Feminist Perspectives On Family Law

Examining specific areas of family law from a feminist perspective, this book assesses the impact that feminism has had upon family law. It is deliberately broad in scope, as it takes the view that family law cannot be defined in a traditional way. In addition to issues of long-standing concern for feminists, it explores issues of current legal and political preoccupation such as civil partnerships, home-sharing, reproductive technologies and new initiatives in regulating family practices through criminal law, including domestic violence and youth justice.

The book aims to assess the impact that feminism has had upon family law and to examine specific areas of family law from a feminist perspective. It is deliberately broad in scope, as it takes the view that family law cannot be defined in a traditional way. In addition to issues of longstanding concern for feminists, it looks at issues of current legal and political preoccupation such as civil partnerships, homesharing, reproductive technologies and new initiatives in regulating family practices through the criminal law (domestic violence and youth justice).

Whilst there many publications dealing with children from both legal and theoretical perspectives, the child is persistently represented and discussed as a gender neutral or pre-gender and pre-sexual object. This text uses feminist perspectives to explore more rarely addressed aspects of childhood.

"Thomas explores Stanton's philosophies and proposals for women's equality in marriage, divorce, and maternity, and reveals that the campaigns for equal gender roles in the family from the 1960's and '70's had nineteenth-century roots. Applying feminist legal theory, Thomas argues that Stanton's positions on family equality were strikingly progressive, providing parallels and solutions to the issues confronting women today."--Provided by publisher.

The second edition of this work on family law, comprising text, cases and materials, provides not only an explication of legal principle but also explores, primarily from a feminist perspective, some of the assumptions about, and constructions of, gender, sexual orientation, class and culture that underlie the law. It examines the ideology of the family and, in particular, the role of the law in contributing to and reproducing that ideology. Structured around the themes of welfare, equality and family privacy, the book aims to offer the benefits of a textbook while also giving students a wide-ranging set of materials for classroom discussion, using the case method to demonstrate how various issues might be resolved. As well as providing a firm grounding in family law, the text sets the law in its social and historical context and encourages a critical approach by students to the subject. It provides an ideal introduction to family law for undergraduates, but will be equally helpful for postgraduate students of family law for whom it provides a challenging set of materials set within a theoretically rich set of ideas and arguments. 'A stimulating work which attempts to situate family law in its social, historical and political context. Its appeal should not be confined to family law students, as its commitment to a critical and analytical approach offers insights and ideas with broader significance.' Mary Childs, Child and Family Law Quarterly, September 2002 'The arguments are provocative, the analysis is stimulating and the materials amassed strongly support the authors' aim to question the axiomatic status of what is traditionally designated as the family.' Fiona E Raitt, Infant and Child Development, September 2002 'It is not often that one can say of a textbook in Law that it makes interesting reading with quite the enthusiasm that can be expressed for this text. This new publication offers something that few textbooks seem to offer - a book you CAN open up virtually anywhere and find an interesting piece on almost any aspect of the broad family law spectrum.' Penny Booth, The Law Teacher, September 2002 'All the major themes in feminist and constructionist perspectives in family law are presented together with a wealth of readings and extensive references. As a teaching manual, it is excellent - a coherent feminist perspective across the entire range of family law' Marty Slaughter, Feminist Legal Studies, July 2003

Feminist perambulations : taking the law for a walk in land / by Anne Bottomley and Hilary Lim -- National nature reserves : nature as other confined / by Sue Elworthy -- Ancient monuments of national importance : symbols of whose past? / by Penny English -- A trip to the mall : revisiting the public/private divide / by Anne Bottomley -- Scapegoating and the legal landscape : homeless women and the law / by Rosy Thornton -- Women's work : locating gender in the discourse of anti-social behaviour / by Helen Carr -- Women travellers and the paradox of the settled nomad / by Margaret Greenfields and Robert Home -- 'Land doesn't come from your mother, she didn't make it with her hands?' : challenging matriliny in Papua New Guinea / by Melissa Demian -- Unfair shares for women : the rhetoric of equality and the reality of inequality / by Rosemary Auchmuty -- The shared home : a rational solution through statutory reform? / by Simone Wong -- Networking resources : a gendered perspective on Kwena women's property rights / by Anne Griffiths -- Accidental Islamic feminism : dialogical approaches to muslim women's inheritance rights / by Hilary Lim and Siraj Sait.

Around the world, discriminatory legislation prevents women from accessing their human rights. It can affect almost every aspect of a woman's life, including the right to choose a partner, inherit property, hold a job, and obtain child custody. Often referred to as family law, these laws have contributed to discrimination and to the justification of gender-based violence globally. This book demonstrates how women across the world are contributing to legal reform, helping to shape non-discriminatory policies and to counter current legal and social justifications for gender-based violence. The book takes case studies from Brazil, India, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, and Turkey, using them to demosntrate in each case the varied history of family law and the wide variety of issues impacting women’s equality in legislation. Interviews with prominent women's rights activists in three additional countries are also included, giving personal accounts of the successes and failures of past reform efforts. Overall, the book provides a complex global picture of current trends and strategies in the fight for a more egalitarian society. These findings come at a critical moment for change. Across the globe, family law issues are contentious. We are simultaneously witnessing an increased demand for women’s equality and the resurgence of fundamentalist forces that impede reform, invoking rules rooted in tradition, culture, and interpretations of religious texts. The outcome of these disputes has enormous ramifications for women’s roles in the family and society. This book tackles these complexities head on, and will interest activists, practitioners, students, and scholars working on women's rights and gender-based violence.

Examining the diversity of perspectives and approaches in family law scholarship and drawing upon this work, this book provides an analysis of recent trends in family law from a socio-legal and feminist perspective, and questions the nature of the 'nuclear' family.