Always
on the Defence: The Myth of Universality and the Persistence of
Privilege in Legal Education
Brenna Bhandar
Droit
et statistiques : réflexions méthodologiques sur la
discrimination systémique dans le domaine de l'indemnisation
pour les lésions professionnelles
Katherine Lippel
Commentaries
The Criminalization of Young Women: An Editor's
Forum
Christine Boyle, Sara Fairbridge, Kat Kinch, Patricia
Cochran, Rebecca Smyth, and Dorothy Chunn
Book
Reviews
The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist
Analysis. By Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin
Doris Buss
Law
(and Feminism) as an (Un)Gendering Practice. Law as a Gendering
Practice. Edited by Dorothy E. Chunn and Dany Lacombe
Maneesha Deckha
Reclaiming
Self: Issues and Resources for Women Abused by Intimate Partners.
Edited by Leslie M. Tutty and Carolyn Goard.
Linda C. Neilson
Saving
Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty. By Jody Raphael.
Janet Mosher
Articles
Ten
Years of Transformation: How Has Gender Equality in South Africa
Fared?
Saras Jagwanth and Christina Murray
Gender equality
has been firmly on the transformation agenda since South Africans
first started drafting a constitution for democratic change in 1993.
A commitment to gender equality is evident in various provisions
of the South African Constitution as well as in much legislation
and policy. This article examines the judicial, legislative, and
policy initiatives to achieve equality for women under South Africa's
democratic order. We argue that while there have been important
developments in each area, these initiatives have in themselves
yielded limited benefits only, and a multi-pronged strategy to achieve
equality for women is essential. What is particularly important
for feminist lawyers is the fact that the South African experience
confirms that achievement of gender equality cannot be within the
main or exclusive realm of enforcement by the judiciary. The rhetoric
of rights and of gender equality is at its most effective if all
sectors of state and civil society share an equal commitment to
it.
Unstable
Categories: Comparing the Politics of "Gender" in the
Early 1990s in Canada and South Africa
Ronalda Murphy
This article
contrasts the emergence and impact of the race and class critiques
of women's claims for rights in Canada with the emergence of an
independent women's movement in South Africa during the early 1990s.
The successful invocation of the political category of "women"
in South Africa is both significant and fascinating, given that
it occurs at a moment when the political and philosophical integrity
of the concept was thoroughly deconstructed in Canada and the United
States at the same period of time. The intense critique of gender
as a political and legal category had important effects of democratizing
the women's movement in Canada and, from it, emerged the model of
intersectionality. The author demonstrates how the path taken in
South Africa on this question was quite different but, nonetheless,
entirely appropriate to the historical and intellectual conditions
that existed in South Africa during this time period. The author
makes the further claim that this case study shows that it is inappropriate
to assume that intersectional analysis of gender, race, and class
represents a discourse of feminism that is inherently just or appropriate
in all circumstances. In South Africa, such an approach would not
have been adequate to the task of advancing claims by women during
the transition from apartheid to democracy. She concludes that paying
attention to the specific historical and political contexts in which
legal claims are asserted provides the key to understanding women's
strategic choices to assert particular forms of women's rights claims.
Always
on the Defence: The Myth of Universality and the Persistence of
Privilege in Legal Education
Brenna Bhandar
This article
is dedicated to the memory of Marlee Kline, whose caring friendship
and transformative work as a teacher made a profound impact on the
lives of many of her students.
Law school
curricula and dominant pedagogical approaches reinforce the sense
of entitlement and privilege that individuals from historically
privileged groups enjoy in the law school context. In this article,
the author attempts to show how particular critical pedagogical
practices have the potential to reinforce a politics of identity
that does little to shift relations of power between white students
and students racialized as "Other," leaving "white"
privilege intact. She concludes with some suggestions for how law
professors and law students can work towards displacing relations
of power both inside and outside the classroom¾relations
that privilege certain groups of people over others-through the
creation of a "common social terrain" that incorporates
a multiplicity of voices and experiences.
Droit
et statistiques : réflexions méthodologiques sur la
discrimination systémique dans le domaine de l'indemnisation
pour les lésions professionnelles
Katherine Lippel
In Québec,
access to compensation for a work-related injury is regulated by
the Act respecting industrial accidents and occupational diseases
which replaces the usual civil liability action. Even when damages
are caused intentionally or through negligence, no civil action
can be taken against the employer or a colleague in cases where
the worker suffers an injury resulting from an industrial accident
or an occupational disease. The economic stakes are very high for
the persons whose disability affects their capacity for gainful
employment and the equitable application of the regime is of vital
importance because it will have a determining effect on their economic
survival.
The author
bases her research on the results of three empirical studies of
the case law emanating from specialized administrative tribunals,
studies in which they have used a gender-differentiated analysis
in cases relating to claims for psychological injuries, for muscular-skeletal
injuries and for injuries attributable to violence in the workplace.
The article gives a preliminary response to two methodological questions:
1) can statistics help to detect a discriminatory application of
a legal rule? 2) can statistics contribute to a discriminatory application
of a legal rule?
