Law and Gender Commons^™

Reinvigorating Commonality: Gender And Class Actions, Brooke D. Coleman, Elizabeth G. Porter

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In this Article, we examine the interplay of Rule 23(b)(2) class actions, feminism, and Title VII sex discrimination doctrine over the past fifty years to show that the theoretical concept of commonality—cohesion, unity—in the women’s movement has had a significant impact on the ability of women to seek collective redress for workplace discrimination through class actions. We describe how the four "waves” of feminism since the 1960s find corresponding analogues in the development of Title VII class action law. Beginning in the civil rights era, feminism became an entrenched part of mainstream America Over time, however, feminism’s influence waned as …

Potential Life In The Doctrine, Leah Litman

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In their article, Abortion: A Woman’s Private Choice, Erwin Chemerinsky and Michele Goodwin seek to shore up the doctrinal basis for a woman’s constitutional right to end her pregnancy. While Chemerinsky and Goodwin are partly concerned about the status of abortion rights in the United States because of President Donald Trump’s promise prior to taking office to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade, they also maintain that some of the threat to abortion rights arises from an uncomfortable tension in the doctrine that recognizes states’ interest in potential life. I agree with Chemerinsky and …

Harmonizing Cultural Ip Across Borders: Fashionable Bags & Ghanaian Adinkra Symbols, J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

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Global copyright and trademark laws protect symbols, names, and literary and artistic works. However, when their primary significance is cultural, because they are neither individual original works nor symbols that are used as commercial identifiers, intellectual property laws do not protect these symbols or artistic works. This is true, even if these goods are protected under national laws as part of that nation's cultural heritage. Once these cultural goods cross borders, there is no international law that will enable the country from which these goods originate to assert its rights in other countries. This Article characterizes these cultural goods as …

Equality Adds Quality: On Upgrading Higher Education And Research In The Field Of Law, Susanne Baer

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Much has been attempted, and many pro1ects are still underway aimed at achieving equality in higher education and research. Today, the key argument to demand and support the integration of gender in academia is that equality is indeed about the quality on which academic work is supposed to be based. Although more or less national political, social and cultural contexts matter as much as academic environments, regarding higher education and research, the integration of gender into the field of law seems particularly interesting. Faculties of law enjoy a certain standing and status, are closely connected to power and politics, and …

Postpartum Taxation And The Squeezed Out Mom, Shannon Weeks Mccormack

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Faced with too-short (or nonexistent) maternity leaves, inflexible work schedules, and the soaring costs of childcare in the United States, many new mothers temporarily leave the workforce to care for their young children. Although media attention has focused on the “opt-out” mom, many more mothers are squeezed out of the external workplace. But mothers that try to return to work may discover that it is difficult to do so, as employers have been shown to be less likely to hire mothers than others. A mother that does reenter may find that even short periods out of work cost (sometimes far) …

Sital Kalantry: Women's Human Rights And Migration: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws In The United States And India, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum

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No abstract provided.

How Strange The Change From Major To Minor, Peter Goodrich

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No abstract provided.

An Equal Rights Amendment For The Twenty-First Century: Bringing Global Constitutionalism Home, Julie C. Suk

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The last few years have seen a renewed push to constitutionalize sex equality in the United States. A generation after the federal Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to be ratified by the requisite number of states, the ERA is on the platform of the 2017 Women's March on Washington. Oregon added a sex equality guarantee to its state constitution in 2014, joining 22 state constitutions and most constitutions around the world. Feminist coalitions, Hollywood celebrities, and members of Congress are vocally endorsing an ERA revival. Why is an ERA desired now, when judges have interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit …

The Constitution Of Mothers: Gender Equality And Social Reproduction In The United States And The World, Julie C. Suk

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The article explores the resurgence of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the United States, highlighting its potential to address ongoing gender inequalities and the role of social reproduction in modern society. It argues that the ERA, if ratified, could move beyond symbolic significance by integrating lessons from global constitutionalism, particularly the synthesis of gender equality and motherhood protections seen in European constitutions.

Reconceptualizing The Eighth Amendment: Slaves, Prisoners, And Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Alexander A. Reinert

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The meaning of the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause has long been hotly contested. For scholars and jurists who look to original meaning or intent, there is little direct contemporaneous evidence on which to rest any conclusion. For those who adopt a dynamic interpretive framework, the Supreme Court’s “evolving standards of decency” paradigm has surface appeal, but deep conflicts have arisen in application. This Article offers a contextual account of the Eighth Amendment’s meaning that addresses both of these interpretive frames by situating the Amendment in eighteenth and nineteenth-century legal standards governing relationships of subordination.

In particular, I …

Women On State Boards And Commissions: Is Idaho Where It Wants To Be?, Brenda Bauges

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No abstract provided.

Men, Women, And Optimal Violence, Mary Anne Franks

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While both men and women can, and do, use violence against each other, men's violence against women is far more common, less justified, and more destructive than women's violence against men. One of the reasons for this asymmetry is that men do not fear retaliation for violence against women, whereas women do fear retaliation for their use of violence against men. The distribution of violence between the genders, then, is suboptimal. Society would be better off as a whole if more women were willing to engage in justified violence against men, and fewer men were willing to engage in unjustified …

Crime Logic, Campus Sexual Assault, And Restorative Justice, Donna Coker

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No abstract provided.

Class Warfare: The Disappearance Of Low-Income Litigants From The Civil Docket, Myriam Gilles

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In recent years, much attention has been paid to the startling disparities in income and wealth in contemporary U.S. society. The enormous concentration of economic power in the top 1% is the culmination of decades of significant income and wealth gains for the top, combined with stagnant or decreasing growth for the majority - a trend that continues apace. But nowhere is the gap more glaring than in the civil docket, where class actions brought by or on behalf of low-income consumers and employees are on the verge of disappearing.

