LAW 4121 - [Gender, Public Policy, and Law]

Fall or spring. 4 credits.

Next offered 2014-2015. Enrollment limited to: undergraduate students only.

Staff.

Provides a brief introduction to the history of the women’s movement in the United States and to the development of the constitutional standard for gender, followed by a sampling of the competing theoretical approaches that can be taken to legal problems involving gender-a formal equality approach, the dominance approach (exemplified by Catharine MacKinnon), relational or cultural feminism (a “differences” approach represented in the legal academy by Robin West and Mary Becker), socialist feminism, pragmatic feminism, and critical race feminism. After the constitutional and theoretical foundations have been laid, we study a series of issues and issue areas where gender is critical to legal treatment-reproduction (e.g., abortion, surrogate motherhood, and other reproductive technologies), rape, domestic violence, prostitution, pornography, cohabitation, same-sex marriage, and other family law issues. We study how these issues are treated under current law and discuss what might be better approaches to each. To introduce students to the study of law, we use a textbook used in law school courses, Becker, Bowman, Nourse, and Yuracko, Feminist Jurisprudence: Taking Women Seriously (3d ed. 2007). No prior knowledge of legal analysis or concepts is presumed. Requirements: two five-page papers and a final exam.