Law and Gender Commons^™

Bloodstains On A "Code Of Honor": The Murderous Marginalization Of Women In The Islamic World, Kenneth Lasson

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In the real world of the Twenty-first Century, deep biases against women are prevalent in much of Muslim society. Although there is no explicit approval of honor killing in Islamic law (Sharia), its culture remains fundamentally patriarchal. As unfathomable as it is to Western minds, "honor killing" is a facet of traditional patriarchy, and its condonation can be traced largely to ancient tribal practices. Justifications for it can be found in the codes of Hammurabi and in the family law of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, honor killings in the Twenty-first Century are not isolated incidents, nor can they be regarded …

Comments: Civil Unions Under The Maryland Era: How The Illusion Of Equality Is An Equal Rights Avoidance, Michele Reichlin

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Medical Hope, Legal Pitfalls: Potential Legal Issues In The Emerging Field Of Oncofertility, Gregory Dolin, Dorothy E. Roberts, Lina M. Rodriguez, Teresa K. Woodruff

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The article will begin its discussion by identifying the values at stake in the field of oncofertility. These values include the constitutional protection of the rights of women and minors to bear children and to use reproduction-assisting technologies, as well as the feminist critique of gendered expectations that may pressure women to use these technologies.

Part III will focus on the medical options of oncofertility. It will also discuss some conditions that may lead otherwise fertile and young patients to lose their ability to bear children as a side-effect of necessary medical treatment. The article will then proceed to discuss …

Foreword Symposium: Having It Our Way: Women In Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027, Margaret E. Johnson

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On November 14, 2007, the University of Baltimore School of Law, the University of Maryland School of Law and the Women's Law Center of Maryland co-sponsored a symposium entitled "Having it Our Way: Women in Maryland's Workplace Circa 2027." The insightful collection of papers in this volume of the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class represents the work of employment law scholars, public policy specialists, and activists who presented on the current state of Maryland employment law and discussed Maryland's future. This distinguished group of experts and scholars present several themes: the hope of new …

The Third Wave: Young Feminists Find Common Ground With Those Who Came Before Them, Jane C. Murphy

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Reporting on recent research at Chicago-Kent Law School and supported by studies at other schools, a group of student panelists noted sharp differences in participation rates in class discussions and lower feelings of self-confidence among female students compared with their male counterparts.

Welfare, Privacy, And Feminism, Michele E. Gilman

University of Baltimore Law Forum

Feminism has long been concerned with privacy. Second-wave feminists assailed the divide between the public and the private spheres that trapped women in the home, excluded them from the workforce, and subjected them to domestic abuse. Second-wave feminists also argued in favor of a sphere of privacy that would allow women to make reproductive choices without state interference. These were powerful critiques of existing power structures, but they tended to overlook the experiences of poor women. As a condition of receiving welfare benefits, poor women have been subjected to drug tests, and they continue to face unannounced home inspections by …

Casa Of Maryland And The Battle Regarding Human Trafficking And Domestic Worker Rights, Elizabeth Keyes

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At the November 2006 symposium presented by the University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class, the panelists discussed various issues regarding human trafficking. One entity at the forefront of the fight against human trafficking is CASA of Maryland. This article contains remarks originally made by the author that focused the topic of human trafficking on one particular group of workers: domestic workers. That particular group provides an interesting study because of the many race and gender issues that are wrapped up in the treatment of domestic workers under the law.

Viewing North Country: Sexual Harassment Goes To The Movies, Rebecca Korzec

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Children By Preserving Parenthood, Jane C. Murphy

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Establishing legal parentage, once a relatively straightforward matter of marriage and biology, has become increasingly complex. The determination of legal status as mother may now involve several women making claims based on genetic contribution, contract, status as gestational carrier or other bases. The debate about the best choice for children when adults are competing for parental status is ongoing, lively and filled with many voices. Less attention has been paid to a much larger, second category of cases - cases in which the law is faced with resolving the legal status of the one adult who may be available to …

Comments: Who Turned Out The Lights?: How Maryland Laws Fail To Protect Victims Of Domestic Violence From Third-Party Abuse, Anique Drouin