To be sure, the decline in class actions is only …

The Law And Politics Of The Charles Taylor Case, Charles Chernor Jalloh

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This article discusses a rare successful prosecution of a head of state by a modern international criminal court. The case involved former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor, who was charged and tried by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone ("SCSL'), was convicted in April 2013 for planning and aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious international humanitarian law violations. He was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment. The SCSL Appeals Chamber upheld the historic conviction and sentence in September 2013. Taylor is currently serving his sentence in Great Britain.

This article, from an insider who …

Criminalizing Revenge Porn, Danielle Citron, Mary Anne Franks

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No abstract provided.

I Am/I Am Not: On Angela Harris's Race And Essentialism In Feminist Legal Theory, Mary Anne Franks

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In 1990, Angela Harris wrote an article that interrogated the limitations of feminist legal theory. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the insights and challenges Harris offered in Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory continue to reverberate. The influence of her ideas can be seen in the fractured and passionate conversations about gender, race, and solidarity occurring both inside and outside of academia. In recent years, we have witnessed an explosion of debate of these topics in social media forums such as Twitter and Facebook. Far from being trivial, the intensity and persistence of these conversations suggest a …

How To Feel Like A Woman, Or Why Punishment Is A Drag, Mary Anne Franks

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If a man in prison says that he was made -to feel like a woman," this is commonly understood to mean that he was degraded, dehumanized, and sexualized. This association of femininity with punishment has significant implications for the way our society understands not only the sexual abuse of men in prison but also sexual abuse generally These important implications are usually overlooked, however, because law and society typically regard prison feminization as a problem of gender transposition: that is, as a problem of men being treated like women. In contrast, this Article argues that feminization is punitive for both …

Prosecutor V. Taylor, Charles Chernor Jalloh, David P. Stewart

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No abstract provided.

Roll Back "Prison Nation", Donna Coker

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No abstract provided.

What Can Comparative Legal Studies Learn From Feminist Legal Theories In The Era Of Globalization, Dana Raigrodski

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This article re-examines the field of comparative law and comparative legal studies through the lens of feminist legal theories/studies (FLT). It suggests that lessons learned from the development of FLT and insights from shared epistemology and methodology within FLT can inform the ongoing controversies within comparative legal studies and provide comparative legal scholars and practitioners with the tools to maximize the benefits of comparative legal studies in the era of increasing global interdependence.

Part II begins by briefly reviewing key controversies and critiques within comparative legal studies. It highlights the debate on whether comparative law encompasses a substantive area of …

Gender Quotas After The End Of Men, Julie C. Suk

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The article explores the evolving role of gender quotas in a society where women are increasingly surpassing men in education and professional sectors, a concept termed "the end of men." It examines the legal and social implications of gender quotas, contrasting France's constitutional commitment to gender parity with Sweden's shift away from such quotas as they begin to disadvantage women in certain contexts. The author argues that the justification for gender quotas is being reevaluated, moving from correcting historical discrimination to maintaining gender balance as a permanent societal goal.

Is(N'T) Catharine Mackinnon A Liberal?, Don Herzog

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Catharine MacKinnon likes to describe her view as radical feminism or feminism unmodified or feminism, full stop. And she likes to contrast it to liberal feminism, which she sometimes treats with caustic scorn. But is she right to see a contrast here?

The Difference A Justice May Make: Remarks At The Symposium For Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Suzanne Baer

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First, I will briefly summarize the state of the art of equality law in Germany today. A distinct dimension of this story from a European Union member state is that we are not just theorizing postnational constitutionalism these days, but that we live it already, since law is not anymore isolated as national but needs to be seen in the context of transnational migration and multinational regimes. Second, I turn to a key feature and key challenge in and to equality law today. It is what I have called the triangle of fundamental rights, referring to the three most prominent …

Gender And New Wars, Christine M. Chinkin, Mary Kaldor

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War plays an important role in the construction of gender, or the social roles of men and women. This article analyzes the gendered experience of what Kaldor calls "new wars." It shows that new wars are largely fought by men in the name of a political identity that usually has a significant gender dimension. They use tactics that involve deliberate attacks on civilians, including systematic rape as a weapon of war, and are financed by predatory economic activities that tend to affect women more than men. The article describes the ways in which laws relating to gendered violence have been …

Property, Privacy And Power: Rethinking The Fourth Amendment In The Wake Of U.S. V. Jones, Dana Raigrodski

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This Article seeks to uncover invisible gender, race, and class biases driving modern Fourth Amendment discourse. Unlike traditional theories, which tend to view the Fourth Amendment through the lens of either privacy or property, this Article advances a theory focusing on the real issues of power and control that fuel Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Specifically, the Article exposes the private/public and home/market dichotomies that are central to the Supreme Court rhetoric as arbitrary and artificial. It finds that current Fourth Amendment discourse protects the interest of white, privileged men and perpetuates male ideology as well as male domination. That focus leaves …

Reflections Of Women In Legal Education: Stories From Four Decades Of Section Chairs, Linda Jellum

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No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment 2.0, Mary Anne Franks

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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 …

The Challenge Of Domestic Implementation Of International Human Rights Law In The Cotton Field Case, Caroline Bettinger-López

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No abstract provided.

Beyond Microfinance: Creating Opportunities For Women At The Base Of The Pyramid, Deborah Burand

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A growing number of innovative social entrepreneurs are tackling this problem by creating 'busmesses in a bag' mspired by the world's largest direct seller of beauty products - Avon. These very small franchise or consignment businesses are affordable enough to be acquired and operated by women living at the base of the economic pyramid. Just as commercial franchise networks such as Avon have helped people with httle or no experience grow mto successful business owners around the world, microfranchise and microconsignment networks may hold similar promise.