Women's Legal Research Articles

Bringing the Women's Legal Resources Centre to the Bush

Bringing the Women's Legal Resources Centre to the Bush

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: China Bob Hodge and Kam Louie, The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture: the Art of Reading Dragons Japan, Korea Lewis R. Lancaster and Richard K. Payne (eds), Religion and Society in Contemporary KoreaDoh C. Shin, Mass Politics and Culture in Democratizing Korea South, West & Central Asia J. E. Llewellyn, The Legacy of Women's Uplift in India. Contemporary Women Leaders in the Arya Samaj Southeast Asia R. E. Elson, The End of the Peasantry in Southeast Asia: a Social and Economic History of Peasant Livelihood, 1800–1990s General Asia James W. Morley (ed), Driven by Growth: political Change in the Asia‐Pacific Region

Inequality in Early America

This book was designed as a collaborative effort to satisfy a long-felt need to pull together many important but separate inquiries into the nature and impact of inequality in colonial and revolutionary America. It also honors the scholarship of Gary Nash, who has contributed much of the leading work in this field. The 15 contributors, who constitute a Who's Who of those who have made important discoveries and reinterpretations of this issue, include Mary Beth Norton on women's legal inequality in early America; Neal Salisbury on Puritan missionaries and Native Americans; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich on elite and poor women's work in early Boston; Peter Wood and Philip Morgan on early American slavery; as well as Gary Nash himself writing on Indian/white history. This book is a vital contribution to American self-understanding and to historical analysis.

John Wroath, Until They Are Seven: The Origins of Women's Legal Rights

John Wroath, Until They Are Seven: The Origins of Women's Legal Rights

New Perspectives on Rural Women's Enterprises

The author has overseen establishment of the Qianxi program, which has involved a range of activities, including establishment of a Women's Legal Resource Center, to raise legal consciousness and provide institutional structures to support implementation of protection for women's rights provided by law. This article discusses the many difficulties encountered in securing protection of women's lawful rights in practice. It examines the ways in which the Women's Federation in conjunction with local government and local party officials have sought to overcome them.

Symposium on Parental Rights and Work/Family Balance

This symposium draws together a collection of papers that reflect on the potential to extend parental rights for employees and facilitate the combination of work and family responsibilities. The enduring difficulties of integrating paid work with family commitments, and the significance of this tension for the persistence of employment inequalities between men and women, ensure that these are issues of considerable importance in contemporary society. However, policy development and implementation are frequently contested, while barriers such as the gendered division of domestic labour appear almost impervious to change. Nonetheless, policy advances have been made, and much can be learnt from investigating different approaches and the impediments to change. The symposium seeks to make a contribution to this endeavour. The papers included here were initially presented at a workshop held in April 1999 as part of the gender stream of the Reshaping Australian Institutions Project at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. The workshop was supported by Sociology and Political Science Programs within the Research School, and brought together a range of participants from academia, government and women's organisations. The timing was apposite. It was held a few months prior to the International Labour Conference session at which the Maternity Protection Convention (International Labour Organisation [ILO] Convention no. 103) was to be reviewed. It was also a time when the New Zealand government was faced with a private member's bill proposing paid parental leave--an initiative which, if successful, would have made the absence of paid parental leave in Australia even more conspicuous internationally. Significant changes were also in progress in the United Kingdom, where the Employment Relations Bill 1999 proposed the introduction of parental leave and simplification of existing provisions on maternity rights. In Australia, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission was conducting the National Pregnancy and Work Inquiry, and the Work and Family Unit within the federal Department of Workplace Relations and Small Business was preparing a report on family friendly employment practices. Several of these issues were discussed at the workshop. Visiting British academic Jill Eamshaw spoke on the difficulties of protecting maternity rights under the complex legislative arrangements that have evolved in the United Kingdom, and the potential of the new legislation to simplify the situation. Jennifer Curtin (University of Canberra) analysed the politics of the New Zealand initiative, Jennifer Earle (Women's Legal Centre) spoke on the ILO deliberations and the need to extend provisions in Australia, and Gillian Whitehouse presented the results of collaborative research with Di Zetlin which sought to identify the distribution of work and family measures in Australian workplaces, and some of the impediments to their implementation. A further issue raised was the development of a Draft Code of Practice and Guidelines on Pregnancy and Work in New South Wales. Philippa Hall, Deputy Director of the NSW Department for Women, informed the workshop of progress on this initiative, which was designed to set out and explain legal obligations as they have been defined in statutes and in case law, and provide guidance in ensuring work and workplaces are safe, fair and consistent with the entitlements of pregnant women and new mothers. The Report of the National Pregnancy and Work Inquiry has subsequently recommended that, once adopted in NSW, the code and guidelines be included in the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission database as a source of practical advice on risk control relating to pregnancy at work, and be reviewed with a view to implementing such a Code nationally (Recommendations 22 and 23 of the Report of the National Pregnancy and Work Inquiry, Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1999). …

