Law and society, gender issues Books

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ashwini Tambe’s Defining Girlhood in India is eloquently written, empirically grounded, and persuasively argued." --Journal of Women's History"By employing a transnational feminist lens to investigate sexual maturity laws that informed the idea of girlhood, this book represents a significant contribution to the field of girlhood studies." --Contemporary South Asia "Defining Girlhood weaves an otherwise rich and extensive tale of the 'girl child' as a rapidly morphing but always potent signifier in Indian and international politics." --Journal of Asian Studies "Defining Girlhood in India emerges as a well-timed and much-needed genealogy of the girl child as a political subject. . . . Beautifully written and organized." --Progress in Development Studies

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review“A uniquely valuable intervention. Those of us--and I would say that is the majority of us who live our lives ‘in freedom’--are importuned by the book’s address, to wake up, to care, because what we perceive as our ‘freedom’ made available, so we think, as a consequence of living in the crucible of liberal ideals and beliefs--is inextricably bound up with the logics of incarceration.”--Fawzia Afzal-Khan, author of Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through its Women SingersTable of ContentsForeword Demita Frazier Acknowledgments Introduction Shreerekha Pillai Part One: Carceral Narratives and Fictions Poems: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, “Pantoum for a Black Man on a Greyhound Bus” and “Lost Letter #27: John Peters, Boston-Gaol to Phillis Wheatley Peters, Boston, December 3, 1784″ 1. Carceral Trauma at the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, and Maternity Cassandra D. Little 2. Prisons and Politics: Conceptualizing Prison Memoirs Shailza Sharma 3. Seeing Orange: Mediatizing the Prison Empire Shreerekha Pillai 4. Emptied Chairs and Faceless Inmates: A Critical Analysis of the Texas Prison Museum Beth Matusoff Merfish Poems: Ravi Shankar, “Against Innocence” and “Sunday School” The Stories that will not be Confined Poems: Solmaz Sharif, “Reaching Guantánamo” Part Two: Carceral Bodies and Systems Poem: Jeremy Eugene, “Space” 5. These Stories Will Not Be Confined Joanna Eleftheriou 6. Cornered: Day Laborers, Criminalization and Rituals of Democracy in Texas Francisco Argüelles Paz y Puente, aka Pancho 7. Resisting Criminalization: Principles, Practicalities, and Possibilities of Alternative Justices Beyond the State Autumn Elizabeth, Zarinah Agnew, D Coulombe 8. Going Carceral? Analyzing Written and Visual Representations of Prison Yoga Programs Tria Blu Wakpa and Jennifer Musial 9. Vacant Refuge, Unfinished Resettlement: Gendered Nativism and the Experience of Ambivalence among Displaced Syrian Iraqi and Women and Children in Houston, Texas Maria F. Curtis 10. Gendered Punishment and Social Control: Silenced Memories of Women in Wartime Peru Marta Romero-Delgado 11. Bad Girls of Pindra Tod Alka Kurian Poem: Javier Zamora, “Citizenship” Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWinner, Lambda Literary Award for Best Book in LGBTQ Studies, 2020 Finalist, Mary Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women's and/or Gender History, Organization of American Historians, 2020 Finalist, Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize, American Studies Association, 2020 "The image of prisons as judicious machines of enclosure, and the conception of impartial justice this image serves, are shattered by the activism documented in Emily L. Thuma's All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to end Violence." --Labour"Thuma’s book is a refreshing antidote to critiques of the feminist anti-violence movement that have ignored the activism of women of color. Highly readable and deeply archival, with many fascinating images of activists, fliers, posters, and newsletters, Thuma’s book reveals a previously neglected history of important ideological and social movement roots of the current feminist abolition movement. " --Journal of American History"All Our Trials offers us a robust history of late twentieth-century radical feminist antiviolence organizing. Thuma reminds us that the activism of the present is built upon an important legacy of work that traversed movements and prison walls. If we are to build an abolitionist feminist future, we would be wise to pay attention to the antiracist queer feminist politics of these activists. We owe a debt of gratitude to them for paving the way, and to Thuma for chronicling their struggles."--Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz​"Thuma's historical approach to women, prisons, and policing is insightful and thorough. Though never directed to, the reader will certainly feel compelled to more directly contemplate or approach the present issue, but at the very least, All Our Trials is an incredibly effective antidote to the most crippling condition that stands in the way of dismantling the carceral state: apathy." --Women's Studies"With deep compassion, Thuma offers one of the most compelling historical analyses of how feminist activism of Black, queer, and criminalized women has worked to resist the long and dangerous reach of the carceral state. All Our Trials is an important text in the growing fields of critical prison studies and anti-carceral feminism and a critical addition to activist reading lists."--Beth Richie, author of Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation"The book covers an interesting time line from the 1970s to early 1980s to bridge together a discussion of anticarceral feminism and feminist prison abolitionism to create an awareness of the interdependence of struggles, multiple feminisms, and coalition building." --Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work"All Our Trials transforms our understanding of both the history of feminism and of the carceral state. In her deeply compelling account, Thuma documents the work of activists who centered the lives of the most marginalized in their social justice imaginary and their political agenda, producing an anticarceral feminist politics and an expansive analysis of the interconnections between interpersonal and state violence. A crucial and timely read as we wrestle with gender, race, and violence today."--Regina Kunzel, author of Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality"Thuma packs tremendous detail and insight into this short, well-written book. I recommend it!" --Chris Dixon, Writing with Movements "Emily Thuma's All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence is a meticulously researched intervention into histories of feminist antiviolence activism. All Our Trials is a profoundly optimistic and inspiring book. Thuma demonstrates the real power of activism and the way that organizations that are often easily dismissed as too radical or utopian can have far-reaching impacts." --Feminist Formations "A timely account." --Indypendent "In the contemporary context of social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, which criticize the ever growing prison-industrial complex and draw attention to illegitimate violence perpetrated by agents of the state, All Our Trials provides a genealogy of the ideas behind alternatives to criminal justice; the roots of restorative and transformative justice theories can be found in the struggles of the 1970s and 1980s." --Punishment and Society "All Our Trials offers a vital history for contemporary prison abolitionists seeking to make the world anew. " --Against the Current "With All Our Trials, Emily L. Thuma has given us a critically important and cutting-edge history of antiviolence activism." --American Historical Review "All Our Trials is a tour de force. It stands among the best books on the history of modern feminist politics and represents one of the most elucidating histories of the US carceral state produced to date. Emily Thuma centers criminalized women’s ideas and organizing, providing graceful historical analysis that will undoubtedly influence current conversations about imprisonment, gender, and sexual violence. This history opens a fiercely urgent path toward an anticarceral feminist future."--Sarah Haley, author of No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow ModernityTable of ContentsContents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. Lessons in Self-Defense: From “Free Joan Little” to “Free Them All” 15 2. Diagnosing Institutional Violence: Forging Alliances against the “Prison/Psychiatric State” 55 3. Printing Abolition: The Transformative Power of Women’s Prison Newsletters 88 4. Intersecting Indictments: Coalitions for Women’s Safety, Racial Justice, and the Right to the City 123 Epilogue 159 Notes 165 Bibliography 199 Index 219

Read more less

Book SynopsisErika Bachiochi offers an original look at the development of feminism in the United States, advancing a vision of rights that rests upon our responsibilities to others.In The Rights of Women, Erika Bachiochi explores the development of feminist thought in the United States. Inspired by the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Bachiochi presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women's rights, seamlessly weaving philosophical insight, biographical portraits, and constitutional law to showcase the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community.Bachiochi proposes a philosophical and legal framework for rights that builds on the communitarian tradition of feminist thought as seen in the work of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Drawing on the insight of prominent figures such as Sarah Grimké, Frances Willard, Florence Kelley, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Ruth BTrade Review"Examining Wollstonecraft’s philosophical writings on sex, sexuality, and motherhood—as a lens through which to view the history of feminism in the United States—Bachiochi argues that between the 19th and 21st centuries, too many American women abandoned Wollstonecraftian ideals of virtue and fairness, replacing them with the self-defeating ideology (and various waves) of progressive feminism." —National Review"The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision . . . portrays women as increasingly disadvantaged by principles that became prominent in the 20th century's conception of liberty. Rather than merely liberating, [Bachiochi] argues, the industrial and sexual revolutions have disrupted longstanding dynamics that allow the sexes to pursue authentic freedom; that is, the freedom to pursue virtue in familial and social relationships." —FoxNews“Part history, part legal theory, and part political philosophy, The Rights of Women provides a compelling contribution to feminist dialogue, both applauding the gains and critiquing the missteps made during women’s quest for advancement. . . . Bachiochi offers a judicious analysis of women’s history that informs her refreshing portrait of dignitarian feminism.” —Law & Liberty"Along with the maternal accompaniment of Our Lady, the Wollstonecraft-Glendon understanding of women’s rights—a truly ennobling and liberating moral vision—reimagines feminism, and Bachiochi’s book brilliantly explains how that understanding evolved." —National Catholic Register"Bachiochi offers us a cohesive historical lens through which to adopt Wollstonecraft’s program of virtue today, even as we already see it bearing fruit in households that we admire. 'Without that intentional human development properly prioritized in the life of the home,' Bachiochi asserts, 'persons (and markets) [will] do little good outside of it.'" —The Interim"The purpose of freedom is for human flourishing, not flouting the virtues, as this excellent work so clearly demonstrates." —Catholic Medical Quarterly"Bachiochi’s work is a call to reimagine feminism. What if men and women pursued equality, not as self-destructive license, but as freedom for the sake of human excellence? " —National Catholic Register"At the heart of Erika Bachiochi’s The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision is the assertion that human beings are not defined by autonomy but rather by relations of dependency and obligation." —The Catholic World Report"Bachiochi takes her readers on a thorough and scholarly examination of leading feminist thought as it developed through the past 200-plus years, through the lens of early feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. . . . Let us hope that Bachiochi’s vision is realizable, for it would certainly be the beginning of a more humane world, for both sexes." —The University Bookman"In Bachiochi’s book, we see Wollstonecraft’s legacy percolate through the 19th-century American women’s movement—in which the tension between individualism and life in common hums." —UnHerd"Erika Bachiochi, in her book The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, offers a memorial to Wollstonecraft, an effort to reclaim the moral vision of this early feminist for our time. . . . I earnestly commend Bachiochi’s book to a wide audience and to feminists of every stripe." —Marginalia"Rights of Women doesn’t claim to be a conservative book, but it renews a challenge that cuts to the heart of the conservative movement." —The American Conservative"Erika Bachiochi’s The Rights of Women is the most impressive anti-abortion book to appear in years." —First Things"Now and then a book comes along that changes the way one thinks about the world. Erika Bachiochi's The Rights of Women is one of these books." —Modern Age"Women’s (and men’s) freedom is linked to the response to the question, what are freedoms for? According to Bachiochi’s account, freedoms are rooted neither in the market, nor in power clashes or gender antagonism, but in a heritage that celebrates everyday human flourishing." —Church, Communication, and Culture"Just as Wollstonecraft challenged prevalent mistakes in thinking about the rights of women, so too Bachiochi is uprooting mainstream myths about what women’s wellbeing and success require today. The effort of students and teachers to read her work carefully will be well-rewarded." —American Journal of JurisprudenceTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Moral Vision 2. Men, Marriage, Law, and Government 3. The Young Republic and the Unequal Virtues of the Agrarian Home 4. Women’s Suffrage, Rational Souls, Sexed Bodies, And the Ties that Bind 5. The Industrial Revolution and the Debate Between Abstract Rights and Concrete Duties 6. The “Feminine Mystique” and Human Work 7. Sex Role Stereotypes and the Successful Quest for Equal Citizenship Status 8. Caring for Dependency in the Logic of the Market 9. Sexual Asymmetry, American Law, and the Call for a Renewed Family Ecology 10. Reimagining Feminism Today in Search of Human Excellence

