Gender and the Law Blog

Virtual Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series

2023 VIRTUAL SUMMER FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY SERIES

Looking Back/Looking Forward: The Significance of Feminist Legal Theory

 

June 28, 2023 and August 2, 2023

 

Pre-registration (here) required

Zoom link to be provided 1 day prior to event

Overview

This summer, the U.S. Feminist Judgments Project is pleased to host the Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series on June 28, 2023 and August 2, 2023 from 2:00pm-3:45 Eastern/11am-12:45pm Pacific.

Attendees from all parts of the academy with a verified academic email address are welcome to attend with pre-registration. There is no charge to attend. All sessions are held via Zoom.

Session 1 – June 28, 2023, 2:00pm-3:45 Eastern/11am-12:45pm Pacific

Reflecting Back on 40 Years of the Feminism and Legal Theory (FLT) Project: Innovation and Assimilation

This workshop will consider the historic and contemporary significance of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, launched at the University of Wisconsin in 1984.

Chair: Bridget J. Crawford (Pace)

Moderator: Martha Albertson Fineman (Emory)

Panelists: Samuel Burry (Oxford), Deborah Dinner (Cornell), Martha Albertson Fineman (Emory), Risa Lieberwitz (Cornell), Linda McClain (Boston University), Martha McCluskey (Buffalo), Laura Spitz (New Mexico)

Session 2 – August 2, 2023, 2:00pm-3:45 Eastern/11am-12:45pm Pacific

How Feminist Legal Theory Can Make a Difference 

In this second session we will look at the Feminist Judgments Project, considering its approach to integrating feminist theory into law by rewriting (and thus critiquing) judicial opinions to reflect feminist principles and methods in major areas of law. 

Chair: Kathryn M. Stanchi (UNLV)

Speakers TBD

Registration

 

Preregistration for all participants (speakers and attendees) is required via this link: https://pace.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpce2trzojH9yR8jjH3Jjie9yJJxlb9Kow

Zoom log-in information will be sent one day prior to the event. An academic email address is required to pre-register. Anyone without an academic email address who wishes to be added should contact Bridget J. Crawford (Pace) to be added to the registration list: bcrawford at law dot pace dot edu. 

All attendees including speakers must register. Attendees need to register only once and then can attend either or both of the sessions in the summer series.

Sponsors

 

The Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series is co-sponsored by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, together with The Feminism and Legal Theory Project, The Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative, the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies at Osgoode, the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law, and the AALS Section on Women in Legal Education. The series is coordinated by Bridget J. Crawford (Pace), bcrawford at law dot pace dot edu, and Kathy Stanchi (UNLV), kathryn dot stanchi at unlv dot edu.

CFP 2024 AALS Obstacles to Gender Equality in the Legal Academy

Call for Proposals for 2024 AALS WILE Main Program:    "Obstacles to Gender Equality in the Legal Academy"   Panel Description:     Despite the progress made in recent years, gender inequality remains a pervasive issue in the legal profession, particularly in academia. Women remain underrepresented in influential positions, and face systemic bias, discrimination, harassment, and other obstacles that limit their advancement and overall success. Law schools place a premium on statuses that have largely been defined by and through patriarchies. Visible and invisible status lines and distinctions are perpetuated by a legal academy that voices an often-empty commitment to equity.  We invite proposals for the 2024 AALS WILE Main Program, dedicated to exploring the obstacles that face a diversity of women in the legal academy. We welcome proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:  The impact of implicit bias and gender stereotypes on hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions in law schools.   The impact on career advancement and earning potential (or "motherhood tax") for professional women due to parenting and/or caretaking responsibilities.   The role of institutional policies and practices in perpetuating inequality, such as implicit curricula, exclusionary practices, and lack of support for work-life balance.  The experiences of women of color, LGBTQ2S+ women, women with disabilities, and other marginalized groups in the legal academy.  The effect of gender disparities on teaching, research, and service activities.  The potential of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to foster a more equitable academic environment.  The implications of gender inequality for legal education, scholarship, and the legal profession at large.  The ways in which laws attacking tenure and prohibiting DEI trainings/offices will perpetuate gender inequality.    We welcome submissions from law faculty, staff, and administrators at all stages of their careers. Submissions are due on or before Monday July 31, 2023, and should be sent to [email protected]. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Victoria Haneman.

Conference at the Center for Constitutional Law: Gender, Health and the Constitution

Gender, Health & the Constitution: Constitutional Law Conference

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron

Friday, October 13, 2023

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron seeks proposals for its annual Constitutional Law Conference.  The Center is one of four national centers established by Congress in 1986 on the bicentennial of the Constitution for legal research and public education on constitutional law.  Past presenters at the Center have included Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Arthur Goldberg, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Professor Reva Siegel, Professor Lawrence Solum, Professor Maggie Blackhawk, Professor Katie Eyer, Professor Ernest Young, Professor Julie Suk, and Professor Paula Monopoli, among many others.

The 2023 Conference brings together scholars to explore the constitutional questions at the intersection of gender and health.  The daily news features issues of gender and health, whether related to Covid, abortion, transgender treatment, or maternal health.  Bodily autonomy and health rights raise questions about balancing against the interests of the state and third parties.  And individuals struggle to seek justice for their own lived reality.  

Committed speakers include: Aziza Ahmed (Boston U), Noa Ben-Asher (Pace), Jennifer Bard (Cincinnati), Rachel Bracken (NEOMed), Debbie Brake (Pitt), Ainslee Johnson-Brown (Akron), Naomi Cahn (Virginia), Marie Curry (Legal Aid), Bernadette Bollas Genetin (Akron), Susan Keller (Western), George Horvath (Akron), Dr. Allison Kreiner, M.D. (Plakas Manos), Maya Manian (American), Abby Moncrieff (Cleveland State), Jane Moriarty (Duquesne), Megan Frantz Oldham (Plakas Manos), Jennifer Oliva (Indiana), Christopher Peters (Akron), Dara Purvis (Penn State), Tracy Thomas (Akron)

This conference invites papers and presentations on any and all aspects related broadly to the theme.  Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Covid: mandates, illness, and gendered differences
• Abortion and reproductive justice
• Transgender school and medical treatment bans
• Maternal health, pregnancy, and surrogacy
• Medical malpractice, including gaslighting of women patients
• Exclusion of women and gendered treatment in medical research
• Barriers in access to healthcare
• Gendered aspects of aging
• Biology as a basis for sex discrimination
• Rights related to gender-affirming care
• Gendered implications of medical conscientious objections

The Conference will be held live, in person on Friday, October 13, 2023, at the University of Akron School of Law.  Presenters may also participate virtually to facilitate participation by all who are interested in joining.  Unfortunately, we are not able to pay for travel expenses, and hope that speakers can be reimbursed from their home institutions.

Papers will then be published in a Winter 2024 Symposium Edition of the Center for Constitutional Law’s open-access journal, ConLawNOW (also indexed in Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein).  Papers are typically shorter essays of 10,000 words.  Publication is expedited within four to six weeks of final paper submission.  The journal is designed to put issues of constitutional import into debate in a timely manner for an opportunity to impact discussion and decision.

Those interested in participating in the 2023 Constitutional Law Conference should send an abstract and CