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Critical Feminist Theory
The phrase critical feminist theory evokes multiple theories and meanings. In some usages, the term critical modifies feminist theory, suggesting that all feminist theory criticizes the misogynistic view of women that characterizes society. Feminist theory, viewed in this light, is a critical theory representing the radical notion that women are people. Other uses of the term critical feminist theory suggest that feminist theory has not gone far enough to counter women's societal subordination. In this view, critical feminist theory encompasses many “modified” feminist theories, indicating a multiplicity of theories critical of feminism itself. These theories push feminist theory to recognize a deeper radicalism.
Types of Feminist Theories
Feminist theory and critical feminist theories share many central assumptions. All feminist theories make gender a central focus of inquiry, asking “the woman question.” The “woman question” identifies and challenges the omission of women and their needs from the analysis of any societal issue. These theories examine power relationships, making the political visible. The notion that “the personal is political” challenges the public and private dichotomy that characterizes liberal thought.
The notion that “the personal is political” also embraces narrative. A key methodology to all forms of feminist theory is consciousness-raising, whereby women share their personal stories, weaving a pattern that illuminates a broader picture of societal treatment of women. Feminist theories recognize that identity is relational, constructed through interactions and responses with both individuals and groups. However, critical feminist theories extend beyond the feminist critique in several directions. These critical feminist theories include dominance theory, relational or cultural feminism, pragmatic feminism, socialist feminism, postmodern feminism, critical race feminism, and lesbian feminism.
Scholars often contrast critical feminist theories with liberal feminism or formal equality. Feminist theorists who have been proponents of formal equality have argued that different treatment of women and men supported the subordination of women. Often justified as reflecting the natural order or protection for women, this differential treatment protected women out of opportunities for full participation in society. Therefore, formal equality advocates objected to any form of differential treatment based on sex. In the legal realm, they were successful in persuading courts and legislatures to eliminate a series of sex-based rules, based on gender stereotypes, which lawmakers had enacted for administrative convenience. Critics of formal equality have argued that women who acted most like men were the primary beneficiaries of this strategy. Formal equality advocates defend the advances made for all women gained by overturning these sex-based classifications.
Critical Feminist Theories
Dominance Feminist Theory
Dominance theory views society as a place where men use and abuse women. In this power imbalance between men and women, men are the dominant actors. Dominance theory recognizes that men remain the measure with which women are compared. Thus, whether women are the same as men or different from men, men remain the yardstick. Catharine MacKinnon's work, from the identification of workplace harassment to the description of forced sex and the subordination promoted by pornography, best exemplifies this theory.
Relational or Cultural Feminism
Relational or cultural feminists believe that women are different from men in important ways that one should celebrate. This theory criticizes other feminist theories that emphasize power or women gaining power, if that power means losing the important qualities of connection and the ability to be relational. Sometimes termed different-voice feminism, this strand of critical feminism relies heavily on Carol Gilligan's research suggesting that women and men make moral choices through different reasoning processes.
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- I. Biographies in Law and Society
- Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
- Arnold, Thurman W. (1891–1969)
- Aubert, Vilhelm (1922–1988)
- Baratta, Alessandro (1933–2002)
- Beccaria, Cesare (1738–1794)
- Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832)
- Bentley, Arthur F. (1870–1957)
- Bobbio, Norberto (1909–2004)
- Bodin, Jean (1530–1596)
- Bourdieu, Pierre (1930–2002)
- Braudel, Fernand (1902–1986)
- Carbonnier, Jean (1908–2003)
- Cattaneo, Carlo (1801–1869)
- Cohen, Felix (1907–1953)
- Commons, John R. (1862–1945)
- Comte, Auguste (1798–1857)
- Derrida, Jacques (1930–2004)
- Duguit, Léon (1859–1928)
- Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917)
- Ehrlich, Eugen (1862–1922)
- Engels, Friedrich (1820–1895)
- Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. (1902–1973)
- Filangieri, Gaetano (1752–1788)
- Foucault, Michel (1926–1984)
- Frank, Jerome (1889–1957)
- Fuchs, Ernst (1859–1929)
- Fuller, Lon L. (1902–1978)
- Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1900–2002)
- Gall, François Joseph (1758–1828)
- Geiger, Theodor (1891–1952)
- Gierke, Otto von (1841–1921)
- Ginsberg, Morris (1889–1970)
- Gluckman, Max (1911–1975)
- Graziani, Augusto (1865–1938)
- Grotius, Hugo (1583–1645)
- Gumplowicz, Ludwig (1838–1909)
- Gurvitch, Georges (1894–1965)
- Hägerström, Axel (1868–1939)
- Haar, Barend ter (1892–1941)
- Halbwachs, Maurice (1877–1945)
- Hale, Robert Lee (1884–1969)
- Hauriou, Maurice (1856–1929)
- Hayek, Friedrich August von (1899–1992)
- Heidegger, Martin (1889–1976)
- Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679)
- Hoebel, E. Adamson (1906–1993)
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. (1841–1935)
- Hostos, Eugenio María de (1839–1903)
- Hurst, J. Willard (1910–1997)
- Jellinek, Georg (1851–1911)
- Jhering, Rudolf von (1818–1892)
- Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804)
- Kantorowicz, Hermann (1877–1940)
- Kawashima, Takeyoshi (1909–1992)
- Kelsen, Hans (1881–1973)
- Kohlberg, Lawrence (1927–1987)
- Lévy-Bruhl, Henri (1884–1964)
- Lacassagne, Alexandre (1843–1924)
- Lambert, Edouard (1866–1947)
- Lasswell, Harold D. (1902–1978)
- List, Friedrich (1789–1846)
- Liszt, Franz von (1851–1919)
- Llewellyn, Karl (1893–1962)
- Locke, John (1632–1704)
- Lombroso, Cesare (1835–1909)
- Loria, Achille (1857–1943)
- Luhmann, Niklas (1927–1998)
- Ma Xiwu (1899–1962)
- Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527)
- Maine, Henry Sumner (1822–1888)
- Malinowski, Bronislaw (1884–1942)
- Marx, Karl (1818–1883)
- McDougal, Myres S. (1906–1998)
- Menger, Anton (1841–1906)
- Menger, Carl (1840–1921)
- Merriam, Charles E. (1874–1953)
- Mills, C. Wright (1916–1962)
- Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de (1689–1755)
- Morgan, Lewis Henry (1818–1881)
- Mosca, Gaetano (1858–1941)
- Nussbaum, Arthur (1877–1964)
- Olivecrona, Karl (1897–1980)
- Olson, Mancur (1932–1998)
- Parsons, Talcott (1902–1979)
- Pashukanis, Evgeny B. (1891–1937)
- Petrazycki, Leon (1867–1931)
- Pigliaru, Antonio (1922–1969)
- Plato (428–347 BCE)
- Podgórecki, Adam (1925–1998)
- Polanyi, Karl (1886–1964)
- Pound, Roscoe (1870–1964)
- Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1881–1955)
- Rawls, John (1921–2002)
- Renner, Karl (1870–1950)
- Rheinstein, Max (1899–1977)
- Romano, Santi (1875–1947)
- Ross, Alf (1899–1979)
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778)
- Saint-Simon, Henri (1760–1825)
- Savigny, Friedrich Carl von (1779–1861)
- Schelsky, Helmut (1912–1984)
- Schmitt, Carl (1888–1985)
- Schmoller, Gustav von (1838–1917)
- Smith, Adam (1723–1790)
- Sombart, Werner (1863–1941)
- Stigler, George J. (1911–1992)
- Sumner, William Graham (1840–1910)
- Sutherland, Edwin H. (1883–1950)
- Tönnies, Ferdinand (1855–1936)
- Tarde, Gabriel de (1843–1904)
- Tarello, Giovanni (1934–1987)
- Thurnwald, Richard (1869–1954)
- Timasheff, Nicholas S. (1886–1970)
- Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859)
- Tomeo, Vincenzo (1930–1990)
- Treves, Renato (1907–1992)
- Vico, Giambattista (1688–1744)
- Vollenhoven, Cornelis van (1874–1933)
- Weber, Max (1864–1920)
- Westermarck, Edward (1862–1939)
- Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924)
- Wolfgang, Marvin E. (1924–1998)
- Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759–1797)
- Zeisel, Hans (1905–1992)
- II. Law and Society Activities in Regions and Countries
- III. Law and Society Methodology and Research
- Centro Nazionale di Prevenzione e Difesa Sociale
- DGS Sektion Rechtssoziologie
- Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de Théorie et de Sociologie du Droit
