Law and Gender Commons^™

Substance And Method In The Year 2000, Akhil Reed Amar

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Misappropriating Women’S History In The Law And Politics Of Abortion , Tracy A. Thomas

Seattle University Law Review

To examine the veracity of the political and legal claims of a feminist history against abortion, this Article focuses on one of the leading icons used in antiabortion advocacy—Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton has, quite literally, been the poster child for FFL’s historical campaign against abortion, appearing on posters, flyers, and commemorative coffee mugs. Advocates claim that Stanton is a particularly fitting spokesperson because she was a “feisty gal who had seven children and was outspokenly pro-life.” They claim that she “condemned abortion in the strongest possible terms” and was “a revolutionary who consistently advocated for the rights of women, for …

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

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The biggest challenge for sex equality in the 21st Century is to dismantle inequality between women and men’s family care responsibilities. American law has largely accomplished formal equality in parenting by doing away with explicit gender classifications, along with many of the assumptions that fostered them. In a dramatic change from the mid-20th Century, law relating to family, work, civic participation and their various intersections is now virtually all sex-neutral. As the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Nevada Department of Social Services v. Hibbs demonstrates, both Congress and the Court have accepted the feminist critique of sex roles and stereotyping …

Bride-Burning: The "Elephant In The Room" Is Out Of Control , Avnita Lakhani

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article is an attempt to answer the question of why the practice of bride-burning continues and propose alternative ways to not only look at the problem, but also to define workable solutions. It is only via a thorough conflict analysis of this complex issue that the world might rein in a problem that is clearly out of control in this day and age. Section II examines the origins of bride-burning, its continued practice, and societal ramifications. Section III analyzes some of the current and proposed efforts in place for banning bride-burning and punishing those who illegally engage in this …

From Multiculturalism To Technique: Feminism, Culture, And The Conflict Of Laws Style, Karen Knop, Ralf Michaels, Annelise Riles

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The German Chancellor, the French President, and the British Prime Minister have each grabbed world headlines with pronouncements that their states' policies of multiculturalism have failed. As so often, domestic debates about multiculturalism, as well as foreign policy debates about human rights in non- Western countries, revolve around the treatment of women. Yet feminists are no longer even certain how to frame, let alone resolve, the issues raised by veiling, polygamy, and other cultural practices oppressive to women by Western standards. Feminism has become perplexed by the very concept of "culture." This impasse is detrimental both to women's equality and …

The Assault Of Jamie Leigh Jones: How One Woman's Horror Story Is Changing Arbitration In America, Jeffrey Adams

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article examines Jones v. Halliburton Co., the "Al Franken Amendment" to the 2010 U.S. Defense Department Budget (Franken Amendment) that was created in response to Jones, and the impact that both could have on mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts in the future. Part II recounts the troubling events that led to Jones and the inclusion of the Franken Amendment in the 2010 Defense Department Budget. Part III details the arguments made for and against the inclusion of the Franken Amendment. Part IV analyzes the impact that the Franken Amendment could have on mandatory arbitration clauses in contacts in …

Women's Legal History Symposium Introduction: Making History, Felice J. Batlan

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay introduces the Chicago-Kent Symposium on Women's Legal History: A Global Perspective. It seeks to situate the field of women's legal history and to explore what it means to begin writing a transnational women's history which transcends and at times disrupts the nation state. In doing so, it sets forth some of the fundamental premises of women's legal history and points to new ways of writing such histories.

Exchange As A Cornerstone Of Families, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

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. …

A Law And Literature Approach To Stumped By Debora Threedy, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In this response, I will begin by identifying questions and issues about Stumped that might present themselves from law in literature and law as literature perspectives. This analysis will be followed by a discussion of the play from a particular law and narrative approach, one that ideologically is allied with feminist jurisprudence and critical race studies. Finally, I will conclude by examining the play in connection with scholarship on the cultural study of law, specifically emphasizing ways in which law and literature mutually constitute one another as opposed to being distinct categories of knowledge.

