Law and Gender Commons^™

Judging Sexual Assault Trials: Systemic Failure In The Case Of Regina V Bassam Al-Rawi, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The recent decision to acquit a Halifax taxi driver of sexual assault in a case involving a very intoxicated woman, who was found by police in the accused’s vehicle unconscious and naked from the breasts down, rightly sparked public criticism and consternation. A review of the trial record in Al-Rawi, including the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, the closing submissions of the Crown and defence counsel, and the trial judge’s oral decision suggests a failure of our legal system to respond appropriately to allegations of sexual assault - a failure for which, the author argues, both the trial judge and …

The Rules Of Maternity, Dara Purvis

Faculty Scholarship

A diverse body of laws and regulations speaking to reproductive rights, healthcare, criminal punishment of drug use, termination of parental rights, and more creates the rules of maternity. These rules are guidance provided both obliquely and explicitly by the law's coercive power telling women both how to and who should mother. Rule one begins in pregnancy, with the message that "your body is your child's vessel." During pregnancy, women are counselled that doctor knows best. After the child's birth, the mother remains responsible for the people who enter a child's life, leading to rule 3: "mothers must always protect." …

Women, Migration, And Prostitution In Europe: Not A Sex Work Story, Anna Zobnina

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Gender Equity Through Human Rights: Local Efforts To Advance The Status Of Women And Girls In The United States, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Because human rights are experienced close to home, local governments have jurisdiction over a range of human rights issues, including those related to employment, education, housing, and public safety. Indeed, local agencies and officials are essential to the promotion and protection of human rights in the United States. They work every day to create conditions under which individuals and communities can flourish, and they are well-situated to build and advance a culture of human rights, based on dignity, freedom from discrimination, and opportunity.

With a focus on women’s rights, this resource provides an overview of core human rights principles and …

Justice, Interrupted: The Effect Of Gender, Ideology, And Seniority At Supreme Court Oral Arguments, Tonja Jacobi, Dylan Schweers

Faculty Articles

Oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court are important—they affect case outcomes and constitute the only opportunity for outsiders to directly witness the behavior of the Justices of the highest court. This Article studies how the Justices compete to have influence at oral argument, by examining the extent to which the Justices interrupt each other; it also scrutinizes how advocates interrupt the Justices, contrary to the rules of the Court. We find that judicial interactions at oral argument are highly gendered, with women being interrupted at disproportionate rates by their male colleagues, as well as by male advocates. Oral argument …

Vulnerability And Inevitable Inequality, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

The abstract legal subject of liberal Western democracies fails to reflect the fundamental reality of the human condition, which is vulnerability. While it is universal and constant, vulnerability is manifested differently in individuals, often resulting in significant differences in position and circumstance. In spite of such differences, political theory positions equality as the foundation for law and policy, and privileges autonomy, independence and self-sufficiency. This article traces the origins and development of a critical legal theory that brings human vulnerability to the fore in assessing individual and state responsibility and redefining the parameters of social justice. The theory arose in …

Bathroom Laws As Status Crimes, Stephen Rushin, Jenny Carroll

Faculty Publications & Other Works

A growing number of American jurisdictions have considered laws that prohibit trans individuals from using bathroom facilities consistent with their gender identities. Several scholars have criticized these so-called “bathroom laws” as a form of discrimination in violation of federal law. Few scholars, though, have considered the criminal justice implications of these proposals. By analyzing dozens of proposed bathroom laws, this Article explores how many laws do more than stigmatize the trans community—they effectively criminalize it. Some of these proposed laws would establish new categories of criminal offenses for trans individuals who use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Others would …

Reinvigorating Commonality: Gender & Class Actions, Brooke D. Coleman, Elizabeth G. Porter

Faculty Articles

The modern class action, the modern feminist movement, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were all products of the creativity and turmoil of the 1960s. As late as 1961 — one year after Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected new law school graduate Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a law clerk because she was a woman — the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a Florida statute that required men, but not women, to serve on juries, on the ground that women’s primary role was in the home. As Betty Friedan put it in 1963’s The Feminine Mystique, …

When Does Sex Diversity On Boards Benefit Firms?, Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

Firms embrace diversity, especially with regard to sex. Overtly optimistic predictions of a diversity dividend, some built on sex stereotypes, lead these firms to count on profits that may never materialize. This Article attempts to reset the agenda on how to study corporate board diversity. We can only assess if and how sex diversity yields benefits by understanding the who, what, and where of diversity. Whether sex diversity produces a “diversity dividend” depends on three key factors: (1) the nature of the benefit of including women (whether for their experience or other qualities); (2) the kind of firm and its …

Leisure/Crime, Immaterial Labor, And The Performance Of The Teenage Girl In Harmony Korine’S Spring Breakers (2012) And Sofia Coppola’S The Bling Ring (2013), Maryn Wilkinson

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2012) and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring (2013) introduced audiences to girls exploring criminal behavior both for and as leisure. The films introduce an idea of leisure/crime: criminal acts that appear to develop as natural, fruitful extensions of leisure activities, circumnavigating conventional laws of capitalism, yet still allow its actors to access, attain, and consume goods, money, value, and status. Through close analysis of the films’ style and character performances, this article proposes that the films and their enactments of leisure/crime in fact offer complex critical commentary on contemporary relations between the representation of teenage girls, …

The Transgressive Girl, Nicole Killian

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This paper imagines the Internet as a potentially utopian girl-space by looking at how girls, and pop-cultural depictions of girls, use the language, signs, and symbols of the Internet, an inherently patriarchal system, in transgressive ways. I propose the 1990s media representations as the touchstone moment when the conditions of possibility for imagining the hacker as a weaponized girl emerged visually in popular culture. The girl, exemplified by various figures within popular television and film culture, is a precursor to and postulates an entry point into the ways Internet today is used in transgressive nature.

