Law and Gender Commons^™

Law School News: Rwu Law Alumnae Will Address Ginsburg Legacy, Workplace Gender Equity 03-11-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Meet The Rbg Essay Contest Winners! 03/03/2021, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Wrongful Convictions And Gender In Cases Where Women Were Sentenced To Death Or Life In Prison Without Parole, Connor F. Lang

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Note examines National Registry of Exonerations data and discusses the prevalence of false confessions and presence of a child victim in cases of women who were convicted of murder, received a serious sentence, and were later exonerated. After looking at the cases of women exonerated after receiving death sentences or life without parole sentences in light of the prevalence of these factors, this Note argues that examination of the cases reveals that the presence of a false confession or a child victim may have contributed to some of the wrongful convictions where these factors may have led to the …

World Peace And Gender Equality: Addressing Un Security Council Resolution 1325’S Weaknesses, Elizabeth Griffiths, Sara Jarman, Eric Talbot Jensen

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The year 2020 marks the twentieth anniversary of the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution (“UNSCR”) 1325, the most important moment in the United Nations’ efforts to achieve world peace through gender equality. Over the past several decades, the international community has strengthened its focus on gender, including the relationship between gender and international peace and security. National governments and the United Nations have taken historic steps to elevate the role of women in governance and peacebuilding. The passage of UNSCR 1325 in 2000 foreshadowed what many hoped would be a transformational shift in international law and politics. However, …

Resolutions Without Resolve: Turning Away From Un Security Council Resolutions To Address Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, Emma K. Macfarlane

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In 2008, the United Nations first recognized rape as a war crime with the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1820. Since then, the fight against conflict-related sexual violence has become a frequent subject of Security Council Resolutions. But what, if anything, has changed? Wartime sexual violence is still prevalent today and shows no signs of slowing down. This Note argues that Security Council Resolutions are not an effective method to prevent conflict-related sexual violence. The procedural weaknesses in passing Security Council Resolutions and the structure of the Security Council itself may do more harm than good to the efforts …

Criminal Record Relief For Human Trafficking Survivors: Analysis Of Current State Statutes And The Need For A Federal Model Statute, Ashleigh Pelto

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Note defines criminal record relief and analyzes the effectiveness of three state criminal record relief statutes at protecting trafficking survivors. This analysis is based on State Report Cards: Grading Criminal Record Relief Laws for Survivors of Human Trafficking by Polaris, a leading human trafficking nonprofit. It next discusses the absence of federal criminal record relief and how a statute at the federal level could provide relief for survivors with federal convictions while simultaneously providing a model for states to ensure their statutes incorporate best practices for record relief moving forward. This Note then discusses how Polaris’s report stops short …

The Stability Paradox: The Two-Parent Paradigm And The Perpetuation Of Violence Against Women In Termination Of Parental Rights And Custody Cases, Judith Lewis

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Despite changing family compositions, entrenched in family law is the antiquated idea that a two-parent household, or its approximation vis-à-vis a shared custody arrangement, promotes stability and integrity and, thus, is in the best interest of the child. Yet, the concept that the two-parent household (or shared involvement of both parents in the child’s life if the parents separate) promotes stability for the family and is best for the child is a dangerous fallacy. When rape or intimate partner violence (IPV) is present, or the re-occurrence of violence remains a threat, the family unit is far from stable.

This Article …

The Scales Of Reproductive Justice: Casey’S Failure To Rebalance Liberty Interests In The Racially Disparate State Of Maternal Medicine, Mallori D. Thompson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Despite the maternal medicine crisis in the U.S., especially for Black women, legislatures are challenging constitutional abortion doctrine and forcing women to interact with a system that may cost them their lives. This Article proposes that because of abysmal maternal mortality rates and the arbitrary nature of most abortion restrictions, the right to choose an abortion is embedded in our Fourteenth Amendment right to not be arbitrarily deprived of life by the State. This Article is a call to abortion advocates to begin submitting state maternal mortality data when challenging abortion restrictions. The call for attention to life was central …

Letter To State Bar Of Nevada, Legislation/Civil Rights Clinic

Menstrual Policies and the Bar

No abstract provided.

Menstruation And The Bar Exam: Model Policy And Operating Provisions, Marcy L. Karin, Margaret E. Johnson, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Menstrual Policies and the Bar

No abstract provided.

