Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Body. Freedom. Choice: Creating Artwork In Post-Roe America, Erin Sedra

MSU Graduate Theses

I knew from a young age that I never wanted children. Whenever I expressed my disinterest in motherhood, I was often met with bewilderment, disapproval, and hostility. The church I was raised in taught me that my value and worth as a woman directly correlated with the power of my birthing hips. This fundamentalist upbringing has significantly shaped my relationship with my femininity, my body, and my artwork. When I feel powerless, turning to my art gives me a sense of control and self-expression. This body of work began as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and …

Judging From Above: French Feminists & Their Influence On The Veil Debate, Emma Caroline Delapré

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Over the past two decades, the international community has found itself questioning France’s application of laïcité and the egalitarianism it supposedly ensures, particularly regarding veils associated with the Islamic faith. Integral to the face veil debate is the advocacy of French feminists, especially those who identify as pro-ban. Overarchingly, pro-ban feminists argue that the practice of wearing face veils or coverings undermines a French citizen’s obligation to foster cohesion in the public sphere through the acceptance of republican norms. This viewpoint informs the analysis of the state of social division in France undertaken here. The tools of analysis include a …

The Current Status Of Women In Morocco And How It Can Be Improved, Amanda Maia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

My paper will explore the conditions of gender minorities in Morocco through representation, NGOs, social structures, and resources therein to support the progress of acquiring more rights for these demographics. With an emphasis on the status of women in Morocco. My main questions as it stands are: What are the living conditions for women in Morocco and how can they be improved? What progress has been and still can be made to improve the quality of life and foster joy for these demographics in Morocco? Since the 1990s, there has been significant progress in Morocco to improve Family Law and …

Introduction To Oxford Handbook Of Feminism And Law In The U.S., Deborah L. Brake, Martha Chamallas, Verna L. Williams

Book Chapters

Combining analyses of feminist legal theory, legal doctrine and feminist social movements, this Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of U.S. legal feminism. Contributions by leading feminist thinkers trace the impacts of legal feminism on legal claims and defenses and demonstrate how feminism has altered and transformed understandings of basic legal concepts, from sexual harassment and gender equity in sports to new conceptions of consent and motherhood. It connects legal feminism to adjacent intellectual discourses, such as masculinities theory and queer theory, and scrutinizes criticisms and backlash to feminism from all sides of the political spectrum. Its examination of the prominent …

Oral Interview: Contextualizing The Women's Rights Movement In Tunisia Through Family History, Walid Zarrad

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In their path towards emancipation and equal rights, Tunisian women have gone through a number of phases that seem to be directly linked to legal changes and cultural factors. In fact, the Code of Personal Status (CPS) of 1956 seems to be a milestone in the women’s movement, and its following amendments continued on this path. However, it is a lot more complex than that. A piece of legislation officially passing is not a simple determinant of the state of Women’s Rights in a country.

Through Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui’s “Report on Gender and Marriage in Tunisian Society” and my interview …

Speaking Volumes: The Failure Of American Courts To Address The Underlying Themes Of Silence And Patriarchy Within The Civil Order Of Protection Process In Davenport, Iowa, Catherine Priebe

Sociology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Domestic abuse is a pervasive issue within the United States. Approximately three women will be murdered by an intimate partner every day and around half of all women will experience psychological abuse by an intimate partner in their lifetime. As such, it is important to have legal avenues that survivors can pursue in order to ensure safety for themselves and their children. There are many obstacles to obtaining a civil order of protection despite it being the most common legal option survivors choose to pursue. Survivors must take on the burden of proof and hire their own attorney if they …

From The Ulama To The Legislature: Hermeneutics & Morocco’S Family Code, Rachel Olick-Gibson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines the role that Islamic law has played thus far in reforming the Moroccan Family Code, also known as the Moudawana. When King Mohammed VI reformed this law in 2004, Morocco received immediate international praise for its liberal strides towards gender equality. Through this study I investigated the hermeneutical tools and methods of ijtihad employed both by the drafters of the Moudawana and by activists leading up to the 2004 reforms. I then investigate impediments to the implementation of this Code in providing substantive legal rights to Moroccan women and the role that interpretation of Islamic law plays …

A Taxing Feminism, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Book Chapters

Feminist perspectives are not new to tax law. The first academic piece bringing a feminist perspective to bear on tax law dates to the early 1970s, when Grace Blumberg published “Sexism in the Code: A Comparative Study of Income Taxation of Working Wives and Mothers.” Contemporaneously, none other than Ruth Bader Ginsburg (along with her tax lawyer husband Marty Ginsburg) brought a feminist perspective to bear on tax law when she argued Moritz v. Commissioner before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, as depicted in the movie On the Basis of Sex. Since then, numerous other contributions have been …

