Law Commons^™

Michelle Obama: The "Darker Side" Of Presidential Spousal Involvement And Activism, Gregory S. Parks, Quinetta M. Roberson, Phd

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Pundits and commentators have attempted to make sense of the role that race and gender have played in the 2008 presidential campaign. Whereas researchers are drawing on varying bodies of scholarship (legal, cognitive and social psychology, and political science) to illuminate the role that Senator Obama’s race and Senator Clinton’s gender has/had on their campaign, Michelle Obama has been left out of the discussion. As Senator Clinton once noted, elections are like hiring decisions. As such, new frontiers in employment discrimination law place Michelle Obama in context within the current presidential campaign. First, racism and sexism are both alive and …

The First (Black) Lady, Verna L. Williams

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Part I examines the role of First Lady, which has been undertheorized in legal scholarship, and how it promotes privileged white femininity, and in so doing, upholds patriarchy. Part II builds upon that discussion, explaining that the gender and racial norms that contribute to the traditional First Lady trope exemplify the intertwined nature of racism and sexism, which have been used to justify Black subordination. This section also examines how African Americans have embraced gender conformance as a way of attaining acceptance and status within the existing social order, specifically through the "Black lady" construct, which the campaign invoked to …

(Mis)Appropriated Liberty: Identity, Gender Justice And Muslim Personal Law Reform In India, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

This article argues that in order to emancipate Indian-Muslim women from an outdated family legal code, their position at the intersection of gender and a minority religion must be taken seriously. Proposals for reform that have been suggested by Western liberal, secular feminists that ignore the importance of women's religious affiliation fail to do this. Moreover, by making assumptions about the strength of secularism in India, the willingness of the state to enact legal reforms driven by gender concerns, and by failing to acknowledge the limits of formal rights alone in changing norms, these scholars do not account for the …

Mothers, Babies And Jail, Rebecca Johnson

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Ladies' Health Protective Association: Lay Lawyers And Urban Cause Lawyering, Felice J. Batlan

Felice J Batlan