Law Commons^™

Asking For It: Gendered Dimensions Of Surveillance Capitalism, Jessica Rizzo

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

Advertising and privacy were once seen as mutually antagonistic. In the 1950s and 1960s, Americans went to court to fight for their right to be free from the invasion of privacy presented by unwanted advertising, but a strange realignment took place in the 1970s. Radical feminists were among those who were extremely concerned about the collection and computerization of personal data—they worried about private enterprise getting a hold of that data and using it to target women—but liberal feminists went in a different direction, making friends with advertising because they saw it as strategically valuable.

Liberal feminists argued that in …

Gender Inequality In Contracts Casebooks: Representations Of Women In The Contracts Curriculum, Deborah Zalesne

FIU Law Review

Gender has always explicitly or implicitly played a critical role in contracting and in contracts opinions—from the early nineteenth century, when married women lacked the legal capacity altogether to contract, through the next century, when women gained the right to contract but continued to lack bargaining power and to be disadvantaged in the bargaining process in many cases, to today, when women are present in greater numbers in business and commerce, but face continued, yet less overt, obstacles. Typical casebooks provide ample offerings for discussions of the ways in which parties can be and have been disadvantaged because of their …

English Courts And Transnational Islamic Divorces: What Role For Personal Liberty Of Muslim Women?, Ilias Bantekas

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

English courts consider the validity of a talaq obtained abroad on the basis of the lex matrimonii, without examining whether the circumstance of the divorce, both factual and legal, offend English public policy. An anthropological inquiry into talaq obtained in most Muslim nations reveals that androcentric culture – as opposed to religious prescription as such – largely distorts the Quranic vision of this institution. This author suggests that English courts and the scholarly/religious community should entertain the notion of the contractual nature of nikah (marriage) in order to assess the consequences of the talaq. If a nikah is entered into …

Repenser Le Genre Face À La Modernité, Soumaya Belhabib

Dirassat

Feminism is claiming the equality between man and woman in society.

The gender approach is the most adequate approach to solve the problem of the discrimination towards women because this approach considers the social context and the culture as important to determine the characteristics of female and male not the physical aspects which concede female as being weak.

In morocco the new family code gives new representation between men and women, but discriminations still in access to education and responsibility in economy and politic, women still prisoner of traditional representations even if they try to access to modern life by …

Creating A Classroom Component For Field Placement Programs: Enhancing Clinical Goals With Feminist Pedagogy, Linda Morton

Maine Law Review

There exists a historic conflict between the more traditional Langdellian philosophy of legal education, and the experiential philosophy of apprenticeship programs, now known as field placement programs. The conflict is most recently apparent in the American Bar Association's (ABA) attempts to impose a more traditional classroom format on field placement programs through its regulations, guidelines, and instructions pertaining to law school accreditation. The ABA argues that law schools need to allocate greater instructional resources toward their field placement programs, particularly programs that provide more than one-half a semester's credit. Such programs should include a classroom component that meets ABA guidelines. …

The Normalization Of Prostitution In Switzerland: The Origin Of Policies, Corinne Isler, Marjut Jyrkinen

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In this article, we examine how socio-political actors frame prostitution and problems attached to the phenomenon and what types of policies they suggest. The sex trade in Switzerland has been tolerated since 1942, and prostitution is protected under the economic freedom guaranteed by the Swiss constitution. Any critique of prostitution is viewed as counterproductive, claimed to be rooted in old-fashioned ideas about sexuality and thought to worsen the situation for women who sell sex. The role of sex buyers is largely obscured, and the presumed right to buy sex remains unquestioned.

Paying Attention To The Little Man Behind The Curtain: Destroying The Myth Of The Liberal's Dilemma, Deborah M. Boulette Taylor

Maine Law Review

Generally, feminists and other liberals, and in particular multi-culturalists, share the common goal of seeking to make American law reflective of a greater variety of voices and experiences beyond those of the dominant, white-male culture. There currently exists an issue, however, about which feminists find it necessary to depart from this goal: whether to permit a criminal defendant to introduce exculpatory cultural evidence. Much of the feminist literature on the use of the “cultural defense” argues that introduction of such evidence serves only to deny immigrant women and children the same protections afforded others in our criminal justice system because …

