Law and Gender Commons^™

Rape Exceptionalism Returns To California: Institutionalizing A Credibility Discount For College Students Reporting Sexual Misconduct, Kelly Alison Behre

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Exploitation And The Adultified Black Girl, Mikah K. Thompson

Faculty Works

A troubling legacy of American chattel slavery is the justice system’s continued failure to provide adequate protection to African-American crime victims. This piece focuses on the law’s historic unwillingness to shield Black girls from acts of sexual violence. During slavery, lawmakers refused to criminalize rape committed against Black girls and women based not only on the fact that they were considered property but also on stereotypes about their sexuality. Even though the law now criminalizes the rape of Black girls, African-American rape survivors encounter more skepticism and hostility when they come forward with their stories compared to their White counterparts. …

Is The #Metoo Movement For Real? The Implications For Jurors’ Biases In Sexual Assault Cases, Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

This Article examines the emerging research on the #MeToo movement and its potential effects on the population of potential jurors, exploring the possibility of improving the jury pool in sexual assault cases. Part I discusses the current problem of attrition in sexual assault cases. Part II examines the substantial body of literature surrounding this attrition and the potential reasons for it. Part III explores the #MeToo movement and reviews the emerging body of research regarding it. Part III also considers whether the movement will impact juries positively or whether the attrition rates based on rape myths, misogyny, and rape culture …

Ectogenesis: Is There A Constitutional Right To Substrate-Independent Wombs?, Brit Janeway Benjamin

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

No abstract provided.

The “Welfare Queen” Goes To The Polls: Race-Based Fractures In Gender Politics And Opportunities For Intersectional Coalitions, Catherine Powell, Camille Gear Rich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trauma-Centered Social Justice, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

This Article identifies a new and growing phenomenon in the American legal system. Many leading agendas for gender, racial, and climate justice are centered on emotional trauma as the primary injury of contemporary social injustices. By focusing on three social justice movements–#BlackLivesMatter; #MeToo, and Climate Justice–the Article offers the first comprehensive diagnosis and assessment of how emotional trauma has become an engine for legal and policy social justice reforms. From a nineteenth century psychoanalytic theory about repressed childhood sexual memories that manifest in female hysteria, through extensive medicalization and classification in the twentieth century, emotional trauma has evolved and expanded …

Diversity And The Board Of Directors: A Comparative Perspective, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In 2003, Norwegian feminists, frustrated by intractably stark sex inequality in the private sector, initiated sex quotas to mandate inclusion of women on corporate boards. In the short span of our nascent century, this legislation established that diversity – sex diversity in particular – is a mark of legitimate corporate governance. When Norway adopted a corporate board quota in 2003, it appeared to be an extreme example of Scandinavian overreach. Within eight years, France had followed suit and other leading countries copied the regulation in some form. Now six of the top ten economies mandate sex diversity on corporate …

The Right Family, Noa Ben-Asher, Margot J. Pollans

Faculty Publications

The family plays a starring role in American law. Families, the law tells us, are special. They merit many state and federal benefits, including tax deductions, testimonial privileges, untaxed inheritance, and parental presumptions. Over the course of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court expanded individual rights stemming from familial relationships. In this Article, we argue that the concept of family in American law matters just as much when it is ignored as when it is featured. We contrast policies in which the family is the key unit of analysis with others in which it is not. Looking at four seemingly …

How Access To Finances Affects Gender Inequality Across Cultures, Allison Muntin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

While many studies of financial inclusion have been undertaken, very few discuss the inclusion of women. Financial inclusion plays a large role in unlocking resources for the disadvantaged, resulting in higher economic growth and development. The economic opportunity allows individuals and businesses to have a greater contribution to society as a whole, enhancing all aspects of the economy. This paper furthers the conversation of women’s access to financial institution accounts across cultures and what underlying factors play a key role. The results indicate that the female demographic has fewer financial institution accounts in comparison to men when: (i) a country’s …

How A Good Idea Became A Bad Idea: Universities And The Use Of Non-Disclosure Agreements In Terminations For Sexual Misconduct, Julie Macfarlane

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

One of the challenges that face every third-party intervenor in a conflict is what the parties shall agree about the public nature of an agreed outcome. In private dispute resolution, in contrast to adjudication by courts, there is neither a requirement nor (with a few exceptions) a legal compulsion to reveal those outcomes, if one or more parties prefer to keep the matter private.

