Law and Gender Commons^™

Amnesty International's Empty Promises: Decriminalization, Prostituted Women, And Sex Trafficking, Darren Geist

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Through a close examination of Amnesty International’s (Amnesty) own arguments and sources, this paper demonstrates that Amnesty’s proposal to decriminalize prostitution or “sex work” will harm those it claims to help. It concludes that the best available evidence indicates that decriminalization of prostitution would: increase sex trafficking, leave prostituted women or “sex workers” more vulnerable to violence, and reduce access to healthcare, protection, and services. Prostituted women primarily enter the industry at a young age, often suffering from a history of sexual and physical abuse, coming from marginalized and vulnerable communities, and driven by emotional and economic desperation. It is …

Nonmarriage, June Carbone, Naomi Cahn

Maryland Law Review

Now that the Supreme Court has reshaped the laws of marriage, attention is shifting to nonmarriage. The law no longer treats intimate couples who do not marry as either deviant or deprived. Yet, rather than regulate nonmarriage in a systematic way, the law applies two inconsistent doctrines to govern these relationships. This Article is the first to explore the fundamental contradiction in the legal approach to unmarried partners. While the laws governing financial obligations between unmarried couples are moving toward a deregulatory model that radically differs from the status-based regulation of marriage, the laws of custody and support insist on …

Pregnancy, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Recovering Socialism For Feminist Legal Theory In The 21 St Century, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a significant strand of feminist theory in the 1970s and 1980s — socialist feminism — has largely been ignored by feminist jurisprudence in the United States and explores potential contributions to legal theory of recapturing the insights of socialist feminism. It describes both the context out of which that theory grew, in the civil rights, anti-war, and anti-imperialist struggles of the 1960s, and the contents of the theory as developed in the writings of certain authors such as Heidi Hartmann, Zillah Eisenstein, and Iris Young, as well as their predecessors in the U.K., and in the …

Leave And Marriage: The Flawed Progress Of Paternity Leave In The U.S. Military, T. J. Keefe

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Brittani Mulholland's Post: Women In Robes: Bigger And Better Than Ever: October 12, 2016, Brittani Mulholland

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Brief Amici Curiae Of Professors Of History, Political Science, And Law In Support Of Respondent, Kristin Collins, Catherine E. Stetson, Jessica K. Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

Sex-based laws premised on archaic presumptions about the proper roles of men and women run afoul of established constitutional principles, especially when they interfere with the parent-child relationship. Amici write to explain the history of the federal government’s use of sex-based classifications in the regulation of citizenship. In its regulation of intergenerational and interspousal citizenship transmission, the federal government has perpetuated outdated gender-based norms concerning proper parental roles, even when those norms have been rejected in other legal and social contexts. In addition, the laws governing derivative citizenship have significantly encumbered the ability of American fathers to transmit citizenship to …

A Free Speech Response To The Gay Rights/Religious Liberty Conflict, Andrew Koppelman

Northwestern University Law Review

The most sensible reconciliation of the tension between religious liberty and public accommodations law, in the recent cases involving merchants with religious objections to same-sex marriage, would permit business owners to present their views to the world, but forbid them either to threaten to discriminate or to treat any individual customer worse than others. Even if such businesses have no statutory right to refuse to facilitate ceremonies they regard as immoral, they are unlikely to be asked to participate in those ceremonies. This solution may, however, be forbidden by the law of hostile environment harassment. That raises a severe free …

An Evolution Of Tradition: Understanding The Unintended Effects Of The 1999 Inheritance And Marital Property Law On Intra-Family Relationships In Rwanda., Pete Freeman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the months following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a disproportionate number of Rwandan women were left without husbands, homes, family, or property. These losses required women to take on cultural responsibilities hitherto reserved for men. One roadblock to assuming these responsibilities was the legal and cultural right of property ownership reserved exclusively for men. Then in 1999, the Rwandan government enacted legislation which allowed women and girls the rights to family property -- Law/nº 22/99 of 12/11/1999 on Matrimonial Regimes, Liberalities, and Successions. On paper, this Rwandan policy seemed like a step toward gender equality, a watershed moment in …

