Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Feminist Legal Scholarship: A History Through the Lens of the California Law Review by Katherine Bartlett

Legal historians interested in gender history and related theoretical scholarship may want to note "Feminist Legal Scholarship: A History Through the Lens of the California Law Review" by Katherine T. Bartlett (Duke-Law), published in this month's issue of the California Law Review.  The abstract follows.

This Essay tells the story of U.S. feminist legal scholarship through the lens of some of the important work published in this field by the California Law Review (CLR). Its purpose is not to survey every contribution of feminist legal thought. Rather, through a few “deep dives,” it examines the significance of six specific exemplars, using them to explain the evolution and contributions of feminist legal scholarship, as well as the role CLR has played in the development of this field. I examine six articles: Herma Hill Kay’s Making Marriage and Divorce Safe for Women, Christine Littleton’s Restructuring Sexual Equality, Kathryn Abrams’s "Hearing the Call of Stories," Francisco Valdes’s "Queers, Sissies, Dykes, and Tomboys: Deconstructing the Conflation of “Sex,” “Gender,” and “Sexual Orientation” in Euro-American Law and Society," Linda Krieger’s "Civil Rights Perestroika: Intergroup Relations After Affirmative Action," and Reva Siegel’s "Constitutional Culture, Social Movement Conflict and Constitutional Change: The Case of the De Facto ERA."