Gender Justice

Gender Justice - L6506 clsbann.gif (4946 bytes)

Professor Katherine Franke
Fall 2007
Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:10 - 2:30
Room JG 103

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 Women and the Legal Profession, 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.

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

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

Professor Franke's Coordinates:

Office: Room 627
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:00-4:00, Wednesdays 3:00-4:00 or by appointment
Phone: 854-0061
E-Mail: kfranke@law.columbia.edu
Professor Franke's Assistant: Manissa Maharawal, 854-2511, mmahar@law.columbia.edu

Required texts

Greenberg, Minow and Roberts, Mary Joe Frug’s Women and Law (2004), available at Labyrinth Books
Photocopied material to be distributed during the semester

Additional Resources

Feminist Legal Theory (Bartlett & Kennedy eds. 1991)
Critical Race Feminism: A Reader (Wing ed. 1997)
Martha Chamallas, Introduction to Feminist Legal Theory (2d Ed. 2003)
Nancy Levit and Robert Verchick, Feminist Legal Theory: A Primer (2006)

Syllabus

I. Introduction to the course

The Opt Out Revolution, NYT Magazine - available outside the Secretariat on the 7th Floor

II. Women and the Legal Profession

Text pp. 1-31
O'Brien, Why Do So Few Women Reach The Top of Big Law Firms?, New York Times (March 19, 2006)
ABA Report, Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms

III. . Title VII and Its Implications

Basic Title VII Doctrine

Text pp. 31-45, 62-69, 82-104

Sexual Harassment

Text pp. 113-166

Sex Role Stereotyping - Sept. 18

Text pp. 178-210

Smith v. City of Salem, Ohio, 378 F.3d 566 (6th Cir. 2004)

Jespersen v. Harrah's, 392 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2004)

IV. The Work/Family Conflict

Sept. 20:

Text pp. 252-294

Sept. 25:

Katherine Franke, Theorizing Yes

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

V. Marriage and the Family

Marriage and Its Alternatives - Sept. 27

Text pp. 295-327

Hernandez v. Robles

Non-Marital Cohabitation and Domestic Partnership - Oct. 2

Text pp. 327-354

Divorce and Its Economic Consequences - Oct. 4

Text pp. 375-416

Parenting

Text pp. 416-466 - Oct. 9
NCLR State by State Survey of L/G/B/T parent custody cases optional

Text pp. 466-509 - Oct. 11

VI. Domestic Violence

Text pp. 509-595 - Oct. 16

Text pp. 595-622 - Oct. 18
Gruber, The Feminist War on Crime, 92 Iowa L. Rev. 741 (2007)

VII. The Sexed and Sexual Body

The Pregnant Body - Oct. 23

Text pp. 649-680

Pregnant Women Accused of Misconduct - Oct. 25

Text pp. 680-708

Reproductive Technologies - Oct. 30

Text pp. 717-750

November 1 - No Class

Rape - Nov. 6

Text pp. 776-835

Rape Law & Heterosexuality - Nov. 8

Text pp. 842-865

Sex Work - Nov. 13

Text pp. 911-945

Gentleman, Picking Up Trash By Hand

Hughes, Donna. The “ABC Approach” to Global HIV/AIDS: Good for Women and Girls

Sex Work - Nov. 15

Text pp. 945-997

Trafficking - Nov. 20

Jordan, Ann. The Annotated Guide to the Complete U.N. Trafficking Protocol. Washington, D.C.: Global Rights, May 2002 (updated August 2002).

Buzsa, Joanna, Sarah Castle, Aisse Diarra. Trafficking and Health. British Medical Journal 328: 1370-1371. 5 June 2004.

Trafficking - Nov. 27

Guest Speaker - Sapna Patel, Staff Attorney for Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center

Weitzer, The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade

Well Meaning Interference

VIII. New Critiques of Feminist Approaches to Sexual Violence - November 29

Hally, Kotiswaran, Shamir & Thomas, From the International to the Local in Feminist Legal Responses to Rape, Prostitution/sex Work, and Sex Trafficking: Four Studies in Contemporary Governance Feminism

IX. Is Multiculturalism Good for Women? - December 4 - materials outside the Secretariat on the 7th Fl.

Susan Moler Okin, Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women?

Uma Narayan, Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Essentialism

Leti Volpp, Feminism vs. Multiculturalism

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