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Economic Efficiency And The Parameters Of Fairness: A Marriage Of Marketplace Morals And The Ethic Of Care, Barbara Ann White

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This article provides resolutions to a number of conundrums that have vexed policy-makers and scholars for some decades. The most significant conclusion is that efficiency and fairness concerns do not conflict but rather mutually support each other in the goal of maximizing social welfare. This is contrary to the more widely-held view by both advocates of law and economic reasoning and those favoring deontological concerns that a trade-off between fairness and efficiency is inevitable. This article demonstrates how the coalescence of the two frameworks, the cultivation of fairness with law and economics' efficiency maximization, yields greater enhancements of social welfare …

Domestic Violence And Mediation: Responding To The Challenges Of Crafting Effective Screens, Jane C. Murphy, Robert Rubinson

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Over the last two decades, mediation of family law cases has become well-established in American courts. As mediation has grown, experts have recognized that power imbalances between couples may interfere with mediation. This imbalance is particularly evident where one partner has been abusive to the other. Widespread consensus has developed that decisions about whether mediation is appropriate are particularly crucial and delicate when domestic violence is present. Despite this consensus, there is evidence that courts are still ordering couples who have experienced domestic violence to mediate their family law disputes with little or not particularized examination of the couples' circumstances. …

Legal Images Of Fatherhood: Welfare Reform, Child Support Enforcement, And Fatherless Children, Jane C. Murphy

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This Article analyzes the issue of paternity disestablishment, an issue courts and legislatures have been struggling with over the last several years. For a variety of reasons explored in this Article, an increasing number of fathers have filed requests to set aside paternity orders seeking to be relieved of the legal obligations of fatherhood. As a result families have been destabilized and children are becoming fatherless. The implications for the future of the family are profound. Although some scholars have examined this phenomenon, none have addressed the link between paternity disestablishment and welfare reform.

This Article explores the law's evolving …

An Experiment In Integrating Critical Theory And Clinical Education, Margaret E. Johnson

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Critical theory is important in live-client clinical teaching as a means to achieve the pedagogical goals of clinical education. Feminist legal theory, critical race theory, and poverty law theory serve as useful frameworks to enable students to deconstruct assumptions they, persons within institutions, and broader society make about the students' clients and their lives. Critical theory highlights the importance of looking for both the "obvious and non-obvious relationships of domination." Thus, critical theory informs students of the presence and importance of alternative voices that challenge the dominant discourse. When student attorneys ignore or are unaware of such voices, other voices …

Longitudinal Patterns Of Intimate Partner Violence, Risk, Well-Being, And Employment: Preliminary Findings, Jane C. Murphy, Mary Ann Dutton, Lisa A. Goodman, Dorothy J. Lennig

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Over 7 months (June 1999 to January 2000), researchers recruited 406 women from 1 of 3 sites in a northeastern city at the point they were seeking help for violence against them by a current or former male partner. Intimate partner violence was measured with a modified version of the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale. Some form of serious violence during the previous year was reported by 88 percent of the participants. By the first 3-month follow-up period, nearly one-third of the participants reported the recurrence of some form of physical violence; 20.4 percent reported an injury; and 18.1 percent reported …

Gender Bias: Continuing Challenges And Opportunities, Rebecca Korzec

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In 1873 the U.S. Supreme Court denied Myra Bradwell the right to practice law, holding "the paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign office of wife and mother." Now, just slightly more a century later, two women sit on the Supreme Court, and almost half of all law students and law school faculty are women.

Engaging With The State: The Growing Reliance On Lawyers And Judges To Protect Battered Women, Jane C. Murphy

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The passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (“VAWA II”) marked an important milestone in the evolution of the domestic violence movement. VAWA II created, among other things, a complex system for state and federal funding in all fifty states to provide civil legal assistance to battered women. Its passage completed a process that began in the early 1980s when domestic violence advocates shifted their focus from grass roots efforts to help battered women and their children leave abusive partners to building alliances with government and advocating for legal remedies to assist battered women. This paper looks …

Domestic Terror (The Sniper Suspect's Divorce Records Show Patterns Of Power And Control And Missed Opportunities By The System To Intervene.), Jane C. Murphy

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Over the past few months, we have learned much about the violent, troubled life of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad. Whether or not he pulled the trigger - some recent reports have pointed to his 17-year-old companion Lee Boyd Malvo as the main shooter - there is no doubt in the minds of domestic-violence experts that this adult is responsible for these deaths.