Regulating At The Margins: Non-Traditional Kinship And The Legal Regulation Of Intimate And Family Life, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

This Article offers a new theory of how the law attempts to control intimate and family life and uses that theory to argue why certain laws might be unconstitutional. Specifically, it contends that by regulating non-traditional relationships and practices that receive little or no constitutional protection— same-sex relationships, domestic partnerships, de facto parenthood, and nonsexual procreation—the law is able to express its normative ideals about all marriage, parenthood, and procreation. By regulating non-traditional kinship, then, the law can be aspirational in a way that the Constitution would ordinarily prohibit and can attempt to channel all of us in ways that …

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 …

Civil Marriage: Threat To Democracy, Jessica Knouse

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article argues that civil marriage and democracy are inherently incompatible, whether assessed from a transcultural perspective that reduces them to their most universal aspects or a culturally situated perspective that accounts for their uniquely American elaborations. Across virtually all cultures, civil marriage privileges sexual partners by offering them exclusive access to highly desirable government benefits, while democracy presupposes liberty and equality. When governments privilege sexual partners, they effectively deprive their citizens of liberty by encouraging them to enter sexual partnerships rather than selfdetermining based on their own preferences; they effectively deprive their citizens of equality by establishing insidious status …

Unsex Mothering: Toward A New Culture Of Parenting, Darren Rosenblum

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I observe that “mothering” and “fathering” have been inappropriately tethered to biosex. “Mothering” should be unsexed as the primary parental relationship. “Fathering,” correspondingly, should be unsexed from its breadwinner status. In an ideal world, people now considered “mothers” and “fathers” would be “parents” first, a category that includes all forms of caretaking. One could even imagine an androgynous world in which parenting has no sexed subcategories, whether attached to biosex or not. I doubt our world is anywhere near that; I also wonder whether universal androgyny is a utopian ideal worth pursuing. I instead focus in this …

Sexual Harassment 2.0, Mary Anne Franks

Articles

Sexual harassment is a complex and evolving practice. The rise of sexual discrimination in cyberspace is only one of the most recent and most striking examples of the phenomenon's increasing complexity. Sexual harassment law, however, has not kept pace with this evolution. Discrimination law has not been adequately "updated" to address new and amplified practices of sex discrimination. Its two principal limitations are (1) it treats only sexual harassment that occurs in certain protected settings (e.g. the workplace or school) as actionable and (2) it assumes that both the activity and the resulting harm of sexual harassment occur in the …

Introduction: Masculinities, Multidimensionality, And Law: Why They Need One Another, Ann C. Mcginley, Frank Rudy Cooper

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Book Review, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice Of Appearance In Life And Law, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

When The Cure Makes You Ill: Seven Core Principles To Change The Course Of Youth Justice, Gabrielle Prisco

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The New Illegitimacy: Winning Backward In The Protection Of The Children Of Lesbian Couples, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Two Parts Of The Landscape Of Family In America: Maintaining Both Spousal And Domestic Partner Employee Benefits For Both Same-Sex And Different-Sex Couples, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

"U" Stands For Underutilization: The U Visa's Vulnerability For Underuse In The Sex Trafficking Context, Erin Bistricer

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The U Visa, established in 2000 under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization, was designed to provide legal status to victims of certain crimes, including sex trafficking, without fear of deportation. However, its implementation has been hindered by significant challenges, including delayed regulations, confusion among applicants, and reliance on law enforcement cooperation, which can be a barrier for traumatized victims. While the U Visa offers more flexibility than the T Visa by covering a broader range of crimes and requiring a lower standard of proof, its effectiveness is limited by factors such as annual caps, inadequate state anti-trafficking laws, …

From Private Violence To Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, And Social Control, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw

Faculty Scholarship

The structural and political dimensions of gender violence and mass incarceration are linked in multiple ways. The myriad causes and consequences of mass incarceration discussed herein call for increased attention to the interface between the dynamics that constitute race, gender, and class power, as well as to the way these dynamics converge and rearticulate themselves within institutional settings to manufacture social punishment and human suffering. Beyond addressing the convergences between private and public power that constitute the intersectional dimensions of social control, this Article addresses political failures within the antiracism and antiviolence movements that may contribute to the legitimacy of …

Coalition, Cross-Cultural Lawyering, And Intersectionality: Immigrant Identity As A Barrier To Effective Legal Counseling For Domestic Violence Victims, Jessica H. Stein

Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal

Vol. 11, No. 1

Beyond Equality? Against The Universal Turn In Workplace Protection, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Sexual harassment law and family leave policy originated as feminist reform projects designed to protect women in the workplace. But many academics now ask whether harassment and leave policies have outgrown their gendered roots. The anti-bullying movement advocates taking the “sexual” out of harassment law to prohibit all forms of on-the-job mistreatment. Likewise, the work-life balance movement advocates taking the “family” out of leave policy to require employers to accommodate all types of life pursuits. These proposals are in line with recent cases and scholarship on civil rights that reframe problems once seen as issues of inequality as deprivations of …

"Catch-22": The Role Of Development Institutions In Promoting Gender Equality In Land Law – Lessons Learned In Post-Conflict Pluralist Africa, Amrita Kapur

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

This article explores the contours of development policies as they have been applied to pluralistic legal systems, with a specific focus on their effects on women in post-conflict African countries. Drawing on research that firmly establishes the importance of women's social, economic and political participation in post-conflict development, it identifies the flaws in gender-neutral land titling initiatives introduced and encouraged by development institutions. It then describes the gender-sensitive laws enacted as a response to continuing gender discriminatory practices in Rwanda, Mozambique and Uganda. While taking into account the existence of customary law, these laws explicitly affirm women's rights with respect …

Disgust And The Problematic Politics Of Similarity, Courtney Megan Cahill

Michigan Law Review

Martha Nussbaum's latest book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation & Constitutional Law, could not have come at a more opportune time in the history of gay rights in the United States. All signs point to progress toward "humanity," from same-sex couples' successful bids for marriage equality in a handful of states to the public's increasing acceptance of the prospect of gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Even if recent cognitive science research indicates that same-sex relationships provoke more than a little disgust in some people, landmark marriage-equality victories in a few states suggest that the law is …

Home Is Where The Crime Is, I. Bennett Capers

Michigan Law Review

Think of home. Go on. Maybe not your parents' home, which for this reviewer would be enough to induce heavy breathing and general anxiety. Rather, think about the concept of home. Think about the idea of home. Think about Home with a capital letter. Think of home as in The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy's famous "There's no place like home." Think "home sweet home." Or "home is where the heart is." Go on. Of course, there may be other associations that come to mind when one thinks of home. There's security. Safety. Control. Home rule. After all, in the …

The Gendered Lives Of Legal Aid: Lay Lawyers, Social Workers, And The Bar, 1863-1960, Felice J. Batlan

All Faculty Scholarship

The Gendered Life of Legal Aid, 1863-1960 (manuscript in process) will be the first monograph on the history of civil legal aid in the United States. By closely examining the history of legal aid in New York, Chicago, and Boston, it presents a number of arguments with wide-ranging implications and it is animated by a host of conflicts. These include the relationship between legal aid and citizenship, the changing status of domestic relations law, the interactions between lawyers and social workers and their different understandings of the role and nature of law, what services legal aid should provide, and even …

Stalled: Gender Diversity On Corporate Boards, Barbara Black

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In this essay, prepared for the University of Dayton College of Law’s Symposium on Perspectives on Gender and Business Ethics: Women in Corporate Governance, held on February 25, 2011, I discuss the lack of progress in achieving gender diversity on corporate boards.

I first review the numbers that demonstrate that progress is stalled, despite the attention and resources devoted to the issue by a number of well-respected organizations, legal scholars and institutional investors. I argue that, because this is an issue of equal opportunity, it is not really necessary to make a business case to justify increased efforts toward board …

Women, Vulnerability, And Humanitarian Emergencies, Fionnuala Ni Aolain

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The catastrophic dimensions of humanitarian emergencies are increasingly understood and more visible to states and international institutions. There is greater appreciation for the social, economic and political effects that follow in the short to long term from the devastating consequences of humanitarian emergencies. There is also recognition of the gendered dimensions of humanitarian emergencies in policy and institutional contexts. It is generally acknowledged that women are overrepresented in the refugee and internally displaced communities that typically result from many humanitarian crises. Women bear acute care responsibilities in most societies and also disproportionately bear familial and communal care responsibilities in communities …

Law, Literature, And The Legacy Of Virginia Woolf: Stories And Lessons In Feminist Legal Theory, 21 Tex. J. Women & L. 1 (2011), Susan L. Brody

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.