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe first wave of trailblazing female law professors and the stage they set for American democracy. When it comes to breaking down barriers for women in the workplace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name speaks volumes for itselfbut, as she clarifies in the foreword to this long-awaited book, there are too many trailblazing names we do not know. Herma Hill Kay, former Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law and Ginsburg's closest professional colleague, wrote Paving the Way to tell the stories of the first fourteen female law professors at ABA- and AALS-accredited law schools in the United States. Kay, who became the fifteenth such professor, labored over the stories of these women in order to provide an essential history of their path for the more than 2,000 women working as law professors today and all of their feminist colleagues. Because Herma Hill Kay, who died in 2017, was able to obtain so much first-hand information about the fourteen women who preceded her, Paving the Way is filled with details, quiet and loud, of each of their lives and careers from their own perspectives. Kay wraps each story in rich historical context, lest we forget the extraordinarily difficult times in which these women lived. Paving the Way is not just a collection of individual stories of remarkable women but also a well-crafted interweaving of law and society during a historical period when women's voices were often not heard and sometimes actively muted. The final chapter connects these first fourteen women to the second wave of women law professors who achieved tenure-track appointments in the 1960s and 1970s, carrying on the torch and analogous challenges. This is a decidedly feminist project, one that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg advocated for tirelessly and admired publicly in the years before her death.Trade Review“The . . . biographies are filled with detail and wrapped in rich historical context.” * The Alcalde * "One might assume a book about the first female law professors could be boring. This book is not. Instead, this book is an intimate portrayal of the struggles these first 14 professors faced, their grit and determination, and how they paved the way forward for women in the legal profession. Readers here will savor the successes of these female law professors and appreciate the challenges as Kay portrays them. Kay’s writing is electric: lively and engaging. She presents, in vivid detail, the lives of the first 14. . . . The book is invaluable for anyone interested in the history of women in the legal profession." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"The product of more than twenty years of labor, including scores of interviews and meticulous archival research, Paving the Way charts a history both intimate and expansive in scope." * California History *Table of ContentsForeword Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Preface Patricia A. Cain Introduction 1. Leading the Way: Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong 2. Armstrong’s Pre-World War II Contemporaries: Harriet Spiller Daggett and Margaret Harris Amsler 3. The Czarina of Legal Education: Soia Mentschikoff 4. From the Library to the Faculty: Five Women Who Changed Careers: Miriam Theresa Rooney, Jeanette Ozanne Smith, Janet Mary Riley, Helen Elsie Steinbinder, and Maria Minnette Massey 5. The Mid-Fifties: Ellen Ash Peters and Dorothy Wright Nelson 6. The End of an Era: Joan Miday Krauskopf and Marygold Shire Melli 7. The Next Decades: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Women Law Professors from the 1960s to the 1980s Conclusion Appendix: A Note on Clemence Myers Smith, the Sixth Woman Law Professor Afterword Melissa Murray Notes

Read more less

Book SynopsisIt seems unthinkable that citizens of one of the most powerful nations in the world must risk their lives and livelihoods in the search for access to necessary health care. And yet it is no surprise that in many places throughout the United States, getting an abortion can be a monumental challenge. Anti-choice politicians and activists have worked tirelessly to impose needless restrictions on this straightforward medical procedure that, at best, delay it and, at worst, create medical risks and deny women their constitutionally protected right to choose.Obstacle Course tells the story of abortion in America, capturing a disturbing reality of insurmountable barriers people face when trying to exercise their legal rights to medical services. Authors David S. Cohen and Carole Joffe lay bare the often arduous and unnecessarily burdensome process of terminating a pregnancy: the sabotaged decision-making, clinics in remote locations, insurance bans, harassing protesters, forced ultrasounds anTrade Review"The authors present the actual experience [of abortion], and in doing so reveal the courage, intelligence and determination of patients, often dismissed as confused or selfish, and providers, often attacked as heartless and greedy." * Washington Post *"Obstacle Course is a provocation and guide for more a robust engagement within medical anthropology on abortion politics, laws, and care. . . . This book is accessibly written for audiences moved by stories about the everyday stakes of health care politics and will be an invaluable resource for use in anthropology, sociology, history, legal studies, gender studies, public health, and ethics courses." * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *"Cohen and Joffe detail with painstaking and often heartrending clarity the intersectional gauntlet of obstacles that many seeking an abortion must navigate." * Signs *Table of Contents1. Introduction: The Turbulent State of Abortion in America 2. Making the Decision: Coping with Roadblocks, Deception, and Lies 3. Finding and Getting to a Clinic: Hard to Find, Harder to Reach 4. Coming Up With the Money: The Biggest Barrier 5. Getting In: Chaos at the Clinic Door 6. Counseling at the Clinic: Government-Mandated Deceit 7. Waiting Periods: Logistical Nightmares, Potentially Serious Delays 8. The Procedure: Politics Overrides Medical Expertise 9. An Alternate Vision: Abortion as Normal Health Care Notes Acknowledgments Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroduces an expansive vision of the family and a brilliant legal arrangement that will protect the lives of millions of adults. Today, about half of all adults are unmarried. Many of those are in significant relationshipssome intimate, others based in friendship, finances, or family tiesbut the law offers them few protections. Amid the growing recognition that modern families take all shapes, More Than Marriage presents a refreshing vision for the future. With this book, noted family-law expert John G. Culhane takes us on a guided tour of how the march toward marriage equality spun off a number of other legal statuses, and explores how the law has expanded and where it falls short. This lively living history is grounded in relatable, in-depth interviews that give voice to the millions of Americans building family structures outside the protections of marriagewhether by choice, necessity, or exclusion. Culhane proposes an updated legal status that offers flexible and portable Trade Review"An inspired introduction to legal understandings of marriage equality that issues an urgent argument for continued reforms." * Foreword Reviews *"This book about marriage alternatives should appeal to a general audience. Ideal for those interested in domestic law policies." * Library Journal *"Recommended [for] advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers." * CHOICE *"Culhane offers a refreshing take on how we might legally enshrine a variety of forms of relationships and intimacies. . . . More Than Marriage will be immersive reading for those interested in the legal recognition of relationships and for imagining new possibilities beyond marriage." * Gender & Society *Table of ContentsList of Tables Preface Introduction: Marriage Equality—an Important but Limited Victory 1. The Dawn of the Domestic Partnership, or "We Bored Them to Death" 2. Civil Unions: Not Marriage, but an Incredible Simulation! 3. The Designated Beneficiary Agreement Act: Colorado's Successful Experiment 4. What Is Marriage, Anyway? (And What Isn't Marriage?) 5. Matching Relationship Law to Reality Notes References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroduces an expansive vision of the family and a brilliant legal arrangement that will protect the lives of millions of adults. Today, about half of all adults are unmarried. Many of those are in significant relationshipssome intimate, others based in friendship, finances, or family tiesbut the law offers them few protections. Amid the growing recognition that modern families take all shapes, More Than Marriage presents a refreshing vision for the future. With this book, noted family-law expert John G. Culhane takes us on a guided tour of how the march toward marriage equality spun off a number of other legal statuses, and explores how the law has expanded and where it falls short. This lively living history is grounded in relatable, in-depth interviews that give voice to the millions of Americans building family structures outside the protections of marriagewhether by choice, necessity, or exclusion. Culhane proposes an updated legal status that offers flexible and portable Trade Review"An inspired introduction to legal understandings of marriage equality that issues an urgent argument for continued reforms." * Foreword Reviews *"This book about marriage alternatives should appeal to a general audience. Ideal for those interested in domestic law policies." * Library Journal *"Recommended [for] advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers." * CHOICE *"Culhane offers a refreshing take on how we might legally enshrine a variety of forms of relationships and intimacies. . . . More Than Marriage will be immersive reading for those interested in the legal recognition of relationships and for imagining new possibilities beyond marriage." * Gender & Society *Table of ContentsList of Tables Preface Introduction: Marriage Equality—an Important but Limited Victory 1. The Dawn of the Domestic Partnership, or "We Bored Them to Death" 2. Civil Unions: Not Marriage, but an Incredible Simulation! 3. The Designated Beneficiary Agreement Act: Colorado's Successful Experiment 4. What Is Marriage, Anyway? (And What Isn't Marriage?) 5. Matching Relationship Law to Reality Notes References Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the 1960s and 1970s, analogies between sex discrimination and racial injustice became potent weapons in the battle for women's rights, as feminists borrowed rhetoric and legal arguments from the civil rights movement. Serena Mayeri's Reasoning from Race is the first history of this key strategy and its consequences for American law.Trade ReviewMayeri shows that racial politics’ impact on the women’s movement was not a coincidence of timing but rather the inevitable result of ideas and individuals colliding at key moments in history. Her carefully crafted reconciliation of racial justice with women’s rights offers a template for incorporating race into ongoing feminist debate rather than letting such conversations end in painful silence. -- Pamela D. Bridgewater * Ms. *The author powerfully describes the rise and fall of the gender–race analogy, as well as the transformation of how both supporters and opponents of women’s rights appropriated the analogy, culminating in the collapse of the feminist movement during the Reagan era. -- D. Schultz * Choice *Analogies between race and sex have a long history, dating back to the early years of the American suffrage struggle. In the 1840s, women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott protested their exclusion from anti-slavery leadership and abolitionist Frederick Douglass championed equal suffrage at the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls. A century later, the civil rights and feminist revolutions rekindled debates over whether and how race-sex analogies should be used. Reasoning from Race is a brilliant, scholarly book covering these debates, which are so important to understand as we tackle the unfinished business of sex equality in America. -- Patricia Schroeder, U.S. House Representative for the State of Colorado, 1973–1997This brilliant book opens an entirely new window on the vexed relationship between civil rights and the women’s movement. Its dazzling exploration of race–sex analogies forces us to reconsider the promise and peril of all analogical reasoning. Among other things, it should make anyone who has ever thought that ‘gay is the new black’ reconsider. -- Laura Kalman, University of California, Santa BarbaraPaying close attention to ‘how law is made and what is lost along the way,’ Reasoning from Race provides a paradigm-altering account of legal feminism. Serena Mayeri recovers a robust tradition that understood how gender, race, and class worked together, and she tells its surprising story with bold sweep, meticulous research, and stylistic grace in this powerful and important book. -- Nancy MacLean, Duke UniversityReasoning from Race sets as its ambition to trace the history of how sex-equality federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence came to rely on and in turn often be limited by analogies to race. It is a history of ideas, of the relationship between the movement for civil rights and women’s rights from 1960 through the 1970s, and the individuals who bridged those two movements. In each of these respects, Mayeri succeeds brilliantly. -- Barbara Young Welke, University of Minnesota