Find Out What It Means To Me: The Politics Of Respect And Dignity In Sexual Orientation Anti-Discrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho

All Faculty Scholarship

This accompanying article considers the state of LGBTQ equality after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. Specifically, by examining this upsurge of social visibility for same-sex couples as both acceptance of sexual minorities and cultural assimilation, the article finds that the marriage cases at the Supreme Court — Obergefell and U.S. v. Windsor — shifted the framing of gay rights from the politics of respect that appeared more than a decade ago in Lawrence v. Texas toward a politics of respectability. The article traces this regression in Justice Kennedy’s own definition of dignity from Lawrence, where …

The Divide - Press Release, Sally Brown

Promotion

No abstract provided.

Who Is Parent And Who Is Child In Same-Sex Family? - Legislative And Judicial Issues For Lgbt Families Post-Separation, Part Ii: The U.S. Perspective, Mary Kay Kisthardt, Richard A. Roane

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Man Up Or Go Home: Exploring Perceptions Of Women In Leadership, Abigail Perdue

Marquette Law Review

Throughout history, women in positions of authority have often been perceived as violating well-established gender norms. Perhaps as a result, female leadership has often been viewed as a threat to male power and privilege and thus provoked resistance. Female leaders challenge longstanding sex stereotypes and patriarchal structures, subverting the identities of androcentric institutions and the people who comprise them. In so doing, they redefine notions of what it means to be a leader as well as what it means to be a woman. Cisgender male subordinates in particular may feel that their masculinity is under assault when they are placed …

Privatizing Bars On Abortion: Eviscerating Constitutional Rights Through Tort Remedies, Maya Manian

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

State governments have devised a new means to evade the Constitution. Their new means is to enact tort statutes that, in effect, ban constitutionally protected conduct. In particular, some states have made the provision of an abortion a tort for which there can be no defense and no cap on the amount of liability. These states have made performing an abortion essentially illegal. Yet, because tort statutes are enforced through private litigation, rather than public prosecution, a number of courts have held that they lack jurisdiction to review these laws. Federal courts have concluded that standing doctrine and state sovereign …

Rwanda And The Kigali International Arbitration Centre: The Future Faces Of East African Arbitration And Growth, Jeremy Cantor

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Part I is a brief introduction to the Note. Part II is a brief background of Rwandan history and the country's push for economic growth. Furthermore, Part II elaborates on the history, the current status of Rwanda's judicial system, and on the KIAC. Part III explains why arbitration is fitting for Africa as a whole and why it is more fitting for East Africa specifically. In particular, the Note explains why Kigali is the proper choice of seat6 and KIAC the proper institution, and analyzes certain problems preventing the growth of African arbitration. Lastly, Part IV proposes how to effectuate …

Blatt V. Cabela's Retail, Inc. And A New Path For Transgender Rights, Kevin M. Barry, Jennifer L. Levi

Faculty Scholarship

Since the Supreme Court recognized marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, civil rights advocates have increasingly set their sights on transgender rights as the next legal frontier. Sex discrimination law, though an essential statutory tool, is not the only potential avenue for securing rights for transgender individuals. Another important federal source of protection for transgender people is disability rights law—in particular, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Disability rights law, unlike sex discrimination law, applies to public accommodations and government services, and also mandates reasonable accommodations. A transgender litigant successfully invoked the protections of the ADA for the first time …

Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing The Trope Of The Angry Black Woman, Kimberly Jade Norwood, Trina Jones

Scholarship@WashULaw

Black women in the United States are the frequent targets of bias-filled interactions in which aggressors: (1) denigrate Black women; and (2) blame those women who elect to challenge the aggressor’s acts and the bias that fuels them. This Article seeks to raise awareness of these “aggressive encounters” and to challenge a prevailing narrative about Black women and anger. It examines the myriad circumstances (both professional and social) in which aggressive encounters occur and the ways in which these encounters expose gender and racial hierarchies. It then explores how the intersectional nature of Black women’s identities triggers a particularized stereotype …

Tradition And Culture In Africa: Practices That Facilitate Trafficking Of Women And Children, Norah Hashim Msuya

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Many states in Africa have adopted legislative, administrative and institutional measures to combat trafficking in human beings. These measures include, among other things, the formulation and implementation of both national and regional action plans by African states to provide for comprehensive and coordinated interventions. Many African countries have also enacted an anti-trafficking legislation at the country level. Despite these measures, African women and children have been trafficked annually worldwide for purposes of forced labor, sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude. Additionally, women and children are trafficked within their countries from rural to urban areas. Misconception and abuse of African tradition and …