The Normalization Of Prostitution In Switzerland: The Origin Of Policies, Corinne Isler, Marjut Jyrkinen

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In this article, we examine how socio-political actors frame prostitution and problems attached to the phenomenon and what types of policies they suggest. The sex trade in Switzerland has been tolerated since 1942, and prostitution is protected under the economic freedom guaranteed by the Swiss constitution. Any critique of prostitution is viewed as counterproductive, claimed to be rooted in old-fashioned ideas about sexuality and thought to worsen the situation for women who sell sex. The role of sex buyers is largely obscured, and the presumed right to buy sex remains unquestioned.

Female Autonomy: An Analysis Of Privacy And Equality Doctrine For Reproductive Rights, Elizabeth Levi

Political Science Honors Projects

What is the constitutional basis for women’s equality? Recently, scholars have suggested that as the right to privacy has floundered against the political undoing of women's access to abortion, equal protection arguments have grown stronger. This thesis investigates the feminist utility and limits of the equality and privacy arguments. Taking liberal feminism and feminist legal theory as analytical lenses, I offer interpretations of gender discrimination, reproductive rights, and marriage equality case law. By this framework, I argue that while an equality argument is less inherently oppressive towards women than the privacy doctrine, equality doctrine has been constructed thus far to …

Feminism And Economic Inequality, Katharine T. Bartlett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Conflicts Within Carceral Feminism: A Call To Revocalize The Women Who Continue To Suffer, Krishna De La Cruz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Foundling Fathers: (Non-)Marriage And Parental Rights In The Age Of Equality, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

The twentieth-century equality revolution established the principle of sex neutrality in the law of marriage and divorce and eased the most severe legal disabilities traditionally imposed upon nonmarital children. Formal equality under the law eluded nonmarital parents, however. Although unwed fathers won unprecedented legal rights and recognition in a series of Supreme Court cases decided in the 1970s and 1980s, they failed to achieve constitutional parity with mothers or with married and divorced fathers. This Article excavates nonmarital fathers’ quest for equal rights, until now a mere footnote in the history of constitutional equality law.

Unmarried fathers lacked a social …

The Unintended Consequences Of The International Women's Movement: Medicalizing Rape In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Faye N. Forman

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The legal advancements made by western feminists from the 1960s continuing today mark a distinct shift for both the women's movement and mainstream radical feminist philosophy. This project examines the unintended consequences of the rise of the international women's movement as American feminists brought the law to bear as the primary instrument for reform to eradicate rape and violence against women. As contemporary political scholars demonstrate, legal remediation further codifies gender inequality and protective tropes that sexualize women's injury. Chapter 2 and 3 examines the intensified feminist efforts to criminalize domestic abuse at an international level, first at the United …

An Analysis And Examination Of College Undergraduates' Perceptions Of Women In Law Enforcement, William T. Stone ~

Honors College Theses

Throughout the course of history, various perceptions of gender and the roles that each gender should play have been observed. As Western society has progressed, so have the rights of women in many modern, developed nations. In America, women became an integral part of the workforce during World War II. When the war was over, however, they were expected to return to a more domestic role. Today, the number of women in the workplace continues to increase; however, many disparities continue to exist. Traditionally masculine careers, such as policing, have seen smaller increases in the number of women in these …

The Limits Of Feminism, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

No abstract provided.

Intersectionality And Title Vii: A Brief (Pre-)History, Serena Mayeri

All Faculty Scholarship

Title VII was twenty-five years old when Kimberlé Crenshaw published her path-breaking article introducing “intersectionality” to critical legal scholarship. By the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 reached its thirtieth birthday, the intersectionality critique had come of age, generating a sophisticated subfield and producing many articles that remain classics in the field of anti-discrimination law and beyond. Employment discrimination law was not the only target of intersectionality critics, but Title VII’s failure to capture and ameliorate the particular experiences of women of color loomed large in this early legal literature. Courts proved especially reluctant to recognize multi-dimensional discrimination against …

Civil Rights Reform And The Body, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression has emerged as a major focus of civil rights reform. Opponents of these reforms have structured their opposition around one dominant image: the bathroom. With striking consistency, opponents have invoked anxiety over the bathroom -- who uses bathrooms, what happens in bathrooms, and what traumas one might experience while occupying a bathroom -- as the reason to permit discrimination in the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. This rhetoric of the bathroom in the debate over gender-identity protections seeks to exploit an underlying anxiety that has played a role in …