Commentaries
The
Criminalization of Young Women: An Editor's Forum
Christine Boyle, Sara Fairbridge, Kat Kinch, Patricia Cochran,
Rebecca Smyth, and Dorothy Chunn
The participants
in this forum analyzed recent case law relating to young women in
conflict with the law, prosecuted under the Young Offenders Act,
which was recently replaced by the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Four
law students at the University of British Columbia surveyed the
case law, and criminologist Dorothy Chunn, at Simon Fraser University,
discussed their findings and commentary in the context of the research
literature in the field.
Sara Fairbridge
focuses on the offences for which young women are being prosecuted.
Kat Kinch examines police decisions about suspects and investigatory
strategies. Patricia Cochran focuses on the crucial judicial decision
of whether to transfer a trial to adult court. Rebecca Smyth considers
the decisions of, and correctional constraints on, sentencing judges.
Dorothy Chunn, in her concluding comments, draws together several
broad themes. First, she sees a growing emphasis on offender accountability,
with an erosive effect on the distinction between youth and adults.
This trend can be contrasted with the relatively rare opportunities
provided by case law to consider police accountability. Second,
there is the (mis)use of the criminal law, including the use of
failure to comply offences instead of dealing with issues requiring
political solutions. Third, there is concern about the gendered
impact of the criminal process, based on malleable concepts such
as duress and maturity. It seems unlikely that there will be significant
change under the new legislation.
Book Reviews
The
Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis. By Hilary
Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2000).
Doris Buss
Hilary Charlesworth
and Christine Chinkin are prolific feminist international lawyers
who have developed an analytically sophisticated and trenchant critique
of the narrow and male-defined world of international law. The Boundaries
of International Law: A Feminist Analysis pulls together aspects of
their work into a comprehensive account of international law. The
basic argument advanced in this text is that the very boundaries of
what constitutes international law, and the topics deemed worthy of
legal regulation, reflect male priorities. The result is a discipline
that both builds on and maintains the unequal position of women. This
text is that rare thing, a stand-alone text suitable for teaching
at various levels of study and a substantial contribution to the academic
analysis of both feminist theory and international law. This review
provides a brief account of the general approach and topics covered
in The Boundaries of Law. The review then raises some critical questions
about the feminist project in international law and, in particular,
the authors' conception of the relationship between disciplinary boundaries
and legal and feminist practice as well as the authors' own, arguably
narrow, account of the reach of international law.
Law
(and Feminism) as an (Un)Gendering Practice. Law as a Gendering
Practice. Edited by Dorothy E. Chunn and Dany Lacombe (London: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
Maneesha Deckha
In this review,
the author synthesizes diverse discussions that address the question
of how law imparts meaning to the fraught signifier "woman"
and assists, both as discourse and practice, in the ongoing construction
of the concept of womanhood. The author explores the fashioning
and negotiating of Canadian gendered legal identities in the wide-ranging
topics that the collection offers, such as cultural nationalism,
pornography, prostitution, lesbian parenting, and corporate and
tax law. She also identifies a repeated tension in the collection
that questions the strategic and symbolic success of feminist legal
advocacy in recent years. Many of the articles contribute to the
emerging debate within legal feminism exposing the extent to which
feminist efforts have generated adverse gendered discourses and
practices themselves instead of subverting gendered traditions.
The author places articles skeptical of the utility of maintaining
gender as a category of legal reform for fear of reproducing or
creating new deleterious gendered identities in conversation with
articles that defend legal strategies that ask courts and legislators
to recognize and respond to the salience of gender and gendered
social and cultural patterns.
Reclaiming
Self: Issues and Resources for Women Abused by Intimate Partners.
Edited by Leslie M. Tutty and Carolyn Goard (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing,
2002).
Linda C. Neilson
Reclaiming
Self: Issues and Resources for Woman Abused by Intimate Partners
is an edited collection of articles on woman abuse drawn from the
prairie provinces. The collection reflects the evolution of social
thinking about woman abuse in Canada, enabling the authors of this
collection to focus attention on discussing solutions rather than
on proving the problem. The book's stated goal is to provide education
so that "women can [may] leave abusive relationships, regain
their sense of self worth and begin new lives." There are some
limitations to the collection, including the fact that it is more
regional than national and makes heavy reliance on American rather
than Canadian sources. Limitations aside, this collection is one
of the first collections to emerge from the Alliance of Five Research
Centres on Violence in Canada. As such, it will be of interest not
only to students in the prairie provinces but also to others as
it provides a window into family-violence research being conducted
in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
Saving
Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty. By Jody Raphael (Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 2000).
Janet Mosher
Jody Raphael,
in Saving Bernice: Battered Women, Welfare, and Poverty, weaves
together research on the intersections of domestic violence and
welfare with a gripping account of the life of one survivor, Bernice
Hampton. Raphael explores not only the various ways in which welfare
regimes impact upon women in abusive relationships but also the
potential role of poverty in the etiology of domestic violence.
