Law and Gender Commons^™

The Effects Of Gender Composition In Academic Departments On Faculty Turnover, Pamela S. Tolbert, Tal Simons, Alice Andrews, Jaehoon Rhee

ADVANCE Library Collection

Using data collected from a sample of 50 academic departments over the years 1977-88, the authors test several hypotheses about the effects of departmental gender composition on faculty turnover. They find that as the proportion of women in a department grew, turnover among women also increased, confirming the prediction that increases in the relative size of a minority will result in increased intergroup competition and conflict. The evidence also suggests, however, that when the proportion of female faculty reached a threshold of about 35-40%, turnover among women began to decline. The proportion of women had a negligible or negative impact …

Concluding Remarks - Making Women Visible: Setting An Agenda For The Twenty-First Century, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Women's Rights as International Human Rights Symposium (Symposium), sponsored by the International Women's Human Rights Project of the Center for Law and Public Policy at St. John's University, focused on the roles played by rules of law and by the conflation of economic, social, political, religious, cultural, and historic forces in the marginalization of women in the public and private sectors in both the international and domestic systems. The traditional exclusion of women from the articulation, development, implementation, and enforcement of rights has rendered gender issues invisible and thereby shielded gender-based abuses from much needed scrutiny. The flawed public/private …

First And Last Chance: Looking For Lesbians In California's Fifties Bar Cases, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Do all of us who choose members of our own sex as objects of desire and as sexual partners share some meaningful common identity, such as “homosexual,” “gay” or perhaps “queer”? The classifications “homosexual” and “gay” claim for themselves just that kind of inclusiveness; that is, that the gay world includes people of all races, all classes and any possible gender identity. You, me, James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein, J. Edgar Hoover: we are all gay together. In this way “homosexual” or “gay” is a generic term, like, for example, “human being.” But we know that the alleged inclusiveness masks just …

The Ties That Bind: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Gender, Ethnicity, And The Practice Of Law, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Over the past decade, fueled in part by Carol Gilligan's controversial book, In a Different Voice, both feminists and scholars of color have critically examined the law from the "outsiders'" perspective. Stretching methodological bounds, this interrelated body of scholarship has utilized narrative form to question the gender and racial implications of social practices and legal rules and to demonstrate the useful purpose that stories serve as a means of including marginalized groups in law's evolution and reform. Women scholars of color have carved out a particular role in this debate, criticizing feminism's categorical conceptualization of "woman." They have advanced …

Girls And The Getaway: Cars, Culture, And The Predicament Of Gendered Space, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

What does law tell us about our relations to material things? Property theorists maintain that there are no legal relations between persons and things. Things can be owned, transferred, bequeathed, assigned, repossessed, and so on, but such arrangements really describe relationships among different persons with regard to the object rather than relationships between persons and things.

Yet the quality or shape of the legal relations among persons often depends on the cultural meaning of the thing in question, a meaning (or meanings) that exists, in some form anyway, prior to or independent of, legal concepts traditionally attached to things such …

Deciding To Kill: Revealing The Gender In The Task Handed To Capital Jurors, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Day after day, across this country, ordinary people are summoned to court for a selection process that ultimately leaves them in a room deciding, with other jurors, whether a criminal defendant should be killed. The task handed to these jurors is an awesome, personal, moral decision, encased within the complex legal standards and procedures that constitute modern capital jurisprudence. The doctrine that created and sustains this moment of conscience reflects an ongoing struggle of rule against uncertainty, reason against emotion, justice against mercy, and thus, at one level, male against female. Capital jurisprudence -- the law for deciding whether to …

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Amidst the juridical heterosexism of our legal system, the few successful lesbian and gay cases stand out as brilliant, hopeful harbingers of the future. With good cause, lesbian and gay people have hailed state cases that indicate Bowers v. Hardwick has not contaminated all American courts. Although termed "victories" for the lesbian and gay community, several recent New York cases exclude many queer legal needs. Four cases, Braschi v. Stahl Assoc., In the Matter of the Adoption of Evan, M.A.B. v. R.B. and Thomas S. v. Robin Y., embody the law's progress on lesbian and gay issues. This essay …

Recognizing Violence Against Women: Gender And The Hate Crimes Statistics Act, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

This article argues that acts of gender-based violence should be recognized under the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, and that certain types of violence against women, such as rape, are fundamentally gender-based. Part I examines the existing definition of hate crimes under the HCSA, and the exclusion of the majority of violence against women. Part II suggests gender should be included as a category under the HCSA because of the similar effects of violence directed at women due to gender, and violence directed at members of other groups because of their group identity. Using acquaintance rape as an example, …

Responding To Gender Bias In The Courts: Progress Without Accountability, Suellyn Scarnecchia