The Language Of Harm: What The Nassar Victim Impact Statements Reveal About Abuse And Accountability, Jamie Abrams, Amanda Potts

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article examines 148 Victim Impact Statements that were delivered to the
court in the Larry Nassar criminal sentencing. Larry Nassar was a doctor for the
United States Gymnastics Association and an employee of Michigan State University
who treated elite athletes, predominantly gymnasts. Nassar pleaded guilty to child
pornography and first-degree criminal sexual misconduct charges in Michigan. His
sentencing received worldwide attention as victims delivered impact statements
describing the harm and betrayal of his conduct. Using corpus-based discourse
analysis, this Article examines the complex strategies that the victims deployed to
describe who Nassar was (a doctor, a monster, a friend), …

Copyright Issues With The "Black Hole" Image And Their Legal Implications, Yahong Li

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The release of the world'sfirst-ever black hole image generated an immediate copyright dispute and revealed multiple copyright issues that remain unsettled This Article argues that the black hole image should be left in the public domain without copyright protection for the following reasons: First, the image 's copyrightability and copyright ownership are too uncertain to warrant legal protection, making fair use and compulsory licensing largely irrelevant; second, the image is a work of worldwide significance that was created through broad international collaboration with substantial public funding, which strongly implies a public interest in access to the work; and third, a …

Diverse And Inclusive High Courts: A Global And Intersectional Perspective, Alice J. Kang, Miki Caul Kittilson, Valerie Hoekstra, Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Critical race feminists call attention to the ways in which multiple and overlapping forms of privilege and discrimination shape individual experiences and perspectives. In this article, we argue that judiciaries cannot be fully inclusive if their composition does not reflect a society’s intersecting sources of disadvantage. We consider intersectional inclusion on high courts from a compar-ative perspective. Most existing practices of representation on high courts promote the inclusion of groups as if they are internally homogenous. We explore the attempts at and successes of promoting intersectional inclusion in the context of the high courts of Canada and South Africa. Although …

Foreword, Sudha Setty

Faculty Scholarship

In November 2019, the Western New England Law Review held its symposium, On Account of Sex: Women’s Suffrage and the Role of Gender in Politics Today. The symposium articles ask us to look at history to see what factors enabled path-breaking activists to secure the right to vote in a time of immense national turmoil. They also ask us to weigh how history should assess the strategic decisions that ultimately gained political rights for some women, but deliberately excluded Black women and other activists.

These historical accounts help us consider how the right to vote is faring, particularly after …

Teaching With Feminist Judgments: A Global Conversation, Susan Frelich Appleton, Gabrielle J. Appleby, Ross Astoria, Linda L. Berger, Bridget J. Crawford, Sharon Cowan, Rosalind Dixon, Troy Lavers, Andrea L. Mcardle, Elisabeth Mcdonald, Teri A. Mcmurtry-Chubb, Vanessa Munro, Kathryn M. Stanchi, Pam Wilkins

Scholarship@WashULaw

This conversational-style essay is an exchange among fourteen professors — representing thirteen universities across five countries — with experience teaching with feminist judgments. Feminist judgments are “shadow” court decisions rewritten from a feminist perspective, using only the precedent in effect and the facts known at the time of the original decision. Scholars in Canada, England, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, India and Mexico have published (or are currently producing) written collections of feminist judgments that demonstrate how feminist perspectives could have changed the legal reasoning or outcome (or both) in important legal cases.

This essay begins to explore …

Telling The Story Of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Susan Frelich Appleton

Scholarship@WashULaw

Appearing as part of the WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF LAW and POLICY’s celebration of the sesquicentennial of the first women law students, this brief review critically examines FIRST: SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR, a biography by Evan Thomas. The review follows two themes highlighted by the book, intimacy and gender, and finds the author's treatment of the latter especially problematic. (A shorter version of the review appeared under the title How One Glass Ceiling Was Broken, COMMON READER (Nov. 20, 2019).

Scrolling, Trolling, And Uploading: Youtube's Impact On Modern Public Discourse, Internet Regulation, And Free Speech, Brett Gossett

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Queer Sacrifice In Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jeremiah A. Ho

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article interprets the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, as a critical extension of Derrick Bell’s interest convergence thesis into the LGBTQ movement. Chiefly, Masterpiece reveals how the Court has been more willing to accommodate gay individuals who appear more assimilated and respectable—such as those who participated in the marriage equality decisions—than LGBTQ individuals who are less “mainstream” and whose exhibited queerness appear threatening to the heteronormative status quo. When assimilated same-sex couples sought marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, their respectable personas facilitated the alignment between their interests to marry and the Court’s …

Promise Amid Peril: Prea's Efforts To Regulate An End To Prison Rape, Brenda V. Smith

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article discusses the modest aspirations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”) that passed unanimously in the United States Congress in 2003. The Article posits that PREA created opportunities for holding correctional authorities accountable by creating a baseline for safety and setting more transparent expectations for agencies’ practices for protecting prisoners from sexual abuse. Additionally, the Article posits that PREA enhanced the evolving standards of decency for the Eighth Amendment and articulated clear expectations of correctional authorities to provide sexual safety for people in custody.

