Feminist Philosophy of Law

In this article I will argue that in the last years the way of thinking about gender has undergone a change. I believe that in the Iranian public discourse, ‘the woman question’ has come to be viewed as part of the question of democracy. This is a recent development; until very recently, women’s legal discrimination was perceived in Iranian discourse as a ‘women’s only’ problem.

This article speaks of a debate in contemporary India: that surrounding the validity of enacting a civil code that applies uniformly to all communities and religions in the state. In certain feminist arguments, such a code is seen as possibly providing a sphere of rights to Indian women that is alternative to the rights – or wrongs – given to them by the plural religious laws, which form the basis of the civil law in India. India, however, is a heterogeneous (...) polity, encompassing a diversity of cultures and religions, some dominant and others forming minorities. Given these differences, some critics see the feminist call for a Uniform Civil Code as an essentialist move that prioritises gender over other agendas and politics. They argue that the site of the ‚universal’ in this feminist move is a liberal site that inherently excludes marginalised Others and benefits the dominant subjects in India. In my article, I contest this critique and question whether the site of the universal and its authorial subject in postcolonial India is, in fact, an exclusionary liberal ruse of power. I draw insights from the history of the formation of the postcolonial nation-state in India to posit an experience of the state and the universal within it, which is alternative to the Western liberal model. The aim of this article is, therefore, not so much to debate the in/validity of a Uniform Civil Code, as to address certain contemporary post-structuralist critiques of the site of the universal in postcolonial India and posit a departure from them, based on perspectives drawn from history. (shrink)

Book Review : Framed: Women in Law and Film, by Orit Kamir, Duke University Press: 2006.

Increasing numbers of young mothers in the work force, more and more children requiring extrafamilial care, high rates of divorce, lower rates of remarriage, increasing numbers of female-headed households, growing numbers of zero-parent families, and significant occurrences of child maltreatment are just some of the social indicators indicative of the family in a changing world. These trends and their consequences for children are described and then examined from the perspectives of microeconomic theory, the relative-income hypothesis, sex-ratio theory, and one form (...) of modernization theory. The paper concludes with a preliminary examination of the added explanatory power provided by evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This paper juxtaposes Deleuze's notion of the virtual alongside Oyama's notion of a developmental system in order to explore the promises and perils of thinking bodily identity as indeterminate at a time when new technologies render bodily ambiguity increasingly productive of both economic profit and power relations.

Most people are familiar with Justice Stewart's now classic statement that while he cannot describe pornography, he certainly knows it when he sees it. We instantly identify with Justice Stewart. Pornography is not difficult to recognize, but it does elude description. This is because traditional attempts at description are attempts that seek to explain at either an abstract or empirical level rather than at the level that accounts for experience in its totality. Justice Stewart's lament represents the need to understand (...) the subjective experience of pornography and cease trying to explain it in purely objective terms. Much feminist literature in general and Catharine MacKinnon's work in particular seeks to do just this. MacKinnon argues that pornography should not be explained in familiar First Amendment freedom -of-expression terms, but rather in terms of the actual sexual abuse it constitutes in experience. Then, and only then, are we able to select the appropriate legal remedy. This essay suggests that MacKinnon's position not only needs the support of a non-traditional philosophical approach, but has one readily available in the phenomenology of philosopher Edmund Husserl. (shrink)

Although the exclusion of LGBTs from the rites and rights of marriage is arbitrary and unjust, the legal institution of marriage is itself so riddled with injustice that it would be better to create alternative forms of durable intimate partnership that do not invoke the power of the state. Card's essay develops a case for this position, taking up an injustice sufficiently serious to constitute an evil: the sheltering of domestic violence.

This new edition of Drucilla Cornell's highly acclaimed book includes a substantial new introduction by the author, which situates the book within current ...

Michelle Madden Dempsey’s compelling book sets out a normative feminist argument as to why and when prosecutors should continue to pursue prosecutions in domestic violence cases where the victim refuses to participate in or has withdrawn their support for the prosecution. This paper will explore two of the key aspects of her argument—the centrality and definition of the concept of patriarchy, and the definition of domestic violence—before concluding with some final thoughts as to the appropriate parameters of feminist prosecutorial decision-making. (...) The paper argues that Madden Dempsey could offer a more detailed and nuanced argument about the role that patriarchy plays, particularly its relevance in marking out appropriate cases for pursuit; and that her thesis requires a more convincing exposition of the precise reasons for offering such a narrow account of domestic violence. (shrink)

Thinking About Sexual Harassment aims to provide the information necessary for careful, critical thinking about the concept of sexual harassment. Part I traces the construction of the concept of sexual harassment from the first public uses of the term through its definitions in the law, in legal cases, and in empirical research. Part II analyses philosophical definitions of sexual harassment and a number of issues that have arisen in the law, including the reasonable woman standard and whether same-sex harassment should (...) be considered sex discrimination. (shrink)

This article examines shifts in the legal, medical, and common-sense logics governing the designation of sex on birth certificates issued by the City of New York between 1965 and 2006. In the initial iteration, the stabilization of legal sex categories was organized around the notion of "fraud"; in the most recent iteration, "permanence" became the measure of authenticity. We frame these legal constructions of sex with theories about the "natural attitude" toward gender.

Standards of reasonableness are pervasive in law. Whether a belief or conduct is reasonable is determined by reference to what a ?reasonable man? similarly situated would have believed or done in similar circumstances. Feminists rightly objected that the ?reasonable man? standard was gender?biased and worked to the detriment of women. Merely replacing the ?reasonable man? with the ?reasonable person? would not be sufficient, furthermore, to right this historic wrong. Rather, in a wide range of cases, feminist theorists and legal practitioners (...) urged instead a standard of reasonableness that reflects the perceptions of women, a perspective informed by women?s vulnerability and oppression. In this essay I examine the role of the ?reasonable woman? standard in two areas of law ? workplace sexual harassment and self?defense ? and argue that it is both legally and politically problematic. (shrink)