Women in Law Midterm

Women in Law Study Notes

• Natural Law: Law derives from rational processes, distinct from human morality, created by legitimate authority
• Legal Positivism: Law is distinct from human morality and created by a legitimate legal authority
• Law as Social Phenomenon: Focus on how law is applied and influenced, considering its consequences for individuals and society, "law on books vs law in action"
• Legal Realism: Focuses on the consequences of legal decisions for individuals and society
• Emergence of Sociolegal Studies: Laws often serve elite interests over marginalized individuals and groups; legal processes reflect structural power
• The Common Place of Law: Ewick and Sibey's concept, explores how everyday people understand and interact with law (law as distant, impartial, formal; law as a game of opportunity; law as oppressive to be subverted)
• Sociology of Narrative: Analysis bridges experiences and legal structures; narrative analysis can reveal truth; knowledge is socially and politically created
• Different ways to use narrative: Different ways to use narrative to achieve political goals
• Marxism and Feminist Thought: Marxism views history as shaped by material conditions; feminist thought examines how different social structures intersect with inequality
• Legal, political, and cultural institutions: Reflect and reinforce the interests of the ruling class. Marxist critique of systemic power
• First Wave Feminism (late 19th-early 20th century): Secured women's formal legal personhood and foundational rights (limited in scope).
• Second Wave Feminism (1960s-1980s): Focus on social and cultural equality (e.g. reproductive rights, workplace equality, addressing gender-based violence); highlighted systemic inequalities and viewed womanhood as a "universal experience"
• Intersectionality: Framework understanding how multiple social identities (race, gender, class, sexuality) intersect to shape experiences of privilege and oppression
• Matrix of Domination: Conceptual framework to analyze how multiple forms of oppression interlock and reinforce each other within social structures (individual, cultural, and institutional levels)
• Third Wave Feminism (1990s-early 2000s): Broadens scope to include diverse experiences, incorporating intersectional identities, voices of marginalized women
• Postcolonial Feminism: A framework that acknowledges colonial histories and neocolonial practices that shape power and oppression
• Historical Witch Hunts: Witch hunts as an example of gender-based violence rooted in fear and misogyny; focused on women's innately wisdom and power
• Prior to 15th century: Women's central role in healing communities pre-Christian contexts
• Christianity's Influence: Recasting women as morally and physically weak, increasing dependence on men
• Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches): Handbook for identifying, prosecuting, and punishing witches; provided theological and legal justification for women's persecution
• Establishes witchcraft (as) real (and) satanic: Legal processes and cultural transformations established views of women, influencing societal structures
• Managing Social Risks: Adapting to "risk management (e.g. Crime or Infectious Disease); "risk" response measures in society
• Biopolitical Techniques: Shapes individual conduct, maximizes "citizens’ lives”; population “care.”
• Coercive State Initiatives: Portrayed as population care that goes unquestioned
• Protectionism: Coercive state interventions, framed as “protection” for vulnerable groups
• Carceral Protectionism: Coercive state interventions enact carceral logics and systems reinforcing systemic inequalities instead of addressing root causes of harm
• Overturn of Roe v. Wade: Eliminated federal abortion protections (Planned Parenthood v. Casey)
• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization: Overruled Roe v Wade (2022); decision largely based on historical legal frameworks
• Criminalizing Sex Work: FOSTA and SESTA targeting online platforms for sex trafficking; platforms restricting adult content
• Disrupted Sex Workers: Online spaces less safe; networked moral gentrification; expanding networks to "sanitize" public spaces
• Gendered Risk Narrative: Women told to fear male violence (pervasive and inevitable, though unknowable). Normalizes male violence on women
• "Safety Talk": Operates as a "technology of the soul," where women regulate themselves based on gendered narratives and societal expectations; making women feel responsible for violence
• Menstrual Tracking Apps: Collect sensitive reproductive data; commercialized or used for regulatory purposes; “Cyclic Self-Fashioning”: self-monitoring and regulating bodies based on tracking data (empowerment and self-optimization);

Explore legal theories like natural law and legal positivism, focusing on their impact on women. Uncover the emergence of sociolegal studies and women's interaction with the law, examining its consequences for individuals and society. Delve into the concept of law as a social phenomenon and the sociology of narrative.