Standing In Between Sexual Violence Victims And Access To Justice: The Limits Of Title Ix, Hannah Brenner Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Sexual violence proliferates across communities, generally, and is especially prevalent in places like colleges and universities. As quasi-closed systems, colleges and universities are governed by their own internal norms, policies, and federal laws, like Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which address how sex discrimination must be handled in institutions of higher education that are in receipt of federal funds. Title IX focuses on all facets of sex discrimination including reporting, investigation, adjudication, and prevention. When schools are accused of failing to adequately respond to reports of sexual misconduct on their campuses, Title IX has been interpreted by …

Citizen Soldiers And The Foundation Fusion Of Masculinity, Citizenship, And Military Service, Jamie Abrams, Nickole Durbin

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Sarah Livingston Jay famously toasted revelers in 1783: "May all our citizens be soldiers, and all our soldiers citizens." This toast conveyed "a foundational fusion" within our republican government tradition-coupling military service, citizenship, and masculinities.' The Akron Law School's conference on the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment offered the chance to fight the eulogization of the Nineteenth Amendment and explore its modern relevance. This paper concludes that the Nineteenth Amendment cannot be understood without connecting it to broader conceptions of citizenship, masculinities, and military service, thus revealing its ongoing relevance to military inclusion and integration.

In …

Gender Stereotypes And Gender Identity In Public Schools, Dara Purvis

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, claims brought by transgender students requesting accommodations from a public school have been framed under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. Given the changing interpretation of Title IX from the Obama to Trump administrations, both statutory and constitutional arguments supporting the right of public school students to express their gender in any manner contrary to traditional gendered norms have renewed vitality. In the decades since Stonewall, students facing school discipline for nonconforming gender presentation that violated …

Equitable Hiring Policy In Higher Education At The University Of Montana, Victoria Mckinley Bigelow, Kinsey Anderson

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Higher Education; University of Montana; Equity; Hiring; University; College; Montana; Missoula; Public Administration; Organization; Missoula; Diversity; Women; Policy

Emergent Women's Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints, Aoife Meehan

Dissertations and Theses

“Emergent Women’s Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints” seeks to trace why and how female political leaders emerge at the global level. Evidence points to certain cultural factors, often expressed by laws, constraining or supporting women as they seek political advancement. Data shows women leaders are emerging more and more, though slowly, as political leaders around the world. Reviewing women’s participation and representation regionally and nationally in parliaments, as ministers, and as heads of governments and states confirms that women can and do emerge as political leaders. Finally, learning about and examining women leaders themselves, their style and substance, proves …

Gender Bias As The Norm In The Legal Profession: It's Still A [White] Man's Game, Kimberly Jade Norwood

Scholarship@WashULaw

Women consistently represent over fifty percent of entering law school classes, and one-third of all lawyers in the United States. As more women go to law school and practice as attorneys, two major impediments prevent women from climbing hierarchical ladders in the legal profession. This article examines gender and racially gendered bias in the legal profession, including law schools. It argues that until the existing structure is dismantled, women will continue to face gender and racially gendered bias in the legal profession.

Earth Mothers, Soy Boys, And Cool Dudes: Practicing Law While Protecting The Environment, Elizabeth J. Hubertz

Scholarship@WashULaw

As a public-interest environmental lawyer, this author explores gender in the legal profession. Specifically, gender in environmental law. Through a recognition of the gendered dimensions of environmental law, this Article explores the nature-culture binary, the relationship of meat to masculinity, and perceptions of the risks and threats of climate change.

It’S Complicated: Reflections On Teaching Negotiation For Women, Rebecca E. Hollander-Blumoff

Scholarship@WashULaw

What does it mean to be a woman negotiator? In the two decades that I have been teaching negotiation, I have encountered a wide range of human behavior in the negotiation setting. Individuals run the gamut in terms of their strategies, tactics, worldviews, charisma, perspicacity, flexibility, and other factors that affect negotiation behavior and negotiation outcomes. But one area that negotiation students are always curious about—be they top executives, law students, government employees, lawyers, or doctors—is the role of gender in negotiation. The maddening but intriguing answer to this question is the same as the answer to many other questions …

More Than The Vote: The Nineteenth Amendment As Proxy For Gender Equality, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This essay first details the origins of women's political demand for the vote as part of a comprehensive social reform. It then discusses the four strands of the comprehensive early women's rights agenda for gender equality focused on the political state, domestic family, economic industry, and religious church. Finally, it connects the suffrage activism with demands for an equal rights amendment to realize the full civil rights of equality envisioned by and for women. This long view of women's rights shows it was never only about the vote; rather, the vote stood as a shorthand for a complete revolution of …

Covid-19 And Lgbt Rights, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Even in the best of times, LGBT individuals have legal vulnerabilities in employment, housing, healthcare and other domains resulting from a combination of persistent bias and uneven protection against discrimination. In this time of COVID-19, these vulnerabilities combine to amplify both the legal and health risks that LGBT people face.

This essay focuses on several risks that are particularly linked to being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, with the recognition that these vulnerabilities are often intensified by discrimination based on race, ethnicity, age, disability, immigration status and other aspects of identity. Topics include: 1) federal withdrawal of antidiscrimination protections; 2) …

Get With The Pronoun, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.