Anyone know anything about feminist jurisprudence/legal theory?

[beansmum]

I'm a law student, trying to do some research for a paper. I haven't quite got the topic sorted, but something about equality/difference and pregnancy. How should the law treat pregnacy (and maybe looking after young children)? Particularly with regards to discrimination at work. Affirmative action or treating everyone the same, that kind of thing.

Anyway, my uni library seems to have stopped buying feminist legal theory texts in about 1987 - although everything they do have is still completely relevant (sadly), it'd be nice to read something more recent. If only to make sure I'm not stealing someone's ideas without acknowledging them.

Any suggestions? The usual searches haven't turned up anything much.

[beansmum]

1987 might be a slight exaggeration btw....

But, honestly, most of the stuff I have is at least 15 years old.

[beansmum]

Thanks - I just had a quick look at their website, looks like it'll be useful.

I might have to change direction slightly (or a lot). I can't quite figure out how to approach this. The lecturer suggested discussing "some issues" raised by feminist legal writers, but I only have 5000 words so I wanted to narrow "some" issues down to just one issue. Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to end up with. My notes are a whole lot of question marks and confusion at the moment.

[Prolesworth]

Catharine MacKinnon's your woman!

[beansmum]

Ah. I have a couple of her books, but was wondering why I couldn't find anything more recent. My brain obviously wasn't switched on because I didn't think to do an author search in the library catalogue. Found her. Most of the more recent stuff is shelved with its specific area of law (sexual harassment, freedom of speech etc) rather than next to the women's rights/feminism stuff.

I'll find loads of stuff now I've stopped being an idiot.

[mayorquimby]

Not a regular poster on these pages, did a brief module on it during my study of jurisprudence.
probably won't be home until late tonight or tomorrow evening but if there's been no further suggestions on this thread by the time I get home I'll throw up a few of the books from my reading list if that would help.
They'd be general feminist jurisprudence however rather than specialised in the area of maternity.

[garlicbutty]

You probably already know about it, but just in case - have you had a trawl through www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/?

[NicknameTaken]

I'd suggest looking at CEDAW country reports and seeing what the committee says about the various strategies used by states to deal with discrimination at work. It would help you put together a case for what international law says should happen.

[beansmum]

Thanks everyone!

[beansmum]

Especially NicknameTaken. Really useful stuff. I just wish I had a year to cover this properly, rather than a term!

[NicknameTaken]

Good luck! If you want to frame your research question more tightly, one interesting example is the Netherlands. The CEDAW committee criticized the Netherlands because so many women are in part-time work. Is it due to childcare or tax or personal preference? This website gives a taster. You may not want to cite the website itself, but it points in the direction of where you might look.

[ladyjulian]

Beansmum, that sounds really interesting - if you're a law student, why not join the UK Legal Feminist Group and see if you can start a discussion? There are several students on there as well as practising lawyers.

[daisychain76]

Sounds a good topic. A general book on feminist legal theory which is excellent (imo) is Naffine's Law and the Sexes but that is more of an overall critique of the law's approach. Martha Nussbaum similarly writes some interesting stuff, which often deal with the emotional angle. Judith Butler is interesting, but quite hard to read. I guess if you are looking specifically at issues such as discrimination you should use google scholar with phrases such as "liberal feminist thought" to see what comes up.