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner, 2003-2004 Harold Adams Innis Prize for Best English-Language Book in the Social Sciences, Canadian Federation for Humanities and Social SciencesIn the early 1990s, lawyer Beth Symes brought an equality challenge against the Canadian Income Tax Act, arguing that her childcare costs were a business expense. The case ignited public controversy. Was Symes disadvantaged on the basis of gender, or unfairly privileged on the basis of class?This book seeks answers to those questions through close attention to the Symes case, where class and gender interests clashed over the tax treatment of childcare. It looks at the history of legislative and litigative struggles, the dynamics of courtroom discourse, and the influence of broad social debates about children and the public/private divide. It reveals how frequently the rhetoric of choice, responsibility, and selfishness is invoked in response to women''s attempts to place issues of childcare on the public agenda.TTrade Review"This book makes a huge contribution to the field of socio-legal studies. The scholarship is first rate, and the author has applied complex theories in a manner that is extremely accessible. It is a "great read," it tells a fascinating story, and should interest anyone attentive to issues of fairness, justice, and how these issues play out in the courts." - Claire Young, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, and author of Women, Tax and Social ProgramsTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Intersection of Power and WoundPart 1: Prelude1 Theoretical Foundations2 Childcare Politics in Canada3 Legal Manoeuvring and the Development of Litigation StrategiesPart 2: "The Play's the Thing"4 Strategy and Practice: The Play's the Thing PartPart 3: Sorting Out the Aftermath5 The Limits of Judicial Power: The Court as Constrained6 Power, Constraint, and the Rhetoric of Choice7 Multiple Solitudes: Intersectionality in the Nonexpert Public Response8 Class and Gender on the Terrain of Need: Intersectionality in Expert Public Response9 Lessons to Be Learned and a Case to Be RemadeAppendicesA Selected Statutory ProvisionsB Selections from the Dissent in Symes v. CanadaNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis book examines women lawyers' attempts to reconcile their professional obligations with other aspects of their lives.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1 Introduction: Recognizing the Codes 2 “The Portia of Our Chambers”: Voice, Robes, andReputation 3 Educating Women in the Law: Becoming Gentlemen? 4 Caught in the Time Crunch 5 Choreographing Daily Life: Clocks, Calendars, and Cycles 6 Careers and Curricula Vitae 7 Cracking the Codes Appendix: Where Are They Now? Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis timely, evocative book showcases Bertha Wilson’s contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and explores the issues that this controversial personality grappled with in her life and career.Trade ReviewThe book is an excellent legacy of Madame Justice Bertha Wilson’s life as a lawyer, jurist, role model, and task force chair. Hers was a life that made a difference. -- Joan Brockman * Canadian Journal of Woman and the Law, Vol 22 *Justice Bertha Wilson is an original contribution ... this collection of essays reminds us that all women constitute themselves within conditions of overt and more ambient gender discrimination. Through the lens of one “extraordinary” woman’s life, this collection contributes to feminist attempts to develop theories that account for women’s capacity for agency, their negotiations, concessions, and transgressions of normative femininity – in short, the relative and shifting constraints and opportunities generated through our interactions with gendered social structures. -- Suzanne Bouclin, Faculty of Law, McGill University * Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2010 *Table of ContentsPreface / Justice Claire L'Heureux-DubéIntroduction / Kim BrooksPart 1: Foundations1 Bertha Wilson’s Practice Years (1958–75): Establishing a Research Practice and Founding a Research Department in Canada / Angela Fernandez and Beatrice Tice2 A Traditionalist’s Property Jurisprudence/ Larissa Katz3 Power, Discretion, and Vulnerability, Justice Wilson and Fiduciary Duty in the Corporate/Commercial Context / Janis Sarra4 A Few More Spokes to the Wheel: Reasonableness, Fairness, and Justice in Justice Bertha Wilson’s Approach to Contract Law / Moira L. McConnell5 Giving Emotions Their Due: Justice Bertha Wilson’s Response to Intangible Loss in Contract / Shannon Kathleen O’ByrnePart 2: Controversy6 Picking up Where Justice Wilson Left Off: The Tort of Discrimination Revisited / Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey7 Paradigms of Prostitution: Revisiting the Prostitution Reference / Janine Benedet8 Contextualizing Criminal Defences: Exploring the Contribution of Justice Bertha Wilson / Isabel Grant and Debra Parkes9 “Finally I know Where I am Going to Be From”: Culture, Context, and Time in a Look Back at Racine v. Woods / Gillian Calder10 Challenging Patriarchy or Embracing Liberal Norms? Justice Wilson’s Child Custody and Access Decisions / Susan B. BoydPart 3: Reflections11 But Was She a Feminist Judge? / Beverley Baines12 I Agree/Disagree for the Following Reasons: Convergence, Divergence, and Justice Wilson’s “Modest Degree of Creativity” / Marie-Claire Belleau, Rebecca Johnson, and Christina Vinters13 A Way of Being in the World / Lorna Turnbull14 Ideas and Transformation: A Reflection on Bertha Wilson’s Contribution to Gender Equality in the Legal Profession / Melina Buckley15 Taking a Stand on Equality: Bertha Wilson and the Evolution of Judicial Education in Canada / Rosemary Cairns Way and T. Brettel Dawson16 Bertha Wilson: “Silences” in a Woman’s Life Story / Mary Jane MossmanIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis timely, evocative book showcases Bertha Wilson’s contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and explores the issues that this controversial personality grappled with in her life and career.Trade ReviewThe book is an excellent legacy of Madame Justice Bertha Wilson’s life as a lawyer, jurist, role model, and task force chair. Hers was a life that made a difference. -- Joan Brockman * Canadian Journal of Woman and the Law, Vol 22 *Justice Bertha Wilson is an original contribution ... this collection of essays reminds us that all women constitute themselves within conditions of overt and more ambient gender discrimination. Through the lens of one “extraordinary” woman’s life, this collection contributes to feminist attempts to develop theories that account for women’s capacity for agency, their negotiations, concessions, and transgressions of normative femininity – in short, the relative and shifting constraints and opportunities generated through our interactions with gendered social structures. -- Suzanne Bouclin, Faculty of Law, McGill University * Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2010 *Table of ContentsPreface / Justice Claire L'Heureux-DubéIntroduction / Kim BrooksPart 1: Foundations1 Bertha Wilson’s Practice Years (1958–75): Establishing a Research Practice and Founding a Research Department in Canada / Angela Fernandez and Beatrice Tice2 A Traditionalist’s Property Jurisprudence/ Larissa Katz3 Power, Discretion, and Vulnerability, Justice Wilson and Fiduciary Duty in the Corporate/Commercial Context / Janis Sarra4 A Few More Spokes to the Wheel: Reasonableness, Fairness, and Justice in Justice Bertha Wilson’s Approach to Contract Law / Moira L. McConnell5 Giving Emotions Their Due: Justice Bertha Wilson’s Response to Intangible Loss in Contract / Shannon Kathleen O’ByrnePart 2: Controversy6 Picking up Where Justice Wilson Left Off: The Tort of Discrimination Revisited / Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey7 Paradigms of Prostitution: Revisiting the Prostitution Reference / Janine Benedet8 Contextualizing Criminal Defences: Exploring the Contribution of Justice Bertha Wilson / Isabel Grant and Debra Parkes9 “Finally I know Where I am Going to Be From”: Culture, Context, and Time in a Look Back at Racine v. Woods / Gillian Calder10 Challenging Patriarchy or Embracing Liberal Norms? Justice Wilson’s Child Custody and Access Decisions / Susan B. BoydPart 3: Reflections11 But Was She a Feminist Judge? / Beverley Baines12 I Agree/Disagree for the Following Reasons: Convergence, Divergence, and Justice Wilson’s “Modest Degree of Creativity” / Marie-Claire Belleau, Rebecca Johnson, and Christina Vinters13 A Way of Being in the World / Lorna Turnbull14 Ideas and Transformation: A Reflection on Bertha Wilson’s Contribution to Gender Equality in the Legal Profession / Melina Buckley15 Taking a Stand on Equality: Bertha Wilson and the Evolution of Judicial Education in Canada / Rosemary Cairns Way and T. Brettel Dawson16 Bertha Wilson: “Silences” in a Woman’s Life Story / Mary Jane MossmanIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisFocusing on the Supreme Court of Canada, Craig attempts to overcome the constraints of theoretical frameworks and disciplinary boundaries by pursuing a more inclusive theory of law and sexuality.Trade ReviewElaine Craig’s book contributes significantly by studying sexuality transversally, across legal fields normally seen as distinct. Through provocative readings of leading cases, grounded in feminist and queer theory, it shows how the Supreme Court’s judgments embody different approaches from one field to another. -- Robert Leckey, Faculty of Law, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction1 Essentialism and Constructivism in Law2 Legal Conceptions of Sexual Nature and Natural Sex3 Natural Categories and Non-Categorical Approaches to Law and Sexuality4 Socially Constructed Conceptions of Sexual Violence5 A Moral Shift6 Some Subjective Truths About the Objective Truth of Sex7 Trouble Ahead: An Iconoclastic Approach to Sexual Integrity in the LawNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn the landmark Lavallee decision of 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that evidence of battered woman syndrome was admissible in establishing self-defence for women accused of killing their abusive partners. This book looks at the legal response to battered women who killed their partners in the fifteen years since Lavallee.Elizabeth Sheehy uses trial transcripts and a case study approach to tell the stories of eleven women, ten of whom killed their partners. She looks at the barriers women face to just leaving, the various ways in which self-defence was argued in these cases, and which form of expert testimony was used to frame women's experience of battering. Drawing upon a rich expanse of research from many disciplines, she highlights the limitations of the law of self-defence and the costs to women undergoing a murder trial. In a final chapter, she proposes numerous reforms.In Canada, a woman is killed every six days by her male partner, anTrade ReviewIn Defending Battered Women on Trial: Lessons from the Transcripts, Sheehy offers a compelling and startling account of the criminal justice system’s failure to protect women from the men who batter them. She begins the book by situating the issue in its historical legal context. Making the work accessible to an audience much broader than just those well-versed in criminal law, Sheehy provides the reader with ample background to understand the legal context in Canada both prior to and in the years following the Supreme Court of Canada’s 1990 recognition of battered women syndrome in R. v Lavallee.Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Angelique Lyn Lavallee2 Bonnie Mooney3 Kimberley Kondejewski4 Gladys Heavenfire and Doreen Sorenson5 Donelda Kay, Denise Robin Rain, and Jamie Gladue6 Lilian Getkate7 Margaret Ann Malott and Rita GravelineConclusionAppendix; Notes; Select Bibliography; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisBoth lionized and vilified, Claire L'Heureux-Dubé has shaped the Canadian legal landscape and in particular its highest court. The second woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, and the first from Quebec, she was known as the great dissenter on the bench, making judgments that were applauded and criticized in turn.L'Heureux-Dubé's innovative legal approach was anchored in the social, economic, and political context of her cases. Constance Backhouse employs a similar tactic. Rather than focusing exclusively on her high-profile cases and jurisprudential legacy, sheexplores the socio-political and cultural setting in which L'Heureux-Dubé's career unfolded, while also considering her personal life. This compelling biography covers aspects of legal history that have never been so fully investigated, enhancing our understanding of the judiciary, the creation of law, the distinctive socio-legal environment of Quebec, the experiences of women in the legal profession, Trade Review[Claire L’HeureuxDubé: A Life] is an exceptional contribution to Canadian legal literature. Backhouse completely immersed herself in her subject by taking extensive French immersion studies, learning about the Quebec civil law system, and conducting close to 200 interviews over a ten-year period … the result is a meticulously researched but very readable biography of a leading figure in Quebec and Canadian law. -- David Cameletti, Barrister and Solicitor * Canadian Law Library Review *Table of ContentsForewordChronologyIntroduction1 EwanchukFamily Heritage and Childhood2 Lineage: Of Elephants, Literary Salons, the Military, and Mozart3 Early Years: Quebec City and Rimouski4 Growing Up in RimouskiEarly Education 5 Life as a Pensionnaire with the Ursulines, 1937–436 Collège Notre-Dame-de-Bellevue: Classical Studies for a Baccalauréat, 1943–46A Legal Education7 The Decision to Go to Law School, 1946–488 Laval Law School Student Body, 1948–529 Laval Law School Faculty and Curriculum, 1948–5210 Life Outside of Law School, 1949–52Law Practice11 Entry: A Law Firm Job, 195212 Sam Bard: The Man behind the Employment Offer13 Business Law Practice14 Marriage and Children15 Family Law: The Later Years of Practice16 Practising as a WomanQuebec Superior Court17 New Career Directions: “No” to Electoral Politics, “Yes” to the Bench, 1972–7318 First Months on the Bench, February to October 197319 Immigration Commission of Inquiry, October 1973 to January 197620 Quebec Superior Court, 1976–7921 Family Tragedy: Arthur’s Death, 11 July 1978Quebec Court of Appeal22 Appointment to the Quebec Court of Appeal, 197923 Appellate Judging, 1979–8724 More Family TraumasSupreme Court of Canada25 Appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada, 198726 Early Days on the Supreme Court of Canada27 Continuing Isolation on the Supreme Court28 Fifteen Years of Jurisprudence, 1987–2002: “The Great Dissenter”Selected Cases29 Sexual Assault: Seaboyer, 199130 Family Law and Spousal Support: Moge, 199231 Human Rights for Same-Sex Couples: Mossop, 199332 Tax Law and Sex Discrimination: Symes, 199333 More Deaths, 1987–9434 The Quebec Secession Reference: “The Most Important Case,” 199835 Fairness in Immigration Law: Baker, 199936 Epilogue on EwanchukA Wider Stage37 Judicial Education and International Influence38 Retirement: A Much Heralded ExitConclusion Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisWomen are the fastest growing group of incarcerated people in Canada. While feminist criminologists advocate for community alternatives to imprisonment, they often do so without offering a corresponding analysis of existing community programs. And critical criminologists rarely consider gender in their assessment of the options.This book brings these criminological strands together in a concise and carefully reasoned analysis of alternative justice programs for criminalized women. Drawing on interviews with staff and documents from alternative justice agencies, Amanda Nelund finds that alternative programs neither reproduce dominant justice system norms nor provide complete alternatives. Instead, formal and informal practices reflect the tension between neoliberal and social justice approaches. A Better Justice? calls attention to the potential that alternative programs have for both alignment with and opposition to criminal justice norms. It is in the potentiTrade Review"While much feminist criminological research in Canada focuses on women’s experiences in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal, A Better Justice? adds an important Prairie-centric analysis. By documenting and examining community-based efforts to assist criminalized women in the city of Winnipeg, Nelund considers how front-line organizations attempt to imagine and do justice differently in Canada."—Jennifer Kilty, University of OttawaWhile much feminist criminological research in Canada focuses on women’s experiences in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal, A Better Justice? adds an important Prairie-centric analysis. By documenting and examining community-based efforts to assist criminalized women in the city of Winnipeg, Nelund considers how front-line organizations attempt to imagine and do justice differently in Canada. -- Jennifer Kilty, University of Ottawa

