legal system

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Gender stereotypes are often studies in contradiction. They can be insidious or glaringly apparent; they are hostile, and occasionally operate out of “benign” sexism. The customs and mores of the society, the media that is consumed in that society, the predominant religion of a culture, and the family unit can all commingle in order to perpetuate gender stereotypes. Of course, a society's operative legal system can do this as well, which can do the most harm of all since the weight of law enforces entrenched gender stereotypes, often resulting in gender discrimination.

Women are most often burdened by the practice of stereotyping, since stereotyping is used to justify the subordination of women to men. Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives is an academic book that analyzes the worldwide practice of gender stereotyping and discrimination through the framework of the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), with an additional focus on the obligations of the law and state to avoid stereotyping and discrimination with the force of law.

Authors Rebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack focus on both men and women in their study of stereotyping, and illustrate their points through international court cases in which gender stereotyping affected the verdict. While women are often the injured party, Cook and Cusack point out that harmful stereotypes about men can harm women as well, and vice versa. Stereotypes about men and women in fact are mutually reinforcing and end up as self-fulfilling prophecies. The solution to ridding society, media, law, and culture of stereotyping, the authors note, is by a process of Identification/Naming/Elimination/Remedy. It is necessary to both point to and give a name to the operative stereotype before it can be erased, and before reparations can be made to the injured party.

CEDAW and the protocols issued for the adoption of its ratifying countries are the focus for the book, but scant information is provided about the Convention itself. It is not indicated what countries and governments adopted its platform (presumably member nations of the U.N.), who was on the committee to draft its proposals, and who exactly is enforcing it outside of a nebulous “Women's Committee.” The governments targeted by CEDAW are referred to as “States Parties,” a term which is never clearly defined; from inference, I gathered that it is a combination of government, courts, and human rights treaties bodies. Furthermore, since several countries (Niger, Malaysia, and Israel are noted) have formally expressed reservations about several of CEDAW's articles for religious reasons, one wonders why they agreed to adopt CEDAW at all. CEDAW apparently also does not have the force of law behind it. Offending governments will be issued reports and recommendations, but there appears to be little impetus to follow CEDAW's instruction.

These are critiques of CEDAW, but several critiques may be noted about the book as well. The authors focus on only a handful of international cases that fall under CEDAW's jurisdiction, and no dates are given for any of these cases. Knowing the date might have provided an insight into sex and gender attitudes of the time. Furthermore, numerous commentators and scholars are quoted, but not named or sourced until the bibliography. Certain terms are used, but not defined (the most egregious being the “woman question.”) There are also far too many hypothetical “for examples,” especially for a book that deals in hard legal facts. The tone is dry and academic, but it is free of the subjectivity and injection of hyperbolic personal opinion that can accompany many feminist-related texts.

On the whole, though Gender Stereotyping handles its subject matter fairly well, it is not a terribly interesting read except perhaps to policy wonks and the legally-minded. It's always appreciated when subjects such as these are brought to the forefront for analysis, but I am not sure for what target audience the authors intended it.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, March 30th 2010

Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950 – 1980

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

By Rebecca Kluchin

Rutgers University Press

In 2004, at the age of twenty-three, I entered my gynecologist's office to request permanent sterilization. My doctor repeatedly refused my request, and would not honor my alternate request for an IUD. I tried changing doctors, but still encountered severe resistance to my wish to be permanently sterilized. Now that the IUD I did eventually obtain will be ready to come out at age thirty, my doctor has still indicated that she will not perform the procedure.

After reading Rebecca Kluchin's Fit to Be Tied, I am left wondering if my doctors' refusals to honor my wishes are, consciously or not, vestigial traces of America's bleak history involving positive and negative eugenics—separate categories for "fit" and "unfit" women. From the turn of the twentieth century to the late 1970s, social, legal, and medical authoritarianism and paternalism combined with white anxiety over losing social dominance in America to result in extraordinarily skewed, disparate policies of reproductive "rights" for white middle class women and poor women of color.

In the post-WWII era, concerns were raised about the population "explosion" and the resulting fear that poor, uneducated immigrants and people of color were "outbreeding" the white middle and upper classes. Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception for married couples, would not be decided until 1965, and few if any women had access to contraception at all. The solution put into effect by medical and legal authorities was to adopt a policy of eugenics: the undesirable minorities, often unwed, sunken into poverty, and with little to no recourse, were aggressively encouraged and often forced into unwanted sterilizations. Women were deceived, lied to, and even legally sentenced to sterilization under the white- and male-dominated cultural paradigm. The worst of these forced sterilization cases were known colloquially in the South as "Mississippi appendectomies," in which women deemed "unfit" to reproduce by physicians entered hospitals for routine surgeries (such as appendix removal) only to later find that their ovaries and uterus had been taken out as well.