It Ain’T Necessarily So: The Misuse Of “Human Nature” In Law And Social Policy And Bankruptcy Of The “Nature-Nurture” Debate, 21 Tex. J. Women & L. 187 (2012))., Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Debate about legal and policy reform has been haunted by a pernicious confusion about human nature: and the idea that it is a set of rigid dispositions, today generally conceived as genetic, that is manifested the same way in all circumstances. Opponents of egalitarian alternatives argue that we cannot depart far from the status quo because human nature stands in the way. Advocates of such reforms too often deny the existence of human nature because, sharing this conception, they think it would prevent changes they deem desirable. Both views rest on deep errors about what kind of thing a “nature” …

What Are You Afraid Of?, Rebecca Minton, Linnea Christine Kennedy, Chapman University, Candy Rodriguez, Rachael Bridgens, Chelsey Coleman, Krista Xvx, Leticia Dessire Mayorga, Stephanie Bovis, Lorene Spiller Gambill

Women’s Studies, Feminist Zine Archive

Writings and art about self-care, the judicial system, Adrienne Rich, the portrayal of women in advertising, Andrea Dowrkin, sex roles and pornography, rape culture, Rita Gross, human trafficking, welfare, contraception, Margaret Sanger, The Vagina Monologues, Guerilla Girls, feminism and religion, Sandra Harding, tenure at Chapman based on gender, and Delores Huerta.

Race, Sex, And Rulemaking: Administrative Constitutionalism And The Workplace, 1960 To The Present, Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article uses the history of equal employment rulemaking at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Power Commission (FPC) to document and analyze, for the first time, how administrative agencies interpret the Constitution. Although it is widely recognized that administrators must implement policy with an eye on the Constitution, neither constitutional nor administrative law scholarship has examined how administrators approach constitutional interpretation. Indeed, there is limited understanding of agencies’ core task of interpreting statutes, let alone of their constitutional practice. During the 1960s and 1970s, officials at the FCC relied on a strikingly broad and affirmative interpretation of …

Immigration Restriction As Redistributive Taxation: Working Women And The Costs Of Protectionism In The Labor Market, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, I argue that tax and transfer policies are more efficient than immigration restrictions as instruments for raising the after-tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect these native workers from immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. These immigration restrictions are especially costly given the disproportionate burden that they place on households with working women, which discourages female participation in the labor force. This burden runs contrary to …

Review Essay: Janet Halley, Split Decisions: How And Why To Take A Break From Feminism, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] “My overarching reaction to Janet Halley's recent book, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism, can be summarized with a one sentence cliché: The perfect is the enemy of the good.' She holds feminism to a standard of perfection no human endeavor could possibly meet, and then heartily criticizes it for falling short. Though Halley's myriad observations about feminism occasionally resonated with my own views and experiences, ultimately I remain unconvinced that taking a break from feminism would, for me, be either justified or productive. But I did (mostly) enjoy reading it. Halley is well …

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselves in relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender we choose, the gender …

Some Dumb Girl Syndrome: Challenging And Subverting Destructive Stereotypes Of Female Attorneys, Ann Bartow

Law Faculty Scholarship

This Essay considers ways in which female attorneys confront sexism and stereotyping in the legal profession and in life, and strongly endorses embracing feminism, and wearing comfortable shoes.

In Defense Of Paid Family Leave, Gillian Lester

ExpressO

In this article I defend state provision of paid family leave. Such a program would allow workers to take compensated time off work to care for a newborn infant or ill family member. I normatively ground my claim in the argument that paid leave would allow women, who have historically performed a disproportionate share of family caregiving labor, to participate more fully in the paid workforce. This enhancement in labor force participation, I argue, would in turn increase women's independence and capacity to determine the conditions of their lives. In taking this position, I distinguish myself from those who would …

Defining Feminism, Defining Feminisms, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Oh argues that feminists urgently need to define Feminism and to construct feminist theories that validate and affirm the truth of women's lived experience, in all their multiplicity and diversity. Because feminist theories are forged through the diverse experiences of differently situated women, it is respectfully suggested that the title of this Chapter may and can be seen as the call to define Feminism and Feminism(s). Defining feminism(s) means, in spirit of the "I-Thou" relationship, being mindful and respectful that individual Feminists will define Feminism in alignment with the truth of their unique experience, in alignment with the truth of …

Speaking Volumes: Musings On The Issues Of The Day, Inspired By The Memory Of Mary Joe Frug, Regina Austin, Elizabeth M. Schneider

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Wanted Gaze: Accountability For Interpersonal Conduct At Work, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mary Joe Frug's Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto Ten Years Later: Reflections On The State Of Feminism Today·, Regina Austin, Elizabeth M. Schneider

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.