Read more less

Book SynopsisFamily Law in Action examines the inequalities produced by divorce and separation in France and Quebec.Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Why the Liberalization of Divorce Leads to Unequal Access to Justice2 How Gender and National Context Shape the Legal Profession3 The Legal Encounter as a Situated Nexus of Power4 How Family Justice Frames Unequal Parenthoods5 Family Law and the Welfare State: Intertwining Economic InequalitiesConclusionNotes; References; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe right to divorce is a symbol of individual liberty and gender equality under the law, but in practice it is anything but equitable. Family Law in Action reveals the class and gender inequalities embedded in the process of separation and its aftermath in Quebec and France. Drawing on empirical research conducted on their respective court and welfare systems, Emilie Biland analyzes how men and women in both places encounter the law and its representatives in ways that affect their personal and professional lives. While gender inequality is less pronounced in Quebec than in France, and class inequality is starker, in both national contexts inequalities after breakups are driven by the same three mechanisms: access to the law and justice, interactions with legal professionals, and the ways these two factors shape lifestyle and standard of living. Family Law in Action is a rigorous but compassionate study that encourages governments to make good on the emancipatory Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Why the Liberalization of Divorce Leads to Unequal Access to Justice2 How Gender and National Context Shape the Legal Profession3 The Legal Encounter as a Situated Nexus of Power4 How Family Justice Frames Unequal Parenthoods5 Family Law and the Welfare State: Intertwining Economic InequalitiesConclusionNotes; References; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisSurvivors of conversion practices interventions meant to stop gender transition have likened these to torture. In the last decade, bans on these deeply unethical and harmful processes have proliferated, and governments across the world are considering following suit.Banning Transgender Conversion Practices considers pivotal questions for anyone studying or working to prevent these harmful interventions. What is the scope of the bans? How do they differ across jurisdictions? What are the advantages and disadvantages of legislative approaches to regulating trans conversion therapy? How can we improve these prohibitions? Florence Ashley answers these questions and demonstrates the need for affirmative health care cultures and detailed laws that clearly communicate which practices are banned.Banning Transgender Conversion Practices centres trans realities to rethink and push forward the legal regulation of conversion therapy, culminating in a carefully Trade ReviewFlorence Ashley does a magnificent job putting theory into practice. -- Rebecca Sanaeikia, University of Rochester * Medical Law International *Authored by an award-winning legal scholar, this book has an obvious home beyond academic law library collections. -- Alexandra Kwan, University of Toronto * Canadian Law Library Review *Table of ContentsForewordIntroduction1 What Are Trans Conversion Practices?2 Interpreting the Scope of Bans3 Legal Variants Across the Globe4 Opposition and Constitutional Challenges to Bans5 Policy Analysis 6 Developing an Affirmative Professional Culture7 Annotated Model Law for Prohibiting Conversion PracticesConclusionAppendix: Professional Organizations Opposing Trans Conversion PracticesNotes; Glossary; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisHouse Rules takes a hard look at the law and norms governing family life, compelling readers to rethink entrenched inequalities in familial relationships and proposing ways to approach legislative solutions.Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction / Erez Aloni and Régine TremblayPart 1: Locating Norms1 The Private Lives of High-Wealth Families / Allison Anna Tait2 Identity Choices at the Intersections: The Inequality of Cross-Border Motherhood and What to Do about It / Chao-ju ChenPart 2: Law’s Norms3 Family Law as Expression: Financial Relief in the English Courts / Alison Diduck4 The Complex Interrelationships of Financial and Child-Related Issues in Post-separation Disputes: Gender Matters / Rachel TreloarPart 3: Norms’ Stickiness5 Familial Ideology, Privatization, and Care Arrangements for Children in the Family Law and Child Protection Systems / Wanda Wiegers6 Family, Gender, and the Public/Private Divide in the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act 1998 / Nicola BarkerPart 4: Measuring Norms7 One Myth Leads to Another: From Ignorance of the Laws to the Presumption of Informed Choice among de Facto Spouses / Hélène Belleau8 “WAR” and Other Reasons People Move In Together: Analyzing Cohabitating Relationship Progressions in British Columbia / Erez Aloni and Adam Vanzella-YangPart 5: Reforming Norms9 Measuring Success of (Family) Law Reforms / Julianna Ivanyi and Régine Tremblay10 Abolishing Family Law (as We Know It) / Brenda CossmanIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisSex, Sexuality, and the Constitution persuasively demonstrates the need to entrench protections for individual sexual autonomy within constitutional law. Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Sexual Autonomy: Sex, Childbirth, and the Constitution2 Sexual Freedom: The Right to Decide One’s Sexual Identity and the Right to Have Sex3 Rape: The Right Not to Be Forced to Have Sex4 Childbirth: The Right to Have a Child5 Abortion: The Right Not to Be Forced to Have a Child6 Sex, Childbirth, and the Government: Sexual Freedom, Freedom of Choice, and Population PolicyConclusionList of Caselaw, Legislation, and TreatiesNotes; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisSuing for Silence exposes the phenomenon of lawsuits whose purpose is to silence those who disclose sexual violence, revealing the gendered underpinnings of Canadian defamation law and its chilling effect on public discourse including formal reports of sexual violence.Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1 A Civil Law Primer2 The Gender of Reputation3 Sick and Silenced4 Campus Sexual Violence5 Is Anti-SLAPP Legislation the Answer?ConclusionNotes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIt cautions against framing debates over sexual material narrowly in terms of harm to children while highlighting the dangers of surrendering discourse about sexuality to the commercial realm.Trade ReviewWhat constitutes obscenity is a contentious issue, and Wheeler makes it clear that historically, it has been dangerous ground for feminists... Her analysis is convincing. Choice 2005 Wheeler's account of the anti-obscenity campaign illuminates the importance of gender to that history; she seamlessly explores the movement as it shifted from the local to the national level; and she meticulously recounts the day-to-day struggles women faced. Along the way, she draws on an impressive list of archival sources to reconstruct women's involvement in the campaign, provides a detailed account of the victories and hardships women experienced as they attempted to shape the... anti-obscenity movement, and offers a thoughtful and well-argued addition to a growing number of studies about women activists and how their concerns for mothers and children shaped public policy. American Historical Review 2005 Tells the complicated and compelling story of women's meteoric rise to prominence in competing branches of the anti-obscenity movement prior to and immediately following passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, and their arguably more rapid exit from the scene during the late 1920s and early 1930s... A superbly written book. -- Heather Lee Miller Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 2005 A welcome addition to the growing historiography of obscenity and censorship. In its solid research, Wheeler's book is [also] an important addition to the historiography of grassroots struggles over free speech and other rights in twentieth-century America. Journal of American History In this important book, Leigh Ann Wheeler examines a little-discussed corner of popular culture, women's campaigns to regulate 'obscenity' in the late 1800[s] and early 1900s. Those interested in issues of obscenity and the development of the concept of free speech in the United States will find Wheeler's work compelling. -- Lisa K. Boehm Journal of Popular Culture Wheeler has uncovered a fascinating chapter in the story of women's perennial attempts to protect children and vulnerable young women from the dangers of commercial vice. Her study considers several of these dangers, such as prostitution and burlesque shows, but focuses above all on the new medium of film. -- Cynthia Eagle Russett H-Net Book Review/H-SHGAPE Deftly illuminates the 'possibilities in our past' while addressing the complex struggles of women and citizens in more recent times. -- Hiroshi Kitamura American Quarterly 2006 The study gives a very good sense of the anti-obscenity reform activity and concern in the period under study. -- Encarna Trinidad Journal of American Studies 2006 This is a very good book about an important topic. -- Rebecca J. Mead Journal of Social History 2007 Wheeler's impressively researched study is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of anti-obscenity reform and women's activism in general. -- Christine Erickson American StudiesTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Crossing the Great Divide: Women, Politics, and Anti-obscenity Reform Chapter 1. " "Protect the Innocent!": Men, Women, and Anti-obscenity Reform, 1873 - 1911 Chapter 2. Dressing Elsie: Women's Theater Reform, 1912 - 1919 Chapter 3. "Censorship Does Not Protect": Women's Motion Picture Reform, 1919 - 1922 Chapter 4. "Woman vs. Woman": The Leading Ladies of Motion Picture Reform, 1923 - 1930 Chapter 5. "We Don't Want Our Boys and Girls in a Place of That Kind": Women's Burlesque Reform, 1925 - 1934 Chapter 6. "Thinking as a Woman and of Women": Sex Education, Obscenity's Antidote, 1925 - 1934 Chapter 7. "Sinful Girls Lead": Crises in Women's Motion Picture Reform, 1932 - 1934 Chapter 8. "'Catholic Action' is Blazing a Spectacular Trail!": The Collapse of Women's Anti-obscenity Leadership, 1934 - 1935 Conclusion: Anti-obscenity Reform and Women's History List of Abbreviations Notes Notes on Sources Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"The book is a tour de force on comparatively approaching the question of secularism and cultural pluralism in postcolonial societies in Africa and Asia It will be an excellent resource for teaching graduate courses and will become a standard study to be cited in scholarly debates on comparative secularism and multiculturalism." -- Balmurli Natrajan * H-Net *"Nation and Family takes on the divisions of culture and religion in India and explores how they have played out in an unlikely setting: the courts and laws that adjudicate and regulate family life. Subramanian reveals how the experiences and struggles of diverse groups in fashioning personal law shaped the national project and the very meaning of modernity. A masterful exploration of nation-formation." -- Joel S. Migdal, Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies * University of Washington *"Subramanian has generated [his] explanatory framework based on a magnificent summary of family laws and their evolution across . . . the Islamic world from Morocco to Indonesia in the second half of the twentieth century. I admired Subramanian's quiet rejection of both the area-specialist's tendency to explain fairly common trajectories in terms of the specificities of a particular area's history . . . and the political scientist's propensity for building evaluative models based on culturally specific ideal types. The study of case law is excellent and illuminating, as are the discussions regarding Muslim institutions and associations concerned with the study and development of classical Islamic jurisprudence [fiqh] and of the efforts to connect that tradition to modern Indian law. Subramanian's overall recommendation is for culturally sensitive legal reform, [which] looks both plausible and admirable." -- Nandini Chatterjee * Comparative Studies in Society and History *"Nation and Family shines a spotlight on the intersection of group identity, law reform, and minority rights. Focusing on Indian family law, Subramanian examines changing group norms and conceptions of equality in a developing democracy. An insightful investigation of ethnic politics and the response of policy makers in the domain of legal pluralism." -- Donald Horowitz, James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science * Duke University *"In this book Subramanian addresses the complicated and often vexed relationship between personal law and the larger political/historical/legal milieu within which it develops and functions . . . He utilizes a comparative framework with appropriate references to several other countries to clarify and strengthen his case. The discussion is rich and astute, the scholarship careful and rigorous, and the language judicious and elegant . . . Summing Up: Highly Recommended." -- A. Ahmad * CHOICE *"[This book's] scholarship and empirical details and the body of literature and archival sources that it marshals which will be of immense use to students . . . [I]ts historical perspective and comparative analysis opens up the issue in a very different manner than has played out in India's dominant public discourse . . . [I]t deploys key social science categories such as institutions, ideas, interests, and social movements to understand the detours that personal law debates take. In doing so, this study breaks from the theoretical trend that has dominated academia in the last two decades or more, namely one that has paid disproportionate attention to textual analysis with a focus on specific texts and discourses to the neglect of empirical study of how groups of people act in resistance or domination, negotiation and alliance." -- Maitrayee Chaudhuri * Pacific Affairs *"With tremendous insight and fine scholarship, Subramanian traces the debates and advances in religious family law in India, but also places that story in a broad framework. Nation and Family advances a clear argument in comparative politics and undertakes the detailed analysis of legal reform in India." -- John Bowen, Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences * Washington University in Saint Louis *"Nation and Family takes a new approach to the study of religion-based personal laws, particularly in India . . . The most important contribution of this book is its exploration of the relationship between the nation and the family within the context of the consolidation of state authority in postcolonial countries . . . Nation and Family is a truly multifaceted work which will be of value not only to scholars of religion and politics, but also to those interested in political history, comparative history, and gender studies." -- Varsha Chitnis * Politics and Religion *"Meticulously researched and cogently argued, Narendra Subramanian's Nation and Family is a welcome corrective to simplications inherent in much postcolonial discourse on Indian secularism. It demonstrates that neither the persistence of colonial legal categories nor the alleged self-ghettoisation of religious minorities can explain postcolonial changes in personal law. In addition, it offers important comparative insights into relations among secularism, family law, and visions of national community in other postcolonial nation-states." -- Rupa Viswanath * Professor of Religions, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics *

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Alicia Peter's ethnography provides the most lucid analysis of the immensely contested operations of human trafficking response that I have ever read. It illuminates how cultural beliefs and values about gender, sexuality, and victimization have fractured the interpretation and implementation of the law in different sites." * Sealing Cheng, author of On the Move for Love: Migrant Entertainers and the U.S. Military in South Korea *"Responding to Human Trafficking is an important contribution to the literature on human trafficking. Alicia W. Peters successfully takes us inside the maze of the anti-trafficking regime, illustrating conflicts in priorities, challenges in advocacy work, and the continued need to design a victim-centered system." * Rhacel Parrenas, University of Southern California *"Alicia W. Peters illustrates the ways in which ideology is incorporated into U.S. anti-trafficking law. With unprecedented access to service providers working with victims of trafficking in New York City, federal officials, and a number of victims, Peters suggests how to utilize survivors' stories to frame future research and how to use their voices in the policy debates." * Elzbieta Gozdziak, Georgetown University *Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations Preface Introduction PART I. TRAFFICKING ON THE BOOKS Chapter 1. A Dichotomy Emerges PART II. THINKING, ENVISIONING, AND INTERPRETING TRAFFICKING Chapter 2. The Experts Make Sense of the Law Chapter 3. "Things That Involve Sex Are Just Different" Chapter 4. Defining Trafficking Through Survivor Experience PART III. THE LAW IN ACTION Chapter 5. Intersections on the Ground Chapter 6. Moving the Antitrafficking Response Forward APPENDICES A. Data Archiving Requirements and Threats to Confidentiality B. Interviewees Quoted in the Text Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamines feminist critiques of medical knowledge and practice; and the legal regulation of pregnancy termination, conception and child-bearing, and behavior during pregnancy. This book demonstrates that the right to choice isn't an automatic guarantee of reproductive justice and gender equality.Trade Review"At a troubling time in history when a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has called into question the constitutional protection of womens health and equality, this book comes none too soon. The Reproductive Rights Reader gives us a uniquely comprehensive and useful collection of the major court decisions, legal briefs and scholarly commentaries on the searing debates about reproductive politics in US public discourse over the past 40 years. And it does so not only through the lenses of the law, science and public health but also with a clear focus on the critical dimensions of gender, race, class, sexuality, poverty, social exclusion and social justice. It is an absolutely indispensable resource." -- Rosalind P. Petchesky,author of Abortion and Womans Choice"Powerful and provocative, The Reproductive Rights Reader explodes the stale debate over the constitutional legitimacy of Roe v. Wade by bringing critical perspectives of race, gender and class to the question of womens control over their reproductive lives. Taking seriously issues of substantive equality, this volume is essential reading for all those interested in human rights and social justice." -- Nancy Northup,President, Center for Reproductive Rights, and Lecturer-in-Law, Columbia Law School"This type of anthology bridges the sciences and humanities and narrows the divide between these two broad areas of study." -- Martha Chamallas,Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University"The Reproductive Rights Reader offers a thoughtful, powerful, and provocative examination of fundamental questions, philosophies, and attitudes that inform and shape our discussion of these critical health care and public policy concerns." * The Journal of Legal Medicine *"The Reproductive Rights Reader is sure to be a vital resource to anyone whos been following any and all of the many conversations that Ehrenreich brings to the forefront on reproduction policy in American society since Roe vs. Wade. . . . For those of us starved for a nuanced yet substantial exploration of the complexities of the reproductive rights in the U.S., The Reproductive Rights Reader delivers just that." * Feminist Review *Table of ContentsA Note from the Editor Introduction Part I Questioning Science: Feminist Critiques of Medical Knowledge and Practice Part II Forced Motherhood? Legal Regulation of Pregnancy Termination Part III Motherhood Denied: Legal Regulation of Conception Part IV The Disciplining of Mothers-to-Be: Legal Regulation of Behavior during Pregnancy Questions and Comments Permission Acknowledgments About the Contributors Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisA gripping explanation of the biases that lead to the blaming of pregnant women and mothers.Are mothers truly a danger to their children's health? In 2004, a mentally disabled young woman in Utah was charged by prosecutors with murder after she declined to have a Caesarian section and subsequently delivered a stillborn child. In 2010, a pregnant woman who attempted suicide when the baby's father abandoned her was charged with murder and attempted feticide after the daughter she delivered prematurely died. These are just two of the many cases that portray mothers as the major source of health risk for their children. The American legal system is deeply shaped by unconscious risk perception that distorts core legal principles to punish mothers who fail to protect their children. In Blaming Mothers, Professor Fentiman explores how mothers became legal targets. She explains the psychological processes we use to confront tragic events and the unTrade ReviewBlaming Mothers is gripping and powerful. It is also chilling as Linda Fentiman unmasks societys penchant for shaming and punishing mostly young, poor women. She reveals subtle but profound gender and racial biases that pervade public discourse and drive prosecutors and judges to unfairly punish pregnant women and mothers. I strongly recommend this captivating book. It is beautifully written, weaving together vivid stories of womens lives and impeccable scholarship. Anyone concerned about gender, children, and poverty will have to read Blaming Mothers. -- Lawrence O. Gostin,Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law, Georgetown UniversityIn Blaming Mothers, Linda Fentiman considers why mothers in the U.S. are so often regarded as hazardous to their childrens health. In such areas as breastfeeding, lead poisoning, and childhood diseases like measles, Fentiman explains the psycho-social origins of much mother blaming, contrasting it with the scientific bases of actual health risk. Blaming Mothers connects the dots across policy areas to provide a comprehensive answer to what can be done to improve childrens health when Mom is properly relocated to the sidelines. This is a wonderful book not only for those in medicine, public health, child welfare, education, and law but also for mothers and their families, that is, for everyone. -- Carol Sanger,Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law, Columbia Law SchoolProfessor Linda Fentiman offers a probing analysis of a society and its government that blames mothers for various social ills and conditions that plague American society and that intervene during pregnancy and motherhood.. Professor Fentiman carefully studies this phenomenon and exposes the undercurrents of classism and racism that correspond to it. She explains how the pernicious nature of poverty creates impacts that result in significant health harms, including higher rates of lead poisoning and asthma among low income children of color. Sadly, in those instances too, mothers are blamed--sometimes civilly and criminally, making it risky to be a poor mother in America. -- Michele Bratcher Goodwin ,Chancellor's Professor of Law, University of California, IrvineAdvanced undergraduate and graduate seminars in sociology, psychology, womens studies, and law will find it informative, stimulating of much discussion, and empowering.Blaming Mothersis...filled with an incredible amount of diverse information in the form of facts and examples, tightly interrelating the fields of law, psychology, and sociology * PsycCritiques *

Read more less

Book SynopsisSame-sex couples in both states seek to marry for a variety of interacting, overlapping, and evolving reasons that do not vary significantly by location.Trade Review"InLicense to Wed: What Legal Marriage Means to Same-Sex Couples, Richman takes on the legal ramifications of marriage for same-sex and queer identifying couples in Massachusetts and California. In 2004, the Supreme Court found that same-sex couples had the right to marry. After the glow of equality wore off, lawyers and couples in California and Massachusetts were left with questions about how far their rights extended. This book looks to answer those questions." -- Kitty Drexel * Edge *"Richman fully grasps how marriage plays out differently for same-sex couples. She commences her book with an erudite history of the gay-marriage movement, capturing the community politics of assimilation and marginalization, as well as the larger societal debates, that provide the context for her subjects' motivations . . . . Her book provides essential insights about marriage that every family lawyer working with same-sex couples needs to understand to fully grasp their clients' situation and provide them effective representation." -- Frederick Hertz * California Lawyer *"Richmans study is thorough and written in an unaffected, judicious style. Her analysis demonstrates that same-sex couples who are able to marry legally often find transcendent meaning in the experience. Given that most states prohibit same-sex couples from being legally married, License to Wed adds compelling personal reasons to the legal arguments for the validity of the struggle for marriage equality." * The Gay and Lesbian Review *"This book addresses a timely and still evolving issue with directness and sensitivity while rigorously examining the legal basis for same-sex marriage." * Library Journal *"This is a carefully researched and skillfully written book which makes important contributions to the literatures on legal consciousness, law and emotion, and same-sex marriage. Richman gives us one of the first detailed descriptions of the experiences and views of same-sex couples who entered legal marriages in the U.S., and her account is both highly readable and intellectually sophisticated." -- Kathleen E. Hull,author of Same-Sex Marriage: The Cultural Politics of Love and Law"License to Wed is a wonderfully rich, deep, and surprising book that will change your understanding of why gay couples have fought so hard to marry. Others have explored the legal and political battles behind these struggles, but Richman pushes us to deeper ground, where the personal and political meanings of marriage intersect and diverge in unexpected ways. This is a masterful and original work that will require both conservatives and progressives to evaluate the marriage equality movement in new ways." -- Shannon Minter * National Center for Lesbian Rights *"Richman offers valuable insight into the relationship between the legal, the personal, and the societal. Richman contributes to the same-sex marriage literature by offering further examples of some themes already prevalent in the literature, while offering new explications of couples experiences as well." * Sex Roles *"The book is well organized and written in an engaging, non-technical manner, making it accessible to both academic audiences and well-educated general readers. A genuinely good read, Richmans timely contribution to the understanding of same-sex marriage (and marriage more generally) will appeal especially to students of legal studies, political science, and sociology." * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface: Putting a Face on the Debate 1. Introduction: Situating the Meanings of Marriage 2. The Road to Same-Sex Marriage: The Beginning 3. The Rite as Right: Marriage as Material Right, Marriage as Strategy 4. Marriage as Protest: The Political Dimensions of Marital Motivation 5. Marriage as Validation: Subjects before (and after) the Law 6. Making It Personal: Marriage, Emotion, and Love inside and outside the Law 7. Conclusion: The Multiple Meanings of Marriage Appendix 1: Survey Instrument Appendix 2: Overview of Survey Findings NotesIndexAbout the Author