Meanwhile, advances in sterilization procedures made the operation quite attractive to middle class white women who wanted to take control of their reproductive destiny. These women appealed to physicians and hospitals in order to obtain tubal ligations, only to find themselves rebuffed. Educated white women of privilege were denied sterilization because it was believed that they should give birth to as many children as possible, despite their own feelings on the matter. Many hospitals developed what was known as the "120 rule" of age/parity: if a reproductively "fit" woman's age multiplied by the number of children she had added up to 120, a sterilization was provided.

Sterilization for men is also touched upon in Fit to Be Tied. Infuriatingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, vasectomies have historically been provided on demand for men with little to no trepidation on the part of medical professionals.

On another personal note, I discussed this book with a friend of mine, who said it sounded interesting but "suspect." He did not know that eugenics was practiced openly in America for many decades, and believed that Kluchin's book was essentially feminist conspiracy theory. This sort of troubling ignorance of history only deepens the importance and necessitates the knowledge of medico-legal authoritarianism over women in America's past. Kluchin's work is straightforward, factual, academic, and exhaustively researched, but not intimidatingly so. It is a highly absorbing read and an incisive, grim but eminently necessary look into pre-Roe v. Wade America.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, October 11th 2009

The Rights of Women: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Women’s Rights

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:33:00 +0000

By Lenora M. Lapidus, Emily J. Martin, Namita Luthra

New York University Press

The authors claim at the beginning of this book, “The law now can be used to advance women’s opportunities, rather than restricting them as it did in the past.” Yet for many of us (myself included), the law often seems like a daunting wall instead of a useful tool. The Rights of Women tries to mediate this feeling of intimidation by creating a guide that enables women to understand the law and, more importantly, use the law to advance gender equity.

As the book’s title implies, the authors have crafted an exhaustive outline of how women are (mis)treated under the law designed to be utilized by the average person. In a clear and concise fashion, the authors break down the legal underpinnings of trafficking, employment discrimination, housing rights, education, and reproductive rights, among other issues.

Though The Rights of Women is devoid of the legal terminology and complexities that make the law so inaccessible to many of us, the authors do not oversimplify or “dumb down” the material. Instead, the reader finds straightforward answers to the kinds of legal questions we have every day, written in a format that is easy to understand. Similarly, the question and answer format of the book lends itself to quick referencing for a project or just browsing through a particular chapter. This, coupled with the breadth of issues tackled, makes it a great resource for feminists of all ages, backgrounds, and passions. If, as the authors argue, a firm understanding of the law is necessary for feminists to be successful advocates and activists, then The Rights of Women should be on the bookshelf of every feminist. Whether you’re a professional looking for more information about the constitutional rights of women or an individual curious about how the law protects domestic violence survivors, The Rights of Women will serve as an indispensible guide.

Written by: Gwen Emmons, August 5th 2009

Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman’s Fight to Restore Justice to All

admin — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:41:00 +0000

By Sunny Schwartz, David Boodell

Scribner

I have been in a fairly low-key battle with my landlord over him not fixing the gutter that fell of the house in a windstorm a month ago. Before that, I was engaged in a fight against the post office for delivering our mail to the apartment below us. I’ve realized that I have a hair trigger for injustice; though, up until now, my causes have been a bit, shall we say, unimportant. When I read Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption, and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All, by Sunny Schwartz with David Boodell, I discovered someone who had found a fight worth fighting.

Schwartz worked in the prison system as a legal intern in San Francisco in the 1980s. A man approached her, asking her to help him; he was in prison for child molestation and confessed that he was planning on doing it again after he was released in two weeks. He wanted her to stop him, but there was no legal way to keep him in custody. After his release, he molested a six-year old girl.

Fed up with the cycle of repeat offenders, Schwartz struggled with what to do. Not only was her professional life full of stress, her family life was tense. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in a Jewish family. She didn’t do well in school, and she was continually struggling with finding a place in the world as a woman, a lesbian, a lawyer, a sister, and a daughter.

Despite her struggles growing up, her brother’s suicide, a leak in an artery in her brain, and the bureaucracy and stress in the prison system, she begins developing a program called the Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP). This program was designed to stop the cycle of the “monster factories”—a jail system that kept releasing still violent individuals into the community.

RSVP teaches inmates compassion and holds them truly and emotionally accountable for their actions. The goal is to “reprogram” the inmates into healthier and non-violent additions to society. It also provides a voice to victims; an extraordinarily touching scene in the book is the story of Jean. Jean’s daughter, daughter’s boyfriend, and grandchild were all murdered in cold blood. She told this story, and the impacts that the event continued to have on her life, to an audience of violent criminals, many of whom were moved to tears.