Why Feminist Legal Theory Still Needs Mary Joe Frug: Thoughts On Conflicts In Feminism, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

On Griswold And Women's Equality, Vivian E. Hamilton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reskins: The Property Right To Racism, M. Alexander Pearl

Cardozo Law Review

Everyone has an opinion, from President Obama to Matthew McConaughey, about the Washington football team name. This Article comprehensively analyzes the legal and social issues surrounding the mascot controversy. I focus my inquiry on the interaction of trademark law and Indian law. I offer three primary contributions in this Article. First, the current mainstream conception of harm caused by the team name is subjective, and I argue that the harm caused by the team name and logo is objective, testable, and demonstrable, Psychological research shows that these images harm Native people. Second, the remedies offered by the Lanham Act are …

Newsroom: Johnson Wins 2nd Term As Mbwa President 09/28/2016, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Section 5: Civil Rights And Liberties, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Outliving Love: Marital Estrangement In An African Insurance Market, Casey Golomski

Anthropology

Marital estrangement and formal divorce are vital conjunctures for married women’s kinship relations and life course, where a horizon of future possibilities are revalued and negotiated at the interstices of custom, law, and social and ritual obligations. In this article, after delineating the forms of customary and civil marriage and the possibilities for divorce or estrangement from each, I describe how some married women in Swaziland and South Africa mediate this complex social field for their children and families through pensions and continuing to pay for their partners’ insurance coverage. This was not solely out of avarice to reap future …

The Hidden Psychology Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Tonja Jacobi

Cardozo Law Review

There is extensive empirical evidence establishing the difference in men's and women's speech patterns, conduct, and perceptions of, and responses to, police authority. Yet these differences are rarely reflected in constitutional criminal procedure law, despite many of its rules hinging on a person's manner of expression or subtleties of behavior. Similar evidence exists for the systematic impact of juvenile status and intellectual disability, but only modest and ad hoc consideration has been given to these factors. The result is that the "reasonable person" is actually implicitly white, male, adult, and able-minded. His speech and conduct are treated as normal, and …

Child Marriage In Yemen: A Violation Of International Law, Elizabeth Verner

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Medicaid Maximization And Diversion: Illusory State Practices That Convert Federal Aid Into General State Revenue, Daniel L. Hatcher

Seattle University Law Review

For years, states have been using illusory schemes to maximize federal aid intended for Medicaid services—and then often diverting some or all of the resulting funds to other use. And states have help. Private revenue maximization consultants are hired by states to increase Medicaid claims, often for a contingency fee. We do not know the exact amount of federal Medicaid funds that has been diverted to state revenue and private profit each year, but it is in the billions. Part I of this Article sets out the structure of the Medicaid program and describes states’ use of revenue maximization contractors …

Third-Party Reproductive Practices: Legislative Inertia And The Need For Nuanced Empirical Data, Susan Markens

Publications and Research

In their article, ‘Gamete donor anonymity and limits on numbers of offspring: the views of three stakeholders’, Margaret K. Nelson, Rosanna Hertz and Wendy Kramer draw on survey data from gamete donors, parents who used gametes to conceive, and donor-conceived offspring in order to understand the position that various stakeholders are likely to hold regarding the regulation of two issues pertaining to gamete donation: anonymity and limits on numbers of offspring.1 This commentary elaborates on the politics underlying conflicts and agreements among various stakeholders involved with third-party reproduction and details the need for data to better inform legislation regarding assisted …

My Body, Not My Say: Justice Blackmun's Influential Decision In Roe V. Wade, Kisha K. Patel

Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies Summer Fellows

Abortion laws have regulated women’s bodies since the beginning of the country. Many people associate regulation with the case of Roe V. Wade in 1973, in which the Supreme Court ruled that states could not outlaw abortion during the first trimester. Roe v. Wade remains controversial to this day as it failed to establish consensus that women’s decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy falls within their constitutional right to privacy. Understanding the implications of this decision is fundamental to analyze the debate over the constitutionality of abortion today. This paper examines the opinion written by Justice Blackmun in …

Women's Health And Abortion Rights: Whole Woman's Health V Hellerstedt, Lawrence O. Gostin, Rebecca B. Reingold

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Nearly a quarter century ago, the Supreme Court asked pro-choice and right-to-life advocates “to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.” Nothing of the sort materialized. If anything, the social and political battles intensified, with states enacting 1074 abortion restrictions. The Court has not considered various appeals in the face of an avalanche of legislation, but on June 27, 2016, it struck down 2 onerous restrictions on physicians and clinics offering abortion services.

In Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, the Court found Texas’s requirements that physicians conducting abortions obtain admitting privileges at local …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Judge Netti Vogel's Post: Women, The Legal Profession, And How Far We've Come 7-19-16, Netti Vogel

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Title Ix, Sexual Assault, And The Issue Of Effective Consent: Blurred Lines—When Should “Yes” Mean “No”?, Lori E. Shaw

Indiana Law Journal

This Article is intended to set the process in motion by providing the DOE and the educational institutions governed by Title IX with a proposed standard for “effective consent.” Part I provides an overview of the realities of campus life in the 2010s, delving into the root causes of sexual assault and other forms of unwanted sexual contact. Sexual hookups and binge drinking, two aspects of campus life inextricably linked to one another and to unwanted sexual contact, are explored in depth.

Part II presents an overview of the traditional role, structures, and processes of the student-conduct system. It then …

The Shibboleth Of Discretion: The Discretion, Identity, And Persecution Paradigm In American And Australian Lgbt Asylum Claims, Heather Kolinsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Part II of this paper will examine and compare how the LGBT asylum process has evolved—specifically vis-à-vis identity and discretion—in the United States and Australia, which can help highlight some of the issues driven by improper application of Western essentialist LGBT definitions on asylum claims. Part II will also analyze the concepts of refugee and asylum law internationally, as well as the concerns of the gay international community with respect to asylum law globally. Parts III and IV will review the asylum process for LGBT asylum applicants in the United States and Australia, respectively—with a focus on identity, discretion, and …

Can Reproductive Trans Bodies Exist?, Chase Strangio

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Title Ix, Sexual Assault, And The Issue Of Effective Consent: Blurred Lines—When Should “Yes” Mean “No”?, Lori E. Shaw

School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article is intended to set the process in motion by providing the DOE and the educational institutions governed by Title IX with a proposed standard for “effective consent.” Part I provides an overview of the realities of campus life in the 2010s, delving into the root causes of sexual assault and other forms of unwanted sexual contact. Sexual hookups and binge drinking, two aspects of campus life inextricably linked to one another and to unwanted sexual contact, are explored in depth.

Part II presents an overview of the traditional role, structures, and processes of the student-conduct system. It then …

Putting The Spotlight On “The Terminator”: How The Icc Prosecution Of Bosco Ntaganda Could Reduce Sexual Violence During Conflict, Sarah T. Deuitch

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Intersections Of Violence Against Women And Health: Implications For Health Law And Policy In Nigeria, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Why The Clarification Petition Filed By The Union Of India In The Transgender Case Is Incorrect In Law And In Bad Faith On The Question Of Reservation, Surabhi Shukla

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In this Article, I make an argument that the state, including the Government of India, is empowered by the Constitution of India to decide which classes qualify as “backward classes” for affirmative action measures under the Constitution. The Supreme Court of India has directed the government to include the transgender population as a backward class and to extend to them affirmative action measures such as reservation in public appointments and university admissions. In response, the Union of India has filed a clarification petition stating that it is incompetent to suo motu include the transgender population as a backward class and …

Women Who Kill Women, Rashmi Goel

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article examines more closely the participation of mothers-in-law in India’s dowry murders to gain a better understanding of these dynamics and to expose the limits of existing reforms. I first turn to the participation of women in dowry death cases and the ways in which their participation challenges our conventional understanding of patriarchy and societal manifestation. In Part II, I provide an overview of dowry deaths in India. In Part III, I survey the different criminal provisions related to dowry deaths and demonstrate how these laws actually operate within a set of cultural practices that support female subjugation. Part …