Keeping Students Awake: Feminist Theory And Legal Education, Martha Minow

Maine Law Review

I am not exactly sure why, but when I turned to think about legal education for today's conference, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein came to mind. It was not because of my own nightmares that my chosen profession as law professor involves turning ordinary people into monsters, although that's a thought we can explore perhaps over drinks. It was because of this comment Shelley makes in the book: “If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study …

Feminist Microenterprise: Vindicating The Rights Of Women In The New Global Order?, Lucie E. White

Maine Law Review

The subject of this symposium is “Law, Feminism & the 21st Century.” What are the greatest challenges for feminism in the coming century and how can the law help to meet them? I want to begin this essay by asking that question from two radically different vantage points. The first is very far removed from the usual starting point for feminist analysis, which is the “lived” experience of women's lives. Let us move far away from a place from which we can feel the lines on women's faces, and move to a place from which we can see only numbers, …

Global Intersections: Critical Race Feminist Human Rights And Inter/National Black Women, Hope Lewis

Maine Law Review

In this brief essay, I illustrate how Critical Race Feminist analysis could reconceptualize the human rights problems facing “Inter/national Black women” --in this case, Black women who migrate between the United States and Jamaica. This focus on Jamaican American migrants is very personal as well as political; I was raised by Jamaican American women. However, I have begun to focus on such women in my research not only in a search for “home” but also because there are important lessons to be learned from those who are the least visible in the legal literature. I draw the framework for a …

Shattered Jade, Broken Shoe: Foreign Economic Development And The Sexual Exploitation Of Women In China, Elizabeth Spahn

Maine Law Review

Predicting the ways in which feminisms might develop in the next century is unfortunately well beyond my own capabilities. In the next decade or two, however, one thing I believe we might want to think about are the relationships between feminisms and global free market capitalisms. The question I am asking, simply stated, is the extent to which economic development (free-market global capitalism) advances, is neutral toward, or harms women. One traditional American way of viewing the global free market is to tout economic development as a panacea for the problems facing the world's poorest and most violated group, women. …

What If The Butchers In The Slaughter House Cases Had Won?: An Exercise In "Counterfactual" Doctrine, Jane L. Scarborough

Maine Law Review

In a recent Harvard Law Review commentary, two well-known constitutional scholars called into question not only what Supreme Court cases are “canonized” in casebooks, but whether the “Court-centeredness” of our scholarship and teaching about constitutional law has led to an impoverishment of the discourse on justice. The authors document how “[c]ases become important to teach and remember because they serve as the icons (and demons) of an invented constitutional tradition” --a tradition that “comes into being at a particular point in history, and then regards itself as always having been there.” There is no better example of such an icon …

Grounded Applications: Feminism And The Law At The Millennium, Katharine Silbaugh

Maine Law Review

The conference topic is feminism in the twenty-first century, a dialogue between academics and practicing attorneys. The first order of business will be to resist the millennium invitation to come up with evermore novel, overarching formulations of the mission and means of feminism. At the end of the twentieth century we know quite a bit about the problems presented by feminists and the problems within feminism. We have had a long history of insightful intellectual discourse on questions of equality and on the meaning of gender. We also know that it takes time to absorb and apply broad insights in …

“Who Is A Latcrit?”: Jerome Culp And Angela Harris Provide Answers And Ways Of Being, Margaret Montoya

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Holy Gender! Promoting Free Exercise Of Gender By Discernment Without Establishing Binary Sex Or Compulsory Fluidity, José Gabilondo

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Islam's (In)Compatibility With The West?: Dress Code Restrictions In The Age Of Feminism, Lisa M. La Fornara

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Many secular Western countries have adopted some form of legislation regulating a woman's ability to wear traditional "Islamic" coverings. These governments often cite concerns for gender equality to justify the regulations. Although it is certainly true that some women are forced to wear hijab, many women cover by choice. These women's choices may be rooted in their faith, but the decisions are also commonly linked to other factors like culture. Thus, this Note argues, regulations that prevent a woman from choosing how to dress do not enhance her rights. Rather, the regulations replace a feared authoritarian man with an overly …

On The Basis Of Sex: Examining John Grisham's Legal Fiction Through Feminist Theory, Viviana I. Vasiu