Dreams from the Monster Factory is a direct and impassioned look at the prison systems and the possibilities for change. Schwartz is also at times brutally honest with herself and her actions. It is an intense look at a part of society many of us tend to overlook. It will put your life into perspective, and give you a new way to look at issues of justice and forgiveness.

Written by: Kristin Conard, April 19th 2009

A New Type of Womanhood: Discursive Politics and Social Change in Antebellum America

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:31:00 +0000

By Natasha Kirsten Kraus

Duke University Press

Kraus has done an amazing job of researching and organizing this work, which compiles so much information about American antebellum women’s rights. As I read it, I was continuously blown away by the tightness of the presentation. The author acknowledges missing records and the reality that the reader is in the present, 150 years removed from this history.

Written for university level consumption, this text explores activism at a time when the south and north were heading towards civil war. Concurrent with the fight to abolish slavery, women were utilizing public speaking, writing, and petitions to end their status as mere property and assert contractual control over their own property. The long road that spans from handing over all of their possessions, including their bodies, to their husbands to gaining equal rights is a never ending one. Women like Susan B. Anthony used the argument that women needed the same rights as men in order to benefit men and their male children.

In 1860, under the Earnings Act, married women were finally given some control over their own earnings; however, their husbands had to provide consent for those decisions. This early wave of activism happened because of what Kraus refers to as an "aporia"—an impasse in the complex web of economic, legal, and domestic interactions, among others.

Activism happens when there are ruptures in society. Kraus provides an overview of the transition from a feudal land-based economy to an industrial capitalist economy and reminds us that change is akin to difficult growth spurts. As we step into globalization, we observe the same employment fluctuations that happened during and after the Civil War.

Sadly, women are still not viewed or treated as equally important and valued as men today. Reading example after example of misogyny in the antebellum legal machine, I was angered by how far we still have to go. Discovering that in 2006 most states still provided loopholes for husbands who raped their wives helped to explain why I still cannot walk down the streets in my city without being harassed by men who refuse to take “no” for an answer. It also reveals the context of judges who hand down lenient sentences to men who beat their wives; society needs to view all people as individuals, not property.

The book ends on the conclusion that, however slowly, activists are tearing down old belief systems that oppress people. It is hopeful that in the future, democracy for all individuals in society will hopefully be achieved.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, February 17th 2009

Girls in Trouble with the Law

admin — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

By Laurie Schaffner

Rutgers University Press

“I was like four or six when my babysitter molested me... I would just freeze... Like I thought if I froze it would not have happened.”

This 16-year-old girl’s memory is an all too familiar one for Laurie Schaffner. Her multi-year, qualitative study of girls involved in the juvenile corrections system, Girls in Trouble with the Law, quickly revealed that virtually all of the girls interviewed had witnessed or experienced some form of violence, abuse, or neglect—trauma that can be directly linked to girls’ later lawbreaking, Schaffner argues.

Employing a self-described “feminist sociology,” Schaffner seeks to give voice to a largely-invisible population of detained girls, interspersing their accounts of the abuse in their lives and experiences within the legal system with vastly informative analysis on the various processes at work in these girls’ lives. Schaffner’s interviewees, like all American girls and women, were affected by a hyper-sexualized, consumerist culture thriving on the eroticization of young women. Often living in “empty families” where abuse and neglect were commonplace, the girls also dealt variously with poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia and a lack of quality education and emotional support.

Scaffner also examines the rise in violent crime among girls, an inevitable outcome of living in violent environments according to the girls in the study, but often characterized by others as a violation of conventional norms of femininity. “A dramatic amount of resistance, rebellion, and rage had developed among girls in trouble,” Schaffner writes, concluding that the violence the young women perpetrated was a type of “power of the powerless.”

The immense amount of sadness in these girls’ lives was overwhelming. They had no time, energy or resources for grieving after they had been raped, witnessed the beating of a mother or lost custody of their child. Many of them had much-older boyfriends, were forced to parent their own parents, experienced sexual harassment at school and in their communities and echoed a culturally-constructed attitude of misogyny toward other girls.

What at first glance seemed to be a dense, academic work was actually very readable, incorporating detained girls’ artwork and poetry with Schaffner’s convincing arguments on behalf of troubled young women. Schaffner’s work is honest and focused, and immensely enlightening to those who are not daily faced with the same struggles as these girls on the margins.

Written by: Anne Wilmoth, May 15th 2007