,LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE (original) (raw)
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‘The law is a disinterested arbiter. It is informed by the steady development of years of procedural rules and precedent through which it distils and pronounces the truth with neither fear nor favour.’ This statement posits the traditional view of the law as an ideal with an impartial and detached body arriving at objective conclusions through the application of neutral rules without bias. The bone of contention that arises from this statement is twofold. Firstly is the law neutral, and secondly whether or not this neutrality and disinterest produces justice or ‘pronounces the truth’ as the statement suggests. Utilising the work of feminist legal theorists this essay will demonstrate how the law as a discourse is not a neutral entity, but is a power that prohibits other, supposedly inferior knowledge’s. It will outline the difficulties in adjudication that hinder neutrality and the ‘promotion of truth’ by focusing on gender implications of legal rules and practices (in particular how legal rules and practices affect women and how law reflects and constructs gender identities). It will expose and critique the patriarchal nature of substance and methods of law. Whilst suggesting that the concept of laws essential neutrality is a strategy for concealing the role of values in law as submitted by MacKinnon, this essay will also question the desirability of legal impartiality as presently conceived. To better illustrate the matter, this essay will examine how the legal definition of rape takes precedence over women’s definitions and how law manages to retain the ability to arrogate to itself the right to define the true of things despite the mounting challenge of other discourses like feminism. “Law constitutes a plurality of principles, knowledge’s and events, yet it claims a unity through the common usage of the term ‘law. It will reveal how the law fails to ‘pronounce the truth’ when it comes to accounts of rape that do not fit into its narrowly constructed definition.
Reassessing the Feminist Theoretical Project in Law
Social Science Research Network, 2001
This article seeks to address the current state of theoretical debate within feminist legal studies in the United Kingdom and beyond. It is part map, part critique of dominant theoretical trends-an attempt to identify and explore a range of questions about feminist scholarly engagement in law, including the relationship between academic feminism and political activism, the distinction (if any) betweeǹ feminist' analyses and broader engagements with law and gender, and the normative underpinnings of feminist legal scholarship. The author makes no pretence to neutrality on these issues, questioning the perceived`drift' between political and academic feminism, and arguing strongly for the recognition and realization of feminism's normative and transformative aspirations. Similarly, she challenges the emergence of an`anti-essentialist' norm in feminist discourse, and reaffirms the value of`women-centred' feminist approaches. Finally, this article is also a personal venture, a`stock-taking' exercise which seeks to interrogate the author's own understanding of what feminist legal work entails.
Feminist Legal Studies: Critical Concepts in Law
2009
Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan Free PDF d0wnl0ad, audio books, books to read, good books to read, cheap books, good books, online books, books online, book reviews epub, read books online, books to read online, online library, greatbooks to read, PDF best books to read, top books to read Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan books to read online. Online Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan ebook PDF download Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan Doc Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan Mobipocket Feminist Legal Studies (Critical Concepts in Law) by Joanne Conaghan EPub
Social & Legal Studies, 1992
EMINIST SOCIO-LEGAL theory has been developing in exciting and {happily) controversial ways over the last twenty years. The developments JL that we can see almost certainly parallel developments in feminist thought elsewhere. This should hardly surprise us, yet the field of law poses quite specific intellectual and political problems for feminist theory which may not be found in other fields. These problems are threefold and, surprisingly, cumulative, considering that they originate from quite different constituencies. The first constituency voices a resistance to the idea that theoretical analysis is relevant to law outside the narrow confines of courses on jurisprudence. This could be said to be the 'black letter' constituency. The second voices a resistance to the idea that specifically feminist theory is relevant to law because it is argued that law (at least in most developed countries) has transcended 'sexual bias'. This is the liberal constituency. The third voices a form of resistance to all theory and is based on the argument that, because law is a practice which has actual material consequences for women, what is needed in response is counter-practice not theory. This constituency demands 'practical' engagement and continually renders (mere?) theoretical practice inadequate. This argument comes from certain feminist constituencies which may define 'doing' theory as male. These three elements present a major obstacle to proponents of feminist legal theory as they (we) meet with the frustrations of being ignored or seen as outmoded in and by law and are simultaneously moved to renounce theory by the moral imperative of doing something through or in law.
