Gender Justice - L6506clsbann.gif (4946 bytes)

Professor Katherine Franke
Fall 2009
Mondays & Wednesdays 10:40-12:00
Room 304

This course will provide an introduction to the concrete legal contexts in which issues of gender and justice have been articulated, disputed and hesitatingly, if not provisionally, resolved. Readings will cover issues such as Workplace Equality, Sexual Harassment, Sex Role Stereotyping, Work/Family Conflict, Marriage and Alternatives to Marriage, Parenting, Domestic Violence, Reproduction and Pregnancy, Rape, Sex Work & Trafficking. Through these readings we will explore the multiple ways in which the law has contended with sexual difference, gender-based stereotypes, and the meaning of equality in domestic, transnational and international contexts. So too, we will discuss how feminist theorists have thought about sex, gender and sexuality in understanding and critiquing our legal system and its norms.

No Laptops are permitted in this class.

Class attendance is mandatory. Each student will be required to write two two-page (double-spaced) papers engaging the reading for class. Students will be divided into groups with dates assigned when they will write.  Writing Groups here.

Students will be evaluated on class participation, short papers and on a final 24 hour take-home examination.

Professor Franke's Coordinates:

Office: Room 627
Office Hours: Wednesdays 2:30-4:00 or by appointment
Phone: 854-0061
E-Mail: kfranke@law.columbia.edu
Professor Franke's Assistant: Alexander Blechman, 854-0696, alexander.blechman@law.columbia.edu

Required texts

Additional Resources

Syllabus

I. Introduction to the Course 9.9

II. Gender & Work 9.14, 9.16, 9.21, 9.23, 9.28, 9.30, 10.5

2009 US State Department TIP Report; 2009 ILO The Cost of Coercion

III. . Sexed & Gendered Bodies 10.7, 10.12, 10.14, 10.19, 10.21, 10.26
  • Gendering/Sexing the Female Body - MJF pp. 1-36
     
  • Gendering/Sexing the Male Body - Susan Bordo, Gentleman or Beast? The Double-Bind of Masculinity, in The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private (1999); R.W. Connell, The Social Organization of Masculinity, in Masculinities (2005)
     
  • What Can Masculinity Studies Teach Feminists? - Nancy E. Dowd, Masculinities and Feminist Legal Theory, 23 Wis. J.L. Gender & Soc'y 201 (2008)
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    IV. Theorizing Sexuality 10.28, 11.2, 11.4, 11.9, 11.11

  • Exotic Dancing and Stripping - MJF pp. 453-470
     
  • Sale/Use of Sex Toys - Williams v. Attorney General of Ala., 378 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2004); Reliable Consultants, Inc. v. Earle, 517 F.3d 738 (5th Cir. 2008)
     
  • Pornography - MJF pp. 470-515
     
  • Legal Meanings of Female Sexuality - Katherine M. Franke, Theorizing Yes: An Essay on Feminism, Law & Desire; Mary Becker, Caring for Children and Caretakers; Mary Anne Case, How High the Apple Pie? A Few Troubling Questions about Where, Why, and How the Burden of Care for Children Should Be Shifted
     
  • Legal Meanings of Male Sexuality - Annie Cossins, Masculinities, Sexualities and Child Sexual Abuse, Kia-Keating and Grossman, Containing and Resisting Masculinity: Narratives of Renegotiation Among Resilient Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
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    V. Marriage and the Family 11.16, 11.18, 11.23, 11.30

    VI. Domestic Violence  12.2, 12.7