Bar between 1902 and 1920. These women-Etta Maddox, Anna Grace Kennedy, Emilie Doetsch, Marie Elizabeth Kirk Coles, Mary Virginia Meushaw, Helen F. Hill, …

Hobby Lobby: The Crafty Case That Threatens Women's Rights And Religious Freedom, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

Despite the pro-religion rhetoric surrounding it, Hobby Lobby marks a loss of religious freedom. Missing from the majority's opinion is the core concept that religious freedom is necessary to protect the rights of all Americans, and that a religious belief must not be imposed on citizens through the force of law. Any interpretation of the First Amendment or the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA")' that imposes one citizen's religious faith upon another must be rejected. This Article defends this non-imposition model of religious freedom and describes why and how Hobby Lobby incorrectly departed from it.

Sketches Of A Redemptive Theory Of Contract Law, Emily Houh

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article is about the game we call contract law and what it does and means to those who, at one time or another, have been categorically barred from play. How have "outsider" players-such as racial minorities, women, and sexual minorities -entered the game and, subsequently, how have its governing rules-that is, contract doctrines applied or not applied to them? On the flipside, how have common law contract doctrines responded to the entry of new players in the game? And, to the extent contract law has so responded, why has it done so? In asking and responding to these questions, …

Barriers To Leadership In Women's College Athletics, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

Today there is an enormous gender disparity among collegiate head coaches and athletic administrators in the United States. Women fill less than a quarter of head coach and athletic director positions in college athletics and are even minorities among coaches of women's teams. Few other professions are as impervious to gender integration. Leadership in college athletics is, in the words of one scholar, one of the "few male bastions remaining," which raises the question: Why are women so starkly underrepresented in leadership positions within college athletics? There is no easy answer, but rather a variety of factors that exclude, deter, …