FEMINISM(S) AND THE LAW. OLD LEGACIES AND NEW CHALLENGES
In the ongoing debate on the health of feminism, some authors accuse “second wave” feminists, especially European “feminists of difference”, of having weakened feminist claims by abandoning the emancipatory inspiration of “first wave” feminism. “Second wave” feminists are also accused of overlooking the importance of the law. If we delve deeper, however, their perspective on law appears to represent one of their most important legacies. Abandoning it in favor of an acritical enthusiasm for liberal gender mainstreaming or a gendered “politics of identity” would be a mistake. Today’s feminists should instead work to adapt this legacy to contemporary challenges.
Feminist legal theory manifests through writing and speaking about 'law' and 'women,' in an effort to promote and improve understanding about justice. Feminist legal theory is a set of ideas, an activity engaged in by thinkers in and outside academia, and an intellectual and political movement. Developments in feminist legal theory emerged through engagement with problems rooted in inequalities, experienced by individuals and communities, at the hands of people, corporations, or the state. This article draws out key areas of tension within the field of feminist legal theory, focusing on English-language feminist legal theory and spanning the field of national jurisdictions and international human rights.
Jurisprudence and Gender [1988]
Feminist Legal Theory, 2018
Grey, the participants in the Wisconsin 1987 Feminism and Legal Theory Summer Workshop, and the Georgetown Feminist Legal Theory Workshop for their comments on early drafts of this article. I am also indebted to Marcy Wilder (Stanford Law School '88) for helping me to clarify and develop the critique of the critical legal scholarship discussed in this article.
American feminist jurisprudence is the study of the construction and workings of the law from perspectives which foreground the implications of the law for women and women's lives. This study includes law as a theoretical enterprise as well its practical and concrete effects in women's lives. Further, it includes law as an academic discipline, and thus incorporates concerns regarding pedagogy and the influence of teachers. On all these levels, feminist scholars, lawyers, and activists raise questions about the meaning and the impact of law on women's lives. Feminist jurisprudence seeks to analyze and redress more traditional legal theory and practice. It focuses on the ways in which law has been structured (sometimes unwittingly) that deny the experiences and needs of women. Feminist jurisprudence claims that patriarchy (the system of interconnected relations and institutions that oppress women) infuses the legal system and all its workings, and that this is an unacceptable state of affairs. Consequently, feminist jurisprudence is not politically neutral, but a normative approach, as expressed by philosopher Patricia Smith: "[F]eminist jurisprudence challenges basic legal categories and concepts rather than analyzing them as given. Feminist jurisprudence asks what is implied in traditional categories, distinctions, or concepts and rejects them if they imply the subordination of women. In this sense, feminist jurisprudence is normative and claims that traditional jurisprudence and law are implicitly normative as well" (Smith 1993, p. 10). Feminist jurisprudence sees the workings of law as thoroughly permeated by political and moral judgments about the worth of women and how women should be treated. These judgments are not commensurate with women's understandings of themselves, nor even with traditional liberal conceptions of (moral and legal) equality and fairness. Although feminist jurisprudence revolves around a number of questions and features a diversity of focus and approach, two characteristics are central to it. First, because the Anglo-American legal tradition is built on liberalism and its tenets, feminist jurisprudence tends to respond to liberalism in some way. The second characteristic is the goal of bringing the law and its practitioners to recognize that law as currently constructed does not acknowledge or respond to the needs of women, and must be changed. These two features can be seen in the major debates in current feminist jurisprudence, which range from questions of the proper perspective from which to understand the problems of the law, to questions of legal theory and practice.