Florida A & M University Law Review

John Grisham’s legal fiction takes readers to a thrilling land where attorneys are the new heroes, fighting against the dark forces of injustice, corruption, and greed. Alas, in these masterfully crafted thrillers lies a force darker than all: Grisham’s writing has negatively molded our perception of women in the law and beyond. “[F]ictional portrayals can have a powerful impact on perceptions of real-life professionals.” Applying feminist theory to a text can unearth such portrayals and the ideology that “Western culture is fundamentally patriarchal” in literature in order to effectuate change. Analyzing text through the lens of feminist theory requires asking …

Exploring The Conflicts Within Carceral Feminism: A Call To Revocalize The Women Who Continue To Suffer, Krishna De La Cruz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Feminism, Masculinities, And Multiple Identities, Martha Albertson Fineman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Multidimensionality Is To Masculinities What Intersectionality Is To Feminism, Athena D. Mutua

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Images Of Men In Feminist Legal Theory , Brian Bendig

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Against The New Maternalism, Naomi Mezey, Cornelia T. L. Pillard

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Parenting is a major preoccupation in law and culture. As a result of efforts of the American women's movement over the past forty years, the legal parent is, for the first time in history, sex-neutral. Our law has abandoned restrictions on women's education, employment, and civic participation that sprang from and reinforced beliefs about the primacy of motherhood as women's best destiny. On the flip side, U.S. law now also generally rejects formal constraints on men's family roles by requiring sex-neutrality of laws regulating custody, adoption, alimony, spousal benefits, and the like. The official de-linking of presumptive parenting roles from …

If Not Now, When? Individual And Collective Responsibility For Male Intimate Violence, G. Kristian Miccio

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

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 …

Feminism And Defending Men On Death Row Symposium: Thoughts On Death Penalty Issues 25 Years After Furman V. Georgia., Phyllis L. Crocker

St. Mary's Law Journal

In this Essay I explore the relationship between being a feminist and representing men on death row. It is appropriate to engage in this inquiry in considering how the law has developed in the twenty-five years since Furman v. Georgia. During that time both Furman and the advent of feminist legal theory have required a restructuring in the way we think about two fundamental legal questions: for death penalty jurisprudence, how and why we sentence individuals to death; and for feminist jurisprudence, how the law views crimes of violence against women. The relationship between these two developments becomes apparent when …

A Feminist Theory Of Malebashing, Susan H. Williams, David C. Williams

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The concern about feminist "malebashing" is increasingly common, inside the university and out, but unfortunately, because of the emotions involved, most discussions of malebashing generate more confusion than understanding. When feminists say negative things about men, they often speak in anger and perhaps fear. When men respond, they are often angry, defensive, and perhaps hurt. While this confusion may be understandable, it is still counter-productive. The dialogue is plagued by a failure to answer with precision or rigor the most basic questions about this subject: What is "malebashing," i.e., illegitimate negative statements about men, and how is it different from …

Strategies Of Connection: Prostitution And Feminist Politics, Margaret A. Baldwin

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

A feminist political approach to prostitution must begin from these strengths and be tested against the standards set by them. I want to address how taking each of these strengths seriously can create sustained resistance against prostitution.

Toward An Expanded Conception Of Law Reform: Sexual Harassment Law And The Reconstruction Of Facts, Holly B. Fechner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note uses feminist reform of sexual harassment law to show how the reconstruction of factual descriptions can lead to change in the law. Part I describes the feminist methodology of consciousness raising and analyzes Catharine MacKinnon's Sexual Harassment of Working Women as an example of a successful consciousness-raising tool. Part II discusses sexual harassment doctrine and presents a case study illustrating how changing the way legal decision makers think about facts can lead to law reform. Part III discusses how social construction theory aids understanding of changes in sexual harassment law.

Deconstructing Gender, Joan C. Williams

Michigan Law Review

I start out, as have many others, from the deep split among American feminists between "sameness" and "difference." The driving force behind the mid-twentieth-century resurgence of American feminism was an insistence on the fundamental similarity of men and women and, hence, their essential equality.

I begin in Part I by challenging the widely influential description of gender advocated by Carol Gilligan. While Part I challenges the description of gender differences offered by Gilligan feminists, it does not deny the existence of gender differences. The chief strength of the feminism of difference is its challenge to what have been called male …