Law and Gender Commons^™

De Facto Parents And The Unfulfilled Promise Of The New Ali Principles, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

Alternative families - those that do not fit the classic nuclear family model - have been the focus of legal reform over the last twenty years. The American Law Institute has produced model legislation recognizing de facto parents as holders of some limited rights. To some this is a more flexible regime that would benefit non-nuclear families, in particular lesbian families. This article critiques the ALI draft, demonstrating that its promise is largely illusory.

Redefining The State's Response To Domestic Violence: Past Victories And Future Challenges, Deborah Epstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What role should the state play in the fight against domestic violence? Although most activists in the early domestic abuse movement viewed government institutions with a robust dose of suspicion, over time they began to look to the state for substantial assistance. During this period-the late sixties and seventies-increased hope for a positive governmental role appeared to be well-founded. The civil rights, feminist, and labor movements had pushed the federal government into expanding civil liberty guarantees and economic protections. Laws were enacted prohibiting sex- and race-based discrimination, health care got a strong boost through the creation of Medicaid and Medicare, …

Entering The Debate On Spousal Abuse Divorce Mediation: Safely Managing Divorce Mediation When Domestic Violence Is Discovered, Kara C. Utzig

Buffalo Women's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reproducing A Fit Citizenry: Dependency, Eugenics, And The Law Of Marriage In The United States, Matthew Lindsay

All Faculty Scholarship

Between the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, American state legislatures enacted a series of new laws that delineated a class of citizens who were deemed ineligible to participate in the institution of marriage. Scholars have characterized this development as evidence that lawmakers had lost faith in a laissez-faire approach to nuptial governance, and thus transformed marriage into an object of public regulation. This essay argues that behind the ostensible nuptial privatism of the mid-nineteenth century lay a self-conscious policy. of judicial governance. Judges invoked the language of nuptial privacy and the common law of contract strategically to advance their …

'M' Is For The Many Things That 'Mother' Means Family Life Has Changed, But Family Law Hasn't Kept Pace, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adoption Of Children In Missouri, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Article is to investigate the effect of Missouri law on adoption and to determine whether its provisions adequately protect the parties to adoption and whether its degree of clarity properly forestalls litigation.

Assembly Bill To Speed Divorce After Abuse Will Save Many Lives, Bring Needed Reform, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Property Rules Meet Feminist Needs: Respecting Autonomy By Valuing Connection, Katharine K. Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Assesing The Family And Medical Leave Act In Terms Of Gender Equality, Work/Family Balance, And The Needs Of Children, Angie K. Young

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

While recognizing that parental leave is only one aspect of the FMLA, this Article concentrates on the provision allowing leave to parents in order to care for their children. Before analyzing the FMLA in detail, it is helpful to explore what aims a parental-leave policy should have. The purpose of this Article is to propose and defend three goals that parental-leave legislation should strive to meet: equality of career opportunities for men and women, the right to participate in both work and family, and meeting the needs of children. After articulating what parental-leave legislation should aim for in theory, this …

Law, Life, And Literature: A Critical Reflection Of Life And Literature To Illuminate How Laws Of Domestic Violence, Race, And Class Bind Black Women Based On Alice Walker's Book The Third Life Of Grange Copeland, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Consider Law, Life and Literature. Which of the three is the most real, honest, and inclusive? Many would answer the law because it takes into consideration all of the facts and circumstances to formulate a clear and consistent rule, and literature is the most unreal, the most fictional of the three. However, that is not accurate. Of the three, literature is actually the most real, honest, and inclusive. It is real because, with brutal honesty, it deals with all of our realities. It is more honest than life, for often in our outer (and even inner) lives we are afraid …

Reconceiving The Family: Challenging The Paradigm Of The Exclusive Family, Alison Harvinson Young

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Sex And The Social Order: The Selective Enforcement Of Colonial American Adultery Laws In The English Context, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Globalization Of Female Child Prostitution: A Call For Reintegration And Recovery Measures Via Article 39 Of The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child, Laurie Robinson

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Report: Availability Of Domestic Violence Services For Latina Survivors In New York State, Jenny Rivera

In the Public Interest

No abstract provided.

A Feminist View Of American Elder Law, Rebecca Korzec

All Faculty Scholarship

ANY discussion of contemporary American elder law must consider gender issues. A number of gender concerns are readily discernible, including workplace and family issues. Significantly, sex-based disparities are increasing within the elderly population. In turn, these disparities exacerbate problems of fairness and equity in meeting intergenerational family needs and expectations.