Women healers and the medical marketplace of 16th-century Lyon

Although women's legal and marital status make them almost invisible in archival documents, what traces remain suggest that women participated in Lyon's medical marketplace in various ways and under various guises. At Lyon's municipally-funded poor hospital, the Hotel-Dieu, widows and wives of surgeons, repentant prostitutes, birth attendants, and <<women>> cared for the destitute and sick of Lyon, in the capacity of midwives, physicians, surgeons, and barbers. Though the records almost always identify women practitioners simply as <<women>> or by their first and last name, many of them engaged in the identical tasks as male practitioners. Outside of the hospital, wives acted as barbers or surgeons alongside or in place of their husbands when widowed. In the final analysis, municipal authorities accepted the help of female healers on the basis of their traditional medical knowledge, joint work identity with their practitioner-husbands, and proven skill.

Fetal syndromes and the charter: the Winnipeg glue-sniffing case.

The relationship between scientific knowledge and legal discourse is raised once again by a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, a case involving a young Aboriginal woman who was pregnant and ordered by the court to remain in a drug treatment program at a health center until the baby was born. Her glue-sniffing habit was deemed dangerous to the normal development of the fetus. The Court held that her solvent-dependency did not justify the original court action, but both the Court and the various interveners disregarded the current state of our knowledge on the fetal syndromes. There is thus a continuing disconnect between the scientific understanding of fetal risk and the development of Constitutional law around women's reproductive rights. This paper reviews the case and follows it through the appellate process; we examine the research literature on fetal syndromes tracking the changes over time. Finally we comment on the interventions by the Winnipeg Child and Family Services, the Women's Health Rights Coalition, by The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and both The Canadian Abortion Rights Action League and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund.

Women and Asylum: A Particular Social Group

This note examines the judgement of the House of Lords in the cases of Islam andShah, particularly with regard to their conclusion that women in Pakistan who were victims of domestic violence and not protected by their state could qualify as members of a particular social group under the Geneva Convention, and therefore attain refugee status. The note considers the Refugee Women's Legal Group's Gender Guidelines for the Determination of Asylum Claims in the U.K. and discusses the problems faced by women who claim refugee status. Finally, the conceptualisation of domestic violence as a political issue and therefore a matter falling within the scope of the Convention issue is analysed.

Women and Law in Late Antiquity

This is the first comprehensive account of women's legal and social positions in the west from classical antiquity right through to the early middle ages. The main focus of the book is on the late antique period, with constant reference to classical Roman law and the lives of women in the early empire. The book goes on to follow women's history up to the seventh century, thus bridging the notorious gap of the 'dark ages'. Major themes include daughters' succession rights; the independence of married women; sexual relations outside marriage; divorce; remarriage; and the general legal capacity of women. Antti Arjava argues that from the viewpoint of most women, late antiquity was not a period of radical change. In particular, the influence of Christianity has often been considerably exaggerated. It was only after the fall of the Western empire that a new legal system and a new social world emerged.

Women, Islamisms and the state: contemporary feminisms in Egypt

Acknowledgements - Glossary - List of Abbreviations - Background and Theoretical Considerations - Living Fieldwork, Writing Ethnography - The State and Islamists - Islamisms and the Seeds of Disciplinary Power - Women Activists and Women's Organizations - Current Debates on Women's Legal Rights - Islamism and Gender: Male Perspectives - Islamisms and Gender: Three Generations of Women's Perspectives - Feminisms, Islamisms and the State: or the Power of Feminisms - Bibliography - Index

Fiber and Form: The Woman's Legacy

Fiber and Form: The Woman's Legacy

Women's legal guide

Women's legal guide

Women and property in Early Modern England (review)