“Champion Man-Hater Of All Time”: Feminism, Insanity, And Property Rights In 1940s America, Magdalene Zier

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Legions of law students in property or trusts and estates courses have studied the will dispute, In re Strittmater’s Estate. The cases, casebooks, and treatises that cite Strittmater present the 1947 decision from New Jersey’s highest court as a model of the “insane delusion” doctrine. Readers learn that snubbed relatives successfully invalidated Louisa Strittmater’s will, which left her estate to the Equal Rights Amendment campaign, by convincing the court that her radical views on gender equality amounted to insanity and, thus, testamentary incapacity. By failing to provide any commentary or context on this overt sexism, these sources affirm the …

A Feminist Economic Perspective On Contract Law: Promissory Estoppel As An Example, Orit Gan

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Economic analysis is a highly influential theoretical approach to contract law. At the same time, feminist analysis of contract law offers an important critical approach to the field. However, feminist economics, a prominent alternative approach to mainstream neo-classical economics drawing from both economic theory and feminist theory, has only been applied scarcely and sporadically to contract law. This Article seeks to bridge this gap and to apply the key features of feminist economics to an analysis of the doctrine of promissory estoppel. This Article uses promissory estoppel as an example to demonstrate a feminist economic analysis of contract law.

Rbg And Gender Discrimination, Eileen Kaufman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Gender Pay Gap, In Relation To Professional Sports, Bryan Ramdat

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Reasonableness In Hostile Work Environment Cases After #Metoo, Danielle A. Bernstein

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The #MeToo movement, a global social response to sexual harassment in the workplace, has turned the traditional approach to sexual harassment on its head. Instead of shielding perpetrators and discrediting survivors, employers, the media, and the public have begun to shift from presuming the credibility of the perpetrator to presuming the credibility of the survivor. But this upending of the status quo has occurred almost entirely in the social sphere—and the legal system, where survivors of workplace sexual harassment can seek remedies for the abuse they have suffered, is proving much slower to adapt.

While our social presumptions are flipping …

Challenges In Bringing Gender Equity Into The Workplace: Addressing Common Concerns Women Have When Deciding To Hold Employers Accountable For Gender Discrimination, Siobhan Klassen

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Amen Over All Men: The Supreme Court’S Preservation Of Religious Rights And What That Means For Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia, Christopher Manettas

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Menstrual Dignity And The Bar Exam, Marcy L. Karin, Margaret E. Johnson, Elizabeth B. Cooper

Journal Articles

This Article examines the issue of menstruation and the administration of the bar exam. Although such problems are not new, over the summer and fall of 2020, test takers and commentators took to social media to critique state board of law examiners’ (“BOLE”) policies regarding menstruation. These problems persist. Menstruators worry that if they unexpectedly bleed during the exam, they may not have access to appropriately sized and constructed menstrual products or may be prohibited from accessing the bathroom. Personal products that are permitted often must be carried in a clear, plastic bag. Some express privacy concerns that the see-through …

A Path To Transformation: Asking “The Woman Question” In International Law, Cochav Elkayam-Levy

Michigan Journal of International Law

Methods matter, and the discussion over feminist methods in international law is an important one. As Kathrine Bartlett famously noted, “thinking about method is empowering.” It makes us more aware of the nature of what we do and what we aim to improve in the law. Consequently, we can act more effectively when we examine legal structures and do it with a stronger sense of commitment towards our feminist work. Methods are also the fundamental means by which we produce “valid knowing.” The discussion of feminist methods in international law is one that engages with the combination of rules and …

Rbg And Gender Discrimination, Eileen Kaufman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Maybe Law Schools Do Not Oppress Minority Faculty Women: A Critique Of Meera E. Deo’S “Unequal Profession: Race And Gender In Legal Academia” (Stanford University Press 2019), Dan Subotnik

Touro Law Review

This essay tests Professor Meera Deo’s unsettling assertion that “implicit bias” in law schools is holding minority female and, to a lesser extent minority male, faculty back. It then presents her second, and more provocative claim, that minority faculty can generally offer better training in “solving complex problems.”

Regarding the former claim, Deo explains that minority women are not hired according to fair standards, not welcomed when they are hired, and not fairly evaluated for promotion. In addition, she argues that minority women professors are abused by their students. Because Deo barely tries to substantiate the second claim, it is …

On Period Poverty, Victoria J. Haneman

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Long Shortlist: Women Considered For The Supreme Court, Michael Conklin

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Redefining Sex Offenders: The Fight To Break The Bias Of Female Sex Offenders, Norma Hamilton

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Hair Goes Nothing: Proposing The Uniform Enactment Of The Crown Act Across The United States, Alexandra Halbert

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Sexual Exploitation Of Black Women From The Years 1619-2020, Dominique R. Wilson

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Evolution Of Gender Equity From A Marxist And Existentialist Perspective, Alexandria Lopez

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Promoting Gender Equity And Foreign Policy Goals Through Ratifying The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Raj Telwala

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Equality For Women: From Suffrage To Civil Rights, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article analyzes women’s rights advocacy and its impact on the meanings of gender equality during the period from the achievement of suffrage in 1920 until the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It teaches that one cannot separate the conceptualization of equality or the jurisprudential philosophy underlying it from the dynamics and characteristics of the social movements that actively give it life. Social movements identify the institutions and practices that will be challenged, decisions that in turn determine which doctrinal issues will provide the raw material for jurisgenerative change. Without understanding a movement’s strategy and opportunities for action, one cannot know …