Read more less

Book SynopsisOnly book to discuss the use of legal advocacy to address the issues that affect the intersex communityTrade Review"A careful, concise, and accessible analysis of legal issues that bear on the lives of those born with atypical sex anatomies, and an essential guide for those who choose gender reassignment as adults. This will be an invaluable source not only for all thosechildren and adults with intersex conditions, transsexuals, and their advocateswho have a stake in these matters, but it will also be essential reading for those in the humanities and social sciences reckoning with the harms experienced by those whose bodies transgress sex and gender norms." -- Ellen Feder,author of Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race and Gender"Greenberg has written a highly accessible book for both the general public and academia. The writing style and her clear explanation of the theory are much needed in the literature on intersexuality." -- Shu-Ju (Ada) Cheng * American Journal of Sociology *"This volume solidifies Greenbergs reputation as a thinker of uncommon clarity and, unquestionably, the leading legal scholar on intersex issues. While other scholars have exploredand sometimes exploitedintersex identities to advance theoretical propositions about gender and sexuality, Greenberg is the first to examine how the emerging intersex movement might use the law to advance its own goals. Based on her unparalleled knowledge of the nuances and internal debates among intersex advocates, Greenberg provides a richly detailed and masterful account of the legal issues affecting intersex people, enlivened by a keen appreciation of the tensions and potential conflicts between legal advocacy for intersex and transgender people." -- Shannon Minter,co-author of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Family LawTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part I Gender Blending 1 Surgical and Hormonal Creation of the Binary Sex Model 2 Who Has the Right to Choose My Sex and Genitalia? Part II Gender Bending 3 Legal Reinforcement of Gender Norms 4 Can I Marry a Man, a Woman, Either, or Neither? 5 What's in a Name? 6 Where May I Live and Which Bathroom Do I Use? Part III Legal Paths to Enhancing the Lives of People with an Intersex Condition 7 Developing Strategies 8 The History and Development of the Intersex Movement 9 Conflicts among Social Justice Movements with Common Concerns 10 Legal Frameworks Conclusion Appendix: Common Intersex/DSD Conditions Notes Index About the Author

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"A brilliant and compassionate book. A dazzling integration of high theory and splendid story." * Sylvia A. Law, Professor Emerita NYU Law School *"Unlocks a critical piece of the puzzle that activists and scholars have called ‘subordination.’ It reveals the complex interaction of systems of privilege. Yet the analysis is compelling, personal, and completely accessible. By breaking the silence about our unwritten rules, Privilege Revealed demonstrates how to reject privilege and embrace inclusion in a way that lights our passage toward the end of the tunnel." * Lisa C. Ikemoto, U.C. Davis School of Law *"Speaks with powerful understanding and empathy about privilege and subordination. In these times of backlash, when our politicians speak only in words that divide us, Privilege Revealed gives us a language to help us discover our common cause in the struggle against oppression." * Charles R. Lawrence III, Professor Emeritus Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i, Manoa *"A remarkably readable and persuasive account of how problematic the status quo actually is … This book can and should be read by an audience far beyond the usual readers of books about law." * Aviam Soifer, University of Hawai‘i Richardson School of Law *"Privilege Revealed, by Stephanie M. Wildman, displays a new way of thinking about the continuing problem of racial subordination in this country … This book explores the use of a new vocabulary about privilege. Thus, Privilege Revealed is an important contribution to the effort to rethink how the U.S. describes the role of race." * Cleveland State Law Review *"The book's major achievement is to make visible the many ways in which people with certain identities benefit from their privileged positions." * Peace Review *

Read more less

Book SynopsisNow in its second edition, the anthology "Critical Race Feminism" presents over 40 readings on the legal status of women of colour by leading authors and scholars such as Anita Hill, Lani Guinier, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, and Angela Harris.Trade Review"This second edition is consistently good, and frequently stellar. The volume's organization showcases the fruits of vigorous constructive criticism." * Choice *"Wing's reader gives scholars access to the first collection of writings by women of color law professors about the ampersand problem—how to deal with race and gender, as well as other categories in the law. . . . An excellent resource." * Women & Politics *

Read more less

Book Synopsis"Sex Without Consent" explores the experience, prosecution and meaning of rape in American history from the time of the early contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the present.Trade ReviewThe book provides some very interesting examples of early legal standards for prosecuting rape charges and charges of child sexual abuse in the United States. * Archives of Sexual Behavior *Needed historical perspective . . . thorough documentation . . . excellent. * Library Journal *Merril Smith's edited volume provides numerous articles that will be of great worth to the historical and feminist communities. The range or articles in this volume goes beyond the usual "hotspots" while still allowing for important comparisons. * Journal of Social History *

Read more less

Book Synopsis"Sex Without Consent" explores the experience, prosecution and meaning of rape in American history from the time of the early contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the present.Trade ReviewThe book provides some very interesting examples of early legal standards for prosecuting rape charges and charges of child sexual abuse in the United States. * Archives of Sexual Behavior *Needed historical perspective . . . thorough documentation . . . excellent. * Library Journal *Merril Smith's edited volume provides numerous articles that will be of great worth to the historical and feminist communities. The range or articles in this volume goes beyond the usual "hotspots" while still allowing for important comparisons. * Journal of Social History *

Read more less

Book SynopsisSetting forth a politic that goes beyond the quest for the legal inclusion of trans populations, this revised and expanded edition of Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.Trade Review"With Normal Life, Spade has succeeded in reframing the terms of LGBT politics by building a far-reaching vision for queer and trans politics that is rooted in community work that has already begun. . . . [It] lay[s] out a road map for queer and trans activists that leads neither to the altar nor to war, but guides us to resist state power by building community and returning to our radical roots." -- Wendy Elisheva Somerson * Bitch *"Dean Spade’s much-anticipated book is a rich tapestry of critical inquiry, interventions into legal and transgender studies, and strategies for transformative resistance. . . . The strength of Normal Life lies in Spade’s commitment to accessibility as a matter of political and ethical principle. This principle is evident in the way Spade skillfully articulates theoretical concepts in common parlance, enabling critical trans politics to inform political struggles beyond the academy. Moreover, his concrete discussions of administrative governance and transformative political interventions position radical change within our reach rather than demarcate it to the realm of speculative futures." -- Dan Irving * GLQ *"[Normal Life] makes an important contribution to a new and emerging critical trans politic. It is provocative, comprehensive, and engaging. It should be widely discussed as an important strategic framework for work within the LGBTQ movement." -- Jennifer Levi and Giovanna Shay * Women's Review of Books *"Spade's book is personal, practical, and theoretical. It lays out a framework for a critical trans politics, and gives fresh analyses of immigration, legal reform, wealth distribution, and lesbian and gay politics—all buoyantly and optimistically aimed at a repaired world." -- Kate Clinton * Progressive *"[Spade] provides an eminently teachable text for courses on power in society, social movements, and community organizing—in the university, and outside. . . .We will have to take Spade's proposals very seriously to build a movement centered on those most affected by administrative violence." -- Marcia Ochoa * Social Justice *Table of ContentsPreface ix Introduction: Rights, Movements, and Critical Trans Politics 1 1. Trans Law and Politics on a Neoliberal Landscape 21 2. What's Wrong with Rights 38 3. Rethinking Transphobia and Power—Beyond a Rights Framework 50 4. Administering Gender 73 5. Law Reform and Movement Building 94 Conclusion: "This Is a Protest, Not a Parade" 117 Afterword 139 Acknowledgments 163 Notes 167 Index 207

Read more less

Book SynopsisIndigenous women continue to be overrepresented in Canadian prisons; research demonstrates how their over incarceration and often extensive experiences of victimization are interconnected. This book explores how judges navigate these issues in sentencing by examining related discourses in selected judgments from a review of 175 decisions.Trade ReviewElspeth Kaiser-Derrick's work is an important read in light of the needs of truth and reconciliation. Her exploration of judicial discourses in the sentencing of Indigenous women reveal the multiple systemic failures of Canada's justice system. What judge's say and write is important because it reflects and refracts the inequalities and injustices that are embedded in our collective social order. Their words are demonstrative of the dire need for dramatic changes in Canada's justice system. The book is a must read for all persons concerned with justice,criminal law and human rights.Table of Contents Introduction: Listening to What the Criminal Justcice System Hears Ch 1. Pathways through Feminist Theories: Listening to What the Criminal Justice System Hears Ch 2. Judicial Engagement with the Victimization-Criminalization Continuum Ch 3. From the Victimization Overlap to Judicial Discourses about “Healing” through Imprisonment Conclusion: Listening to Victimization Histories

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsContents: Preface 1. Discrimination against women: doctrine, practice, and the path forward 2. Gender-based violence as a form of discrimination 3. Intersectionality and the interconnectedness of discrimination: the case of indigenous women 4. Sexual orientation and gender identity 5. Women and times of emergency: the case of COVID-19 6. Due diligence in the contemporary world: the era of MeToo, non-state actors, and social protest 7. The challenging road to equality and the pursuit of non-discrimination 8. Sexual and reproductive rights: a gender equality and international law approach 9. Economic, social, and cultural rights of women 10. Women, the environment, and climate change 11. Women and the regional human rights protection systems 12. Women, culture, and religion 13. The human rights of women in the digital world Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis Advanced Introduction overviews the ongoing struggle for gender equality since the nineteenth century. It considers how women have looked to law as a means of facilitating entry into the public sphere, including in higher education, work and professional life.

