Gender

Women, Men, the Law, and Feminist Legal Theory

Legal theory that explains gendered differentiation has focused on the culture of gender, the biological constructs that gave rise to gender inequality, and the intersection of gender discrimination and male power and authority. Gender is a socially and culturally defined concept. Feminist legal scholarship aims to explain gendered relationships that harm women. It has evolved from a proposition that law should abolish all inequality to a proposition that gender equity must embrace differentiated views of women and men that accommodate gender similarities and differences. Some view equal treatment under the law as an abstract ideal, while gender equity provides the basis for pragmatic treatment that accommodates fundamental social and biological differences between men and women.

Liberal feminist legal theory that has evolved over the past thirty years focuses on specific areas of law, society, and culture where legal changes can alleviate [Page 631]women's subjugation. Gender-neutral laws can eliminate blatant gender inequalities or change practices that limit female participation in the social and political world. By infusing liberal theory (individualism) into feminist analysis (collective), Catharine MacKinnon observes that the law's current focus on gender neutrality means that gender does not matter. Liberal theorists view male and female subjugation as creating intolerable social and political limitations for both sexes. Some feminist legal theorists are currently analyzing the continued inequality in power that separates the sexes through cultural stereotypes that maintain the primary female role as caregiver and homemaker and the primary male role as provider and protector.

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