Reviews 245 literature on the mUitary revolution. Perhaps there is a sort of paradox here. Historians are more likely to accept the work of sociological generalizes when that workreflectstheir own findings. But they are then less likely to learn much that they do not know. The contrast with Barrington Moore's work is instructive. Few historians now believe much of Social origins but the debate that it engendered had its value. It is hard to see Downing generating the same debate. But it is easier to see that his name will crop up in the footnotes of historians, appreciative of the wide range of material that he summarizes for them. One final comparison is worth making. Jack Goldstone's broad comparative survey of Revolution and rebellion in the Early Modern world seems to possess features that make it of much greater value to historians than Downing's book. Both are sociologists, but Goldstone conveys a much more intellectually challenging sense of what exactly comparative history is, and of what it can and cannot do. Furthermore, he attempts to integrate demographic, economic, and political history along a much broader front than Downing does. While Downing's conclusions are much sounder, there is rather less value in being thus 'right' than in being provocatively wrong in the way that Goldstone is. The enterprise scarcely seems worth undertaking unless its conclusions can provide a perspective on the past not readily open to the ordinary professional historian. Glenn Burgess Department of History University of Canterbury Erickson, Amy Louise, Women and property in Early Modern England, London and N e w York, Routledge, 1993; cloth; pp. xiii, 296; 3 figures; R.R.P. AUS$39.95. Erickson has developed a comprehensive analysis of the influences of legal theory and legal practice on the daily lives of women in early m o d e m England. Her work is both an introduction to the laws which defined women's legal and economic activities at this time and also an analysis of the ways in which these rules were challenged, transmuted, and transgressed. By offering a full length analysis of the legal condition of women, Erickson hasfilleda troubling hole in both legal and historical studies. The relation of w o m e n to the law was almost totally ignored by early practitioners of legal history; for example, Holdsworth's monumental A 246 Reviews history of English law, included only twenty one pages on female legal status in its five volumes on medieval law. And, even tiiough there has been in recent years a new interest in this subject, Women and property in early modern England is thefirstbook to synthesize an overview of women's legal history from this work. Erickson has a sound grasp of thetechnicalaspects of the law. Her description of the complex interplay of common, canon, manorial, and borough law is particularly adroit, as this is frequently overlooked by historians who tend to concentrate on one particular jurisdiction, usually common law. Erickson's extensive primary research and the wide geographical reach of her inquiry are reflected in her comprehensive footnotes. The use of a broad range of primary sources has allowed her to discuss not only legal theory but also legal practice. The focus of her book is on the legal and economic activities of the ordinary women who comprised the majority of the population. This is a relatively unusual approach to a gendered analysis of die early m o d e m period, as most accounts of the lives of women at this time draw heavily on die more bountiful sources for the nobility and gentry. The use of Chancery petitions and probate records means that the litigation and inheritance patterns of common women can be explored. The structure of the book is based on die classic progression of women's lives at this time. The section on 'Maids' deals with the upbringing and inheritances of women. The immense legal changes in women's status on marriage are discussed separately in the section on 'Wives'. The use of marriage settlements and the litigation in the equity courts of Chancery which ensued from these arrangements are explored here. Erickson's work on female patterns...

In Memory of Cassie: Child Death and Religious Vision in American Women's Novels

This article investigates the contribution of several twentieth-century women writers to the legacy of women's writing about child death and scriptural consolation. The suffering and death of children constitutes the most intractable of religious problems, and recent studies of parental grieving support women's literary treatment of child death. Thus, just as child death creates a unique religious space, it may also demand its own literary category and aesthetic. By considering the unique dimensions of parental grieving, and by looking at how Perri Klass, Toni Morrison, and Harriette Arnow handle this subject, it is possible to gain fresh literary perspective on the fiction of nineteenth-century American women, many of whom also addressed the problem of child death and scriptural consolation. Women writers create children who are more than literary or symbolic commodities, and, in so doing, these writers challenge us to reevaluate scriptural and social perspectives on child death.