- Red Latinoamericana de Antropología Jurídica
- Vereinigung für Rechtssoziologie
- Vereniging voor de Sociaal-Wetenschappelijke Bestudering van het Recht
- Agent-Based Models
- American Bar Foundation
- American Law and Economics Association
- American Psychology-Law Society
- American Society of Comparative Law
- American Society of Criminology
- Analysis of Variance
- APSA Law and Courts Section
- Association for Political and Legal Anthropology
- Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law
- Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology
- Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
- Bioeconomics
- British Society of Criminology
- Canadian Law and Economics Association
- Canadian Law and Society Association
- Causal Inference
- Center for the Study of Law and Society
- Cognitivism
- Comparative Criminal Justice
- Comparative Law
- Content Analysis
- Conversation Analysis
- Cost-Benefit Analysis
- Critical Feminist Theory
- Critical Race Feminist Theory
- Critical Race Theory
- Databases
- Deconstruction
- Determinism
- Durkheim School
- Ecological Inference
- Economic Models
- Empirical Research Strategies
- Entropy
- Essentialism
- Ethnomethodology
- European Association of Law and Economics
- European Association of Psychology and Law
- European Network on Law and Society
- Experiments, Randomized
- Factor Analysis
- Feminist Legal Studies
- Frankfurt School
- Free Law School
- Game Theory
- Institute for Law and Society
- Institute for Legal Studies
- Institutional Economics
- Instrumentalism
- Intent in Norms
- International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Oñati)
- International Society for Criminology
- Interpretivism
- Interviews
- IPSA Research Committee for Comparative Judicial Studies
- ISA Research Committee on Sociology of Law
- IUAES Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism
- Jurisprudence of Interests, American
- Jurisprudence of Interests, European
- Kelsen and Legal Sociology
- Kohlberg and Moral Development
- Latin American Network on Law and Society
- Law and Society Association, The
- Literature, Law and
- Longitudinal Research
- Marxism
- Mathematical Modeling
- Morality and Law
- MPI for Social Anthropology Project Group Legal Pluralism
- Multivariate Analysis
- Narrative
- NSF Law and Social Science Program
- Observation, Participant
- Policy Sciences
- Positivism and Legal Science
- Postmodernism
- Pragmatism
- Praxeology
- Prediction Studies
- Program in Law and Public Affairs
- Queer Theory
- Questionnaires and Surveys
- Rational Choice and the Rational Actor
- Realism, American Legal
- Reification
- Relativism, Philosophical
- Reliability and Validity
- Rhetoric
- Sampling
- Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology
- Semiotics
- Socio-Legal Studies Association
- Sociological Jurisprudence
- Statistical Inference
- Structural Functionalism
- Thick Description
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
- Working Group on the Comparative Study of Legal Professions
- World Bank Thematic Group on Law and Justice Institutions
- IV. Demography of Law
- Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples, Treatment of
- Abortion
- Adoption
- Affirmative Action Programs
- Aging
- Asylum, Refugees, and Immigration
- Caste
- Child Abuse
- Child Bride
- Children
- Cultural Identities
- Disabilities, People with
- Discrimination, Economics of
- Discrimination, Sociology of
- Divorce and Separation
- Elder Abuse
- Equality
- Eugenics
- European Integration
- Family Violence
- Female Infanticide
- Gender
- Genocide
- Group Defamation
- Gypsies and Travelers
- Hate Crimes
- Immigration and Citizenship
- Language Minorities
- Marriage and Civil Unions, Same-Sex
- Marriage and Informal Unions
- Nation Building
- North American Integration
- Poverty
- Race and Ethnicity
- Rape and Sexual Offenses
- Religious Minorities
- Sexual Harassment
- Sexual Orientation
- Social Status
- V. Sociology of Law
- Access to Justice
- Animal Rights
- Autonomy of Law
- Cause Lawyers
- Civil Disobedience
- Commodification
- Communications Revolution
- Communications Systems
- Comparative Legal Systems
- Conflict Pyramid
- Culture, Global Legal
- Culture, Legal
- Discretion in Legal Decision Making
- Education, Legal
- Ethics, Legal
- Functions of Law
- Gap Problem
- Globalization and Law in Everyday Life
- Government Lawyers
- Homelessness
- Honor