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe bitter and public court battle waged between Nina and James Walker of Newport, Rhode Island from 1909 to 1916 created a sensation throughout the nation with lurid accounts ofand gossip abouttheir marital troubles. The ordeal of this high-society couple, who wed as much for status as for love, is one of the prime examples of the growing trend of women seeking divorce during the early twentieth century. Gross Misbehavior and Wickednessthe charges Nina levied at James for his adultery (with the family governess) and extreme crueltyrecounts the protracted legal proceedings in juicy detail. Jean Elson uses court documents, correspondence, journals, and interviews with descendants to recount the salacious case. In the process, she underscores how divorcein an era when women needed husbands for economic supportwas associated with women's aspirations for independence and rights. The Walkers' dispute, replete with plot twists and memorable characters, sheds light on a critical period in Trade Review“Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness is a fascinating true story. Based on excellent archival work and Elson’s precise scholarship, this meticulous contextualizing of divorce from a woman’s point of view in the early twentieth century also has contemporary applications regarding gender relationships. Elson gradually reveals how women’s rights have evolved over the years and why changes in U.S. divorce laws were essential. The narrative has several twists—it reads like a contemporary detective novel—as every legal victory for each side was appealed by the other. This is a moving and captivating book.”—Elizabeth Ettorre, Professor Emerita of Sociology in the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool and author of Autoethnography as Feminist Method: Sensitising the Feminist “I”

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe bitter and public court battle waged between Nina and James Walker of Newport, Rhode Island from 1909 to 1916 created a sensation throughout the nation with lurid accounts ofand gossip abouttheir marital troubles. The ordeal of this high-society couple, who wed as much for status as for love, is one of the prime examples of the growing trend of women seeking divorce during the early twentieth century. Gross Misbehavior and Wickednessthe charges Nina levied at James for his adultery (with the family governess) and extreme crueltyrecounts the protracted legal proceedings in juicy detail. Jean Elson uses court documents, correspondence, journals, and interviews with descendants to recount the salacious case. In the process, she underscores how divorcein an era when women needed husbands for economic supportwas associated with women's aspirations for independence and rights. The Walkers' dispute, replete with plot twists and memorable characters, sheds light on a critical period in Trade Review“Gross Misbehavior and Wickedness is a fascinating true story. Based on excellent archival work and Elson’s precise scholarship, this meticulous contextualizing of divorce from a woman’s point of view in the early twentieth century also has contemporary applications regarding gender relationships. Elson gradually reveals how women’s rights have evolved over the years and why changes in U.S. divorce laws were essential. The narrative has several twists—it reads like a contemporary detective novel—as every legal victory for each side was appealed by the other. This is a moving and captivating book.”—Elizabeth Ettorre, Professor Emerita of Sociology in the School of Law and Social Justice at the University of Liverpool and author of Autoethnography as Feminist Method: Sensitising the Feminist “I”

Read more less

Book SynopsisFeminism and liberalism need each other, argues Judith Baer. Her provocative book, Feminist Post-Liberalism, refutes both conservative and radical critiques. To make her case, she rejects classical liberalism in favor of a welfareand possibly socialistpost-liberalism that will prevent capitalism and a concentration of power that reinforces male supremacy. Together, feminism and liberalism can better elucidate controversies in American politics, law, and society. Baer emphasizes that tolerance and self-examination are virtues, but within both feminist and liberal thought these virtues have been carried to extremes. Feminist theory needs liberalism's respect for reason, while liberal theory needs to incorporate emotion. Liberalism focuses too narrowly on the individual, while feminism needs a dose of individualism. Feminist Post-Liberalism includes anthropological foundations of male dominance to explore topics ranging from crime to cultural appropriation. Baer develops a theory that

Read more less

Book SynopsisFeminism and liberalism need each other, argues Judith Baer. Her provocative book, Feminist Post-Liberalism, refutes both conservative and radical critiques. To make her case, she rejects classical liberalism in favor of a welfareand possibly socialistpost-liberalism that will prevent capitalism and a concentration of power that reinforces male supremacy. Together, feminism and liberalism can better elucidate controversies in American politics, law, and society. Baer emphasizes that tolerance and self-examination are virtues, but within both feminist and liberal thought these virtues have been carried to extremes. Feminist theory needs liberalism's respect for reason, while liberal theory needs to incorporate emotion. Liberalism focuses too narrowly on the individual, while feminism needs a dose of individualism. Feminist Post-Liberalism includes anthropological foundations of male dominance to explore topics ranging from crime to cultural appropriation. Baer develops a theory that

Read more less

Book SynopsisA World Bank Group project which measures the laws and regulations restricting women's economic opportunities. WBL informs research and policy discussions about the state of women's economic empowerment and emphasizes the work still to be done to ensure economic empowerment for all.

Read more less

Book SynopsisDavina Cooper explores the unexpected contribution a legal drama of withdrawalas exemplified by some conservative Christians who deny people inclusion, goods, and services to LGBTQ individualsmight make to conceptualizing a more socially just, participative state.Trade Review“This is a dream of a book. Feeling Like a State explores a daring possibility: Might legal dramas over Christian refusals (to bake cakes, provide contraception coverage with health care, issue marriage licenses, allow for gay Scout leaders, subscribe to secularist tolerance demands, and so on) offer progressives instructive lessons about withdrawal, attachment, desire, membership, commoning, care, and play? Drawing on law, sociology, and philosophy as well as political, feminist, affect, and queer theory, Davina Cooper's work is broad, brilliant, audacious, careful, and, importantly, prefigurative, marking the ways in which we already ‘inhabit, repurpose, resist the still and mobile parts of institutional life.’” -- Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science, Brown University“With its checkered history of unmatched power, the state has been both a vehicle of oppression as well as justice. Feeling Like A State imagines transformative progressive ways the state can be, inspiring movement toward a more responsible, ecologically collaborative world. A beautifully written, brilliant contribution beyond utopian fictions that explores practical real-life experiments in governing as a way of rethinking government and states. This book must be read if we are to move past the current crises in any durable and just manner.” -- Susan S. Silbey, coauthor of * The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life *“Feeling Like a State makes a strong argument for why states don’t function the way that we imagine them to.... [It is] rich in details, not just about what is wrong with the world but also about what can be done." -- James Martel * Political Theory *“At a time when neoliberal states are relocating governmental responsibilities onto individuals or to their chums in private companies to make profits, [Feeling Like a State] asks us to look forwards, to a concept of the state, even if provisional, which is relational, caring, and feeling and has social justice at its heart.” -- Morag McDermont * Review of Politics *“In Feeling Like a State, Cooper forges a strong case for the continuing conceptual (and even material) value of the state.... Although Cooper stops short of offering an alternative vision of public governance, her optimistic account of state potentiality for a progressive politics is one of the most cogent of those available.” -- Rebecca Peach * Representation *“Feeling Like a State asks us to exercise our own capacity for imagination, challenging us to envision a state that not only acts but is otherwise.” -- Méadhbh McIvor * Journal of Contemporary Religion *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Reimagining the State 1 1. Legal Dramas of Refusal 28 2. Retrieving Dissident State Parts 52 3. Pluralizing a Concept 75 4. State Play and Possessive Beliefs 105 5. The Erotic Life of States 130 6. Feeling Like a Different Kind of State 153 Notes 177 References 225 Index 253

Read more less

Book SynopsisDavina Cooper explores the unexpected contribution a legal drama of withdrawalas exemplified by some conservative Christians who deny people inclusion, goods, and services to LGBTQ individualsmight make to conceptualizing a more socially just, participative state.Trade Review“This is a dream of a book. Feeling Like a State explores a daring possibility: Might legal dramas over Christian refusals (to bake cakes, provide contraception coverage with health care, issue marriage licenses, allow for gay Scout leaders, subscribe to secularist tolerance demands, and so on) offer progressives instructive lessons about withdrawal, attachment, desire, membership, commoning, care, and play? Drawing on law, sociology, and philosophy as well as political, feminist, affect, and queer theory, Davina Cooper's work is broad, brilliant, audacious, careful, and, importantly, prefigurative, marking the ways in which we already ‘inhabit, repurpose, resist the still and mobile parts of institutional life.’” -- Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science, Brown University“With its checkered history of unmatched power, the state has been both a vehicle of oppression as well as justice. Feeling Like A State imagines transformative progressive ways the state can be, inspiring movement toward a more responsible, ecologically collaborative world. A beautifully written, brilliant contribution beyond utopian fictions that explores practical real-life experiments in governing as a way of rethinking government and states. This book must be read if we are to move past the current crises in any durable and just manner.” -- Susan S. Silbey, coauthor of * The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life *“Feeling Like a State makes a strong argument for why states don’t function the way that we imagine them to.... [It is] rich in details, not just about what is wrong with the world but also about what can be done." -- James Martel * Political Theory *“At a time when neoliberal states are relocating governmental responsibilities onto individuals or to their chums in private companies to make profits, [Feeling Like a State] asks us to look forwards, to a concept of the state, even if provisional, which is relational, caring, and feeling and has social justice at its heart.” -- Morag McDermont * Review of Politics *“In Feeling Like a State, Cooper forges a strong case for the continuing conceptual (and even material) value of the state.... Although Cooper stops short of offering an alternative vision of public governance, her optimistic account of state potentiality for a progressive politics is one of the most cogent of those available.” -- Rebecca Peach * Representation *“Feeling Like a State asks us to exercise our own capacity for imagination, challenging us to envision a state that not only acts but is otherwise.” -- Méadhbh McIvor * Journal of Contemporary Religion *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Reimagining the State 1 1. Legal Dramas of Refusal 28 2. Retrieving Dissident State Parts 52 3. Pluralizing a Concept 75 4. State Play and Possessive Beliefs 105 5. The Erotic Life of States 130 6. Feeling Like a Different Kind of State 153 Notes 177 References 225 Index 253

Read more less