Accuracy and Ambiguity in the Application of State Child Support Guidelines

In an effort to standardize the calculation of monthly child support awards, the federal government requires states to use preestablished formulas to determine the amount of awards. This study utilizes survey data from 20 states to determine the extent to which individuals who regularly calculate child support awards using these state formulas do so accurately. We find that individuals who regularly calculate child support awards often arrive at different support award amounts because of the complexity of the state guidelines, human error, differences in their experience and training, and lack of computerization. Adopting simpler formulas would reduce errors; this should be a priority even if child support officials use computers to calculate award amounts. Efforts to further the training and education of personnel who calculate awards would also help, and child support offices should revise their formulas to cover high-income cases. The Child Support Enforcement amendments of 1984 (P.L. 98-378) required states to develop specific numeric formulas for determining the amount of child support that should be paid to children by absent parents. This legislation was enacted because child support awards were typically too low (Beller & Graham, 1986, 1993; Oellerich, Garfinkel, & Robins, 1991; Williams, 1987), there was substantial variation in the amount owed by individuals in similar economic circumstances (White & Stone, 1976; Yee, 1979), and case-by-case award setting had resulted in administrative inefficiencies and had aggravated problems for interstate cases (Thompson & Paikin, 1985; Williams, 1987). The 1984 legislation, however, provided states with minimal direction in how to frame the content of the guidelines. Sensing this problem, Congress postponed the original implementation deadline from October 1985 to October 1987 (Brackney, 1988). The original 1987 state guidelines were based on three models that are known as the percentage of income, income shares, and Melson models. Including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, there are 54 unique variations of the three basic child support models today. When introduced in 1987, the state guidelines were advisory, meaning that individuals calculating child support awards could have used, but were not required to use, their state's guideline. The National Advisory Panel on Child Support Guidelines first recommended that state guidelines become presumptive rather than advisory in 1987. That is, the amount of a child support award calculated using each state's guidelines is presumed to be the correct amount of child support unless good cause for deviating from the guidelines can be established. The advisory panel urged the use of presumptive guidelines, citing the same reasons used to adopt guidelines in the first place: to further improve the adequacy of awards, to ensure greater equity for litigants, and to facilitate the adjudication of cases (Advisory Panel on Child Support Guidelines, 1987). The statewide application of child support guidelines became presumptive with the passage of the 1988 Family Support Act (P.L. 100-485). More recently, the U.S. Commission on Interstate Child Support (1992) recommended that Congress appoint a National Child Support Guidelines Commission no later than January 1995 to determine if the United States should move to a single, national child support guideline. This commission asserted that very different amounts of child support are required of obligors, depending on which of the 54 state guidelines is used and that this variation results in an inequitable interstate system. A federal child support guideline also is viewed as an essential component of a reformed child support system by Ayuda, Clinica Legal Latina, the Center for Law and Social Policy, the Children's Defense Fund, the National Women's Law Center, the United States Catholic Conference, and the Women's Legal Defense Fund (1994). …

Factum of the Intervenor: The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund in Falkiner Et Al. v. Ontario (Ontario Divisional Court)

Factum of the Intervenor: The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund in Falkiner Et Al. v. Ontario (Ontario Divisional Court)

Devices and Desires: Population Policy and Gender Roles in the Islamic Republic

There is a widely held assumption that Islamist ideology is incompatible with modernity and feminism. Active debate in Iran about the dynamics of population policy and women's rights and responsibilities, together with the government's efforts to build public consensus on the need for birth control and family planning, however, suggest that Islam may be flexible and adaptable in response to political and economic realities. Iranian women individually and collectively have questioned the male interpretation of the proper Islamic role of women. They have encouraged the government to introduce reforms in the areas of marriage, divorce, and education, and are agitating for more improvement in women's legal and social position. These activities indicate that reproductive choices and strategies are not decided by Islam, but are the product of the political and economic realities of a given society. The first population policy of the Islamic Republic was formulated in 1989. Since then, the Family Planning Board has regenerated itself well beyond its pre-revolution capacity in terms of research and public services. Population policy before and after the Islamic Revolution, building national consensus on family planning, the family planning network, women's status, contradictory signals, and women's options are discussed.

Inequality in symbolism: Cultural barriers to female candidates in political advertising

Abstract More women are successfully running for U.S. political offices. However, further advances may be limited by women's inability to symbolically portray themselves as effective leaders in political media. We see the dilemma most clearly in political ads for female candidates. These texts juxtapose in the viewer's mind the legacy of women's images in advertising — homemaker, mother, sex object — with the ideal of male‐dominated political leadership. In our culture we still identify the male as political and public‐minded and the female as involved in private concerns. A feminist semiotic reading and comparison of political ads from a Maryland Senate race between two women (Linda Chavez and Barbara Mikulski) and one from George Bush (as an example of a male standard) illustrate the difficulty women face as candidates in portraying themselves as effective leaders. Bush's ad shows the ease with which men can be portrayed as symbolic Father ready to lead the country. Chavez uses her ads to establish her ...

Competing Visions of Girls' Secondary Education in Post-Revolutionary France

Historians of the French Revolution continue to argue about the extent to which it represents a watershed in French history and to debate the novelty of social, political, economic, and cultural formations that emerged from the shambles of the Old Regime. Historians of women have sought to trace the emergence of women's political consciousness and activity, while noting that the first French Republic denied women citizenship. Ultimately, the Revolution relegated women to the private sphere. In these attempts to grapple with the Revolution's legacy for women and gender relations, the Napoleonic period has attracted little attention, in part because the period appears to have been one of general regression for women. Napoleon's Civil Code is seen to symbolize the squelching of all feminist hopes since it firmly established women's subordination within the family and determined married women's loss of civil identity. In the field of education, the balance sheet is similarly negative. Napoleon is recognized for his creation of the Imperial University and of the secondary system of lycees for boys while, in general, primary education and girls' education remain largely unexamined.