While many pundits conclude that we will never know what motivated the sniper suspect, to domestic violence experts his is an all-too-familiar story of a man whose relationships with the women and children - possibly including Malvo …

Dealing With Complex Evidence Of Domestic Violence: A Primer For The Civil Bench, Jane C. Murphy, Jane H. Aiken

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New laws and policies aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence have been adopted across the country throughout the last twenty years. The legal approaches taken to protect battered women and control family violence have brought about significant changes in family law. New laws include statutes permitting civil protection or restraining orders, and laws requiring that domestic violence be considered in custody and visitation decisions. Both of these types of statutory reforms can provide protection to adult victims of domestic violence and their children. Evaluating a parent’s fitness by considering past acts of violence to other family members results in …

Business Lawyer, Woman Warrior: An Allegory Of Feminine And Masculine Theories, Barbara Ann White

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The first part of this essay is a discourse on how two of the last half century’s most influential contributions to legal thinking: Law and Economics Jurisprudence and Feminist Legal Theory, whose adherents are normally adversaries, can function synergistically to create a greater analytic power. Using business law issues as an example - historically law and economics’ terrain but recently explored by feminism - I comment on how each can unravel different knots but each standing alone leave other conundrums unresolved.

Expanding on the feminist concept of “masculine thinking,” I discuss how, just as law and economics’ analytic style (i.e., …

The Glass Ceiling In Law Firms: A Form Of Sex-Based Discrimination, Rebecca Korzec

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At a certain level, women lawyers collide with a "glass ceiling," an invisible, artificial barrier which prevents women from being promoted to management and leadership positions within a business or firm. The glass ceiling 'represents a subtle form of sex discrimination - unwritten, generally unspoken, but very pervasive.' Its presence is reflected in trends and statistics which consistently reveal women's underrepresentation in executive and management positions.

This article focuses on whether the glass ceiling formed as a result of sex discrimination, blatant or subtle, or whether it formed as a result of women lawyers' differing qualifications or career choices. It …

Feminist Foundations For The Law Of Business: One Law And Economics Scholar's Survey And (Re)View, Barbara Ann White

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The purpose of this Essay is to suggest frameworks and modes of inquiry for applying feminist legal analysis to business law and the related theory of law and economics. It does so in two ways. One is to assess works already written by feminist scholars in the business law arena, highlighting how those contributions have begun to pave the way towards enriching the scope of business law analysis. The other is to offer two new roles for feminist jurisprudence. One role is to define just (that is, fair) distributions of rights and the other role is to define social judgments …

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

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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

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No abstract provided.

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

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No abstract provided.

A Feminist View Of American Elder Law, Rebecca Korzec

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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 …

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

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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 …

Free Speech Faces Hostile Environment: An Aggressive Hunt For Sex Harassment Leaves Plenty Of Wreckage, Kenneth Lasson

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Take the case of James Maas, who has been teaching at Cornell University for more than 30 years and whose Psychology 101 is perhaps the largest undergraduate course in the country (attracting about 1,000 students every semester). He was won numerous teaching awards. In 1994, Mr. Maas was called before Cornell's "Professional Ethics Committee" to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. The allegations centered around his "overly friendly and affectionate behavior" - which, it turns out, were hugs and occasional social kisses, most often in front of class or family.

The most notable example of a professor who stood …

Myths And Moms: Images Of Women And Termination Of Parental Rights, Odeana R. Neal

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For most of us, the word "mother" evokes a myriad of often conflicting images and emotions, expectations and disappointments, and gratitude and blame. What a mother is - our own mothers and the class of people who are mothers - means much more than that a woman has given birth. We expect mothers to provide their children with all the love, caring, nurturing, and emotional fulfillment that we perceive those children need and desire; we expect her to be all things that we want her to be when we need her to be them. A woman who can fulfill the …

Legal Protection For Victims Of Domestic Violence: A Guide For The Treating Physician, Jane C. Murphy

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No abstract provided.