Articles

On December 19, 1989, we received the final report of the Michigan Supreme Court Task Force on Gender Issues (task force report). The task force made 91 recommendations, plus an additional 18 joint recommendations with the Task Force on Racial/Ethnic Issues in the Courts. The Michigan Supreme Court, the State Bar of Michigan and other individuals and organizations have made much progress in responding to the recommendations, with one glaring omission-Although jointly recommended by both task forces as "essential to the realization of the goals envisioned in the goals envisioned in the reports," the Supreme Court has failed to appoint …

A Comment On The Canadian Bar Association's Gender Equality Task Force Report, Dianne Pothier

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Canadian Bar Association's Gender Equality Task Force Report sets out to challenge the traditions of a male model of the legal profession. The title of the Report, Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity, and Accountability, announces the challenge. Although in a formal sense the legal profession has been open to women since well before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council acknowledged women's eligibility to be Senators, the sad truth is that, in many respects, the legal profession is still not a welcoming environment to women. While women are entering the profession in greater numbers than ever before, they are …

Bias In The Washington Courts: A Call For Reform, Melisa D. Evangelos

Seattle University Law Review

Because of the documented threat that racial and gender bias pose to the effective administration of justice in Washington, this Comment advocates amending the Washington Rules of Professional Conduct to explicitly make intentional gender and racial bias an act of attorney misconduct and to discipline any attorney who engages in such behavior. Section I of this Comment identifies and describes instances of attorney behavior that result in gender and racial bias and explains the impact of such bias on attorneys, clients, and the judicial system. Section II explores similar anti-bias rules proposed or in place in other states. Section III …

The Hidden Gender Of Law, Christine Boyle

Dalhousie Law Journal

Two legal academics who set out to produce a book of materials with such a title could weave many components into it. They could explore feminist methodology, and show how much feminist legal scholarship has in common with feminist scholarship generally. They could illustrate the influence of feminist academic work on actual legal decisions and legislation. They could discuss feminist scholarship and legal education, including the dramatic developments over the last twenty years. Questions about fundamental values - equality, liberty, security, fairness - could be addressed. Materials could be included from the field of law often called Women and the …

Racism And Patriarchy In The Meaning Of Motherhood, Dorthy E. Roberts

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Babies, Parents, And Grandparents: A Story In Two Cases, Karen Czapanskiy

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Canadian Tort Law: A Review For The Nineties, B T. Hill

Dalhousie Law Journal

My purpose in writing this review follows from a tradition initiated by feminist scholars. My analysis of Canadian Tort Law. Cases, Notes and Materials begins with a survey of the casebook with commentary concerning its historical development as a casebook, focussing on instances where gender issues are raised. I then offer a critique concerning the lack of consideration and misappropriation of gender issues in the recently released 1990 edition of the casebook, using illustrative examples from the casebook and a selection of two feminists' critique of tort law. Some modest suggestions for improvement are made throughout the review, and the …

O'Connor: A Dual Role - An Introduction, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Equality Theory, Marital Rape, And The Promise Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

During the 1980s a handful of state judges either held or opined in dicta what must be incontrovertible to the feminist community, as well as to most progressive legal advocates and academics: the so-called marital rape exemption, whether statutory or common law in origin, constitutes a denial of a married woman's constitutional right to equal protection under the law. Indeed, a more obvious denial of equal protection is difficult to imagine: the marital rape exemption denies married women protection against violent crime solely on the basis of gender and marital status. What possibly could be less rational than a statute …

Book Review Of Feminism As Critique: On The Politics Of Gender, James C. Foster

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Jurisprudence And Gender, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

What is a human being? Legal theorists must, perforce, answer this question: jurisprudence, after all, is about human beings. The task has not proven to be divisive. In fact, virtually all modern American legal theorists, like most modern moral and political philosophers, either explicitly or implicitly embrace what I will call the "separation thesis" about what it means to be a human being: a "human being," whatever else he is, is physically separate from all other human beings. I am one human being and you are another, and that distinction between you and me is central to the meaning of …

Rethinking The Substantive Rules For Custody Disputes In Divorce, David L. Chambers

Articles

A few states, mostly in the West and South, still retain a preference in custody disputes for placing young children with their mothers. In most other states, legislatures or courts have replaced the maternal presumption with a rule directing courts to be guided solely by the child's "welfare" or "best interests." A few legislatures have created a new preference for joint custody, directing courts to consider favorably requests by a parent for such arrangements, even over the objection of the other parent. This Article argues that the trend away from the maternal presumption is sensible, but that the current best-interests …

Status Of Women Committee, Helen Lundstrom, Karen Morse, Jane Lott, Alison Thorne

ADVANCE Library Collection

No abstract provided.

Sexual Divisions In Law, Christine Boyle

Dalhousie Law Journal

I remember Katherine O'Donovan vividly. She was a young law lecturer at Queen's University Belfast when I was a first-year student there seventeen years ago. Law, on the whole, does not provide a large number of women to stimulate one's aspirations, but Katherine O'Donovan would have been outstanding in any context. She was clever and as beautiful as her name. She has written an outstanding book.