As with childrearing, in contemporary American society, the major caregiving responsibility for the growing number of frail elderly falls largely on women rather than men. With an increasing number of women working outside the family home, the intersection of work and family issues is receiving considerable attention both in academic …

Unshackling Black Motherhood, Dorothy E. Roberts

Michigan Law Review

When stories about the prosecutions of women for using drugs during pregnancy first appeared in newspapers in 1989, I immediately suspected that most of the defendants were Black women. Charging someone with a crime for giving birth to a baby seemed to fit into the legacy of devaluing Black mothers. I was so sure of this intuition that I embarked on my first major law review article based on the premise that the prosecutions perpetuated Black women's subordination. My hunch turned out to be right: a memorandum prepared by the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project documented cases brought against pregnant women …

Taking Care Of Our Daughters, A Book Review Of Martha Fineman, The Neutered Mother, The Sexual Family And Other Twentieth Century Tragedies, Katharine K. Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case Of The Battered Wife: Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" And "A Jury Of Her Peers", Lillian Schanfield

Circles: Buffalo Women's Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Child Care Policy And The Welfare Reform Act, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

This article sketches the 1996 Welfare Reform Act's major changes with particular attention to federally subsidized child care for low-income families.

Working On The "Mommy-Track": Motherhood And Women Lawyers, Rebecca Korzec

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the effects of motherhood on the careers of women lawyers and the efficacy of the 'mommy-track' as a means of ameliorating these effects. Part I examines the current position of women in the legal profession. Part II examines the nature of 'motherhood' and the risk/benefit function of 'mommy-tracking.' Part III analyzes the 'mommy-track' from the perspective of feminist jurisprudence. Finally, Part IV examines issues related to workplace transformation. It is the position of this paper that 'mommy-tracking' reinforces undesirable stereotypes. Ironically, this apparent 'solution' actually forestalls the transformations, at home and at work, which could enable women …

Intimate Violence And The Problem Of Consent, Jane H. Aiken

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The juxtaposition of intimacy with violence is striking. Intimacy implies a closeness and a vulnerability that is treasured and inviolate. Intimacy should foreclose the possibility of violence. Intimate violence should be an oxymoron. Yet, intimacy sometimes creates its own special kind of violence, one that can erupt into rape or assault. On a less physical level, intimacy may cause violence to a woman's personal integrity and economic independence.

Intimate violence manifests itself with a certain subtlety that forces women to walk a careful tightrope in order to avoid threatened harm. This essay is about that tightrope: the double binds women …

A Focus On Children And The Law, Aviva A. Orenstein

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Intervenor, Women’S Legal Education And Action Fund (Leaf), Goertz V. Gordon, Laura Spitz

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, women have been almost exclusively responsible for the unpaid labour of child care with the assumption of primary child care responsibilities after separation. The courts must analyze each situation to determine whether a joint custody arrangement, in law, is in fact true equal parenting, in roles and responsibilities, or one more akin to sole custody when considering relocation restrictions.

Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article asks whether the "reasonable woman" should become the standard for women seeking relief from tax liabilities under the innocent spouse provision of the I.R.C. and whether an even more specific standard should be adopted for women who are also going through divorce or are in similar situations.

Protecting Our Children: A Call To Reform State Policies To Hold Pregnant Drug Addicts Accountable, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 765 (1996), Julie J. Zitella

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Separating From Children, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

On September 1, 1939, in anticipation of the imminent German bombing of British cities, 150,000 children were assembled at the railway stations of London and sent throughout the day to "'destinations unknown'" in the English countryside. Mothers and children under five were evacuated together but school-age children were shipped out to rural billets in school groups, accompanied only by their teachers and civil defense volunteers. Forty years later, an observer remembered the day vividly:

[T]he mothers [were] trying to hold back their tears as they marched these little boys and girls in their gas masks into the centre …. The …

The Deliberate Contruction Of Families Without Fathers: Is It An Option For Lesbian And Heterosexual Mothers, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Custody And Conduct: How The Law Fails Lesbian And Gay Parents And Their Children, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

When parents dispute child custody, courts determine their rights by using a "best interests of the child" analysis. In this context, courts consider a host of factors, including parental sexuality. When considering the suitability of custody for a lesbian or gay parents, most courts employ a nexus test - one that requires a showing of a nexus between parental sexuality and the well-being of the child. A smaller number continue to use a harsher test that disqualifies lesbian and gay parents under a per se rule. This article argues that closer examination reveals that even the apparently more liberal nexus …

Important Steps And Instructive Models In The Fight To Eliminate Violence Against Women, Elizabeth M. Misiaveg

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Family Planning Services Conference On The Interventional Protection Of Reproductive Rights: The Impact Of Reproductive Subordination On Women's Health , Mahmoud F. Fathalla

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.