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Cover of At the Boundaries of Law

At the Boundaries of Law Feminism and Legal Theory

  • Published: 20 May 2013
  • DOI: 10.4324/9780203094112
  • Print ISBN: 9780415635028
  • eBook ISBN: 9780203094112

Feminists have recently begun to challenge the powerful influence of the law on the social and cultural construction of women’s roles, identities, and rights. At the Boundaries of Law is a timely and path-breaking work that provides a series of non-technical, interdisciplinary explorations into the nature and effects of legal regulation on women’s lives. Together the essays examine the fertile – and radically revisionary – links between feminism and legal theory.

But At the Boundaries of Law rejects the abstract ‘grand theorizing’ of traditional feminist legal theory, focusing instead on the concrete and material implications of the legal injustices endured by women. These essays emphasise the complex diversity of female experience, collectively arguing for legal theory and practice that both recognises and accommodates the concept of ‘difference’ – in gender, class, race and sexual orientation.

At the Boundaries of Law also raises provocative questions about the methodology and future of feminist legal theory itself. In its rich variety of issues and approaches, this volume will command the interest not only of legal theorists, but of those interested in women’s studies, philosophy, politics, sociology and history. It is sure to set the future agenda for scholars, policymakers and anyone concerned with the role of law in society.

Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction By Martha Albertson Fineman
  • Perspectives from the Personal
    • 1
      Reasonable Women and the Law By Kathleen A. Lahey
    • 2
      On Being the Object of Property By Patricia J. Williams
    • 3
      Subordination, Rhetorical Survival Skills, and Sunday Shoes: Notes on the Hearing of Mrs. G. By Lucie E. White
  • The Construction of Body in Law
    • 4
      The Body in Legal Theory By Judith E. Grbich
    • 5
      Intimacy and Responsibility: What Lesbians Do By Claudia Card
    • 6
      Fallen Angels: The Representation of Violence against Women in Legal Culture By Kristin Bumiller
  • Recognizing Pleasures and Pains
    • 7
      The Difference in Women's Hedonic Lives: A Phenomenological Critique of Feminist Legal Theory By Robin L. West
    • 8
      Feminism, Sexuality and Authenticity By Ruth Colker
    • 9
      The Problem of Privatized Injuries: Feminist Strategies for Litigation By Adrian Howe
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    Recasting Women's History
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      10
      The Unbroken Circle: A Historical Study of Black Single Mothers and Their Families By Barbara Omolade
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      11
      Religion and Rights Consciousness in the Antebellum By Elizabeth B. Clark
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      12
      Social Feminism and Legal Discourse, 1908-1923 By Sybil Lipschultz
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    Perspectives on Marriage and Family
    • 13
      Homework and Women's Rights: The Case of the Vermont Knitters, 1980-1985 By Eileen Boris
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      14
      Abandoned Women By Mary Coombs
    • 15
      Societal Factors Affecting The Creation of Legal Rules For Distribution of Property at Divorce By Martha Albertson Fineman
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    Feminist Strategies Within Legal Institutions
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      16
      Feminism and Legal Method: The Difference it Makes By Mary Jane Mossman
    • 17
      The Dialectics of Rights and Politics: Perspectives from the Women's Movement By Elizabeth M. Schneider
    • 18
      Strategizing In Equality By Diana Majury
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    Back Matter