Endgame: Feminist Lawyers and the Revolutionary Body

Abstract

Over two hundred years ago a male French lawyer spoke of governance, virtue, terror and impotence at a time, one could safely speculate, of crisis. Nearly two and a half centuries later, these words haunt lawyers faced with another crisis: one provoked by the radical indeterminacy of moral authority. Whereas Robespierre unequivocally drew his battle lines, lawyers and particularly those lawyers who identify as feminists face a far more ambivalent struggle. The language of 'everyday' crises (war crimes, human trafficking, domestic violence, and so on) evokes a direct response from those of us who seek to change the perceived 'masculinist' socio-political system for improvements in the welfare of others: we need better law, and more of it. This desire, however, is at odds with one particular telos of feminism, as a movement or movements: that of revolution. The problem thus emerges in the form of a practical issue as to where feminists and feminist lawyers stand: as or for law, or outside or against law (if such acts are indeed possible).