- Industrialization
- Informal Law
- Knowledge, Legal
- Labeling Theory
- Law Firms
- Lawyers
- Legitimation
- Mirror Theory
- Mixed Legal Systems
- Penetration of Law
- Politicians, Lawyers as
- Popular Culture and Law
- Professions, Developments in Legal
- Reciprocity
- Reflexive and Autopoietic Law
- Relativity, Legal
- Risk Society
- Sanctions
- Social Change and Law
- Social Conflict
- Socialization, Legal
- Sociological Theories of Law
- Sociology of Law
- Sports
- Symbols in Law
- Technology, Legal Practice and New
- Trade Unions
- Transplants, Colonization as Legal
- Transplants, Legal Borrowing and Reception as
- Transplants, Legal Exports as
- Urbanization
- Visual Communication in and about Law
- Voluntary Acts, Sociology of
- VI. Anthropology of Law
- Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples, Legal Systems of
- Alternative Law
- Anthropology of Law
- Apology and Pardon
- Bride Burning
- Bride Capture
- Colonialism
- Conciliation
- Conflict
- Cultural Defense
- Custom and Law
- Customary Legal Norms
- Customary Legal Norms in India
- Dispute Avoidance
- Dispute Resolution, Alternative
- Dowry Customs
- Evolution, Social and Legal
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Gift Exchange
- Incest
- Inheritance, Customs of
- Kingship and Chieftaincy
- Kinship
- Land Tenure, Customs of
- Language, Law and
- Matrimonial Prestation
- Mediation
- Mediation in China
- Negotiation
- Pluralism, Legal
- Polygamy
- Private Legal Systems
- Relativism, Cultural
- Slavery
- Social Norms, Emergence of
- Son Preference
- Violence and Justice
- Witchcraft
- Wrongs, Customs of
- VII. Law and Economics
- Auction Theory
- Behavioral Economics
- Binary Economics
- Chicago School of Law and Economics
- Coase Theorem
- Competition
- Economic Development, Law and
- Economics, Law and
- Efficiency
- Evolutionary Economics
- Externalities and Social Costs
- Functional Law and Economics
- Inequality, Economic
- Information
- Market Failure
- Markets
- Monopoly
- Normative Economics
- Privatization
- Public Choice
- Resource Allocation
- Risk
- Social Choice and Judicial Decision Making
- Socioeconomics
- Transaction Costs
- Utility Maximization
- Value
- Waste
- VIII. Law and Political Science
- Administrative Decentralization
- Administrative Law and Agencies, Economics of
- Administrative Law and Agencies, Politics of
- Administrative Law and Agency Accountability
- Apology in Court
- Appellate Courts
- Arbitration, International
- Arbitration, National
- Arms Control
- Authoritarian Regimes and Courts
- Chinese Legalist School
- Civil Liberties
- Communitarianism
- Constitutional Courts
- Constitutional Law, Doctrinal Issues in
- Constitutional Law, Economics of
- Constitutional Law, Politics of
- Constitutionalism, Supranational
- Corruption
- Court Administration and Reform
- Court Caseload Statistics
- Courts
- Courts, Lawmaking by
- Courts, Supranational
- Cultural Heritage and Patrimony
- Customary Legal Norms, International
- Deregulation
- Elections
- Experts, Use in Civil Courts
- Expression, Freedom of
- Geography, Law and
- Globalization, Governance, and Democratic Participation
- Globalization, Nongovernmental
- Globalization, Processes of Judicial
- Globalization, Processes of Legislative
- Globalization, Resistance to Economic
- Harmonization, Legal
- Hindu Law
- Human Rights, Asian Perspectives on
- Human Rights, International
- Ideology, Law and
- Individualism
- International Courts
- International Trade
- Interpretation and Reasoning, Legal
- Islamic Law
- Judges
- Judges, Associations of
- Judicial Activism
- Judicial Decision Making
- Judicial Independence
- Judicial Inefficiency and Delay
- Judicial Politicization
- Judicial Selection
- Juries
- Lay Judges
- Legislatures and Lawmaking
- Legitimacy
- Litigiousness, Civil
- Nationalism
- Nongovernmental Organizations
- Ombudsperson
- People's Courts
- Political Dissent
- Political Participation and Rights
- Political Science, Law and
- Positive Law
- Power, Law and
- Privacy
- Regulatory Unreasonableness
- Religion, Law and
- Reparations for Past Harms
- Revolution, Law and
- Rule of Law
- Settlement
- Social Contract
- Socialist Justice
- Sovereignty and Jurisdiction
- State, Government, and Legal Order
- State, Law and the
- Talmudic Law
- Transparency
- Trials, Civil
- Truth Commissions
- War Crimes
- IX. Psychology and Law
- Attitude Formation and Change
- Attitudes and Behavior
- Compliance with Law
- Confessions and Interrogation
- Cultural Psychology
- Dementia
- Dispute Resolution, Psychology of
- Edgework
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Eyewitness Identification
- Investigative Psychology
- Juries, Psychology of
- Lie Detection
- Mental Disorders
- Moral Development
- Neuroscience and Law
- Obedience
- Procedural Justice
- Profiling
- Psychobiology of Crime
- Psychology and Law
- Psychology, Use in Courts
- Psychopathy and Sociopathy
- Public Opinion and Legal Consciousness
- Punishment, Psychology of
- Repressed Memory
- Therapeutic Jurisprudence
- Voluntary Acts, Psychology of
- Witness Testimony, Psychology of
- X. Criminology
- Amnesty and Pardon
- Consensual Penal Resolution
- Constitutive Criminology
- Crime Statistics
- Crime Trends
- Crime, Economics of
- Crime, International Response to
- Crime, Theories of the Definition of
- Criminology
- Critical Criminology
- Cybercrime
- Death Penalty
- Decriminalization
- Defense Lawyers
- Drugs, Criminology of Illegal
- Drugs, Economics of Illegal
- Emotions and Criminal Justice
- Environmental Crime
- Firearms, Use and Control of
- Forensic Experts
- Fraud
- Gambling
- Gangs
- Gangs, Female
- Genes and Crime
- Homicide
- Insanity and Crime
- Integrative Criminology
- International Criminal Tribunals
- Juvenile Crime, Courts, and Corrections
- Legal Aid, Criminal
- Legality and Discretion
- Lustration
- Mafia and Organized Crime
- Mass Murder
- Military Justice
- Parole
- Penal Court Procedures, Doctrinal Issues in
- Plea Bargaining
- Plea Bargaining, Economics of
- Police
- Political Crimes
- Pornography
- Preventive Incarceration
- Prisons and Jails, Criminology of
- Prisons and Jails, Economics of
- Prosecutorial Discretion
- Prosecutors
- Prostitution, Criminology of
- Prostitution, Economics of
- Punishment and Sentencing Alternatives
- Punishment, Economics of
- Restorative Justice
- Serial Killers
- Sex Offenders
- Situational Crime
- Terrorism
- Theft and Burglary
- Torture
- Transitional Justice in Asia and Latin America
- Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Nations
- Treatment and Rehabilitation
- Trials, Criminal
- Victimology and Victim Services
- Victims' Rights
- White-Collar Crime
- White-Collar Crime, Criminology of
- XI. Legal Subjects
- Agrarian Reform
- AIDS and HIV
- Alcohol
- Business Associations, Doctrinal Issues in
- Business Associations, Economics of
- Business Associations, Sociology of
- Business Bankruptcy
- Civil Court Procedures, Doctrinal Issues in
- Civil Court Procedures, Economics of
- Civil Court Procedures, Sociology of
- Consumer Bankruptcy, Doctrinal Issues in
- Consumer Bankruptcy, Economics of
- Consumer Bankruptcy, Sociology of
- Consumer Transactions
- Contracts, Doctrinal Issues in
- Contracts, Economics of
- Environmental Law, Doctrinal Issues in
- Environmental Law, Economics of
- Environmental Law, Sociology of
- Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
- Evidence and Proof, Doctrinal Issues in
- Evidence and Proof, Economics of
- Evidence and Proof, Scientific
- Evidence and Proof, Sociology and Psychology of
- Family Relationships, Doctrinal Issues in
- Family Relationships, Economics of
- Family Relationships, Islamic Law of
- Family Relationships, Sociology of
- Financial Services Regulation
- Food Biotechnology
- Genomics and Human Genetics
- Health
- Human Resource Management
- Inheritance and Succession, Doctrinal Issues in
- Inheritance and Succession, Islamic Law of
- Inheritance and Succession, Sociology of
- Injury to Persons, Property, and Relations, Doctrinal Issues in
- Injury to Persons, Property, and Relations, Economics of
- Injury to Persons, Property, and Relations, Sociology of
- Insurance and Risk
- Intellectual Property, Doctrinal Issues in
- Intellectual Property, Economics of
- Intellectual Property, Sociology of
- Internet Law
- Labor Law and Industrial Relations
- Labor Law, Economics of
- Labor Law, Sociology of
- Mass Torts
- Nuclear Power
- Organ Transplants
- Property, Doctrinal Issues in
- Property, Economics of
- Property, Sociology of
- Securities Regulation and Financial Markets, Sociology and Politics of
- Securities Regulation, Economics of
- Taxes, Doctrinal Issues in
- Taxes, Economics of
- Taxes, Sociology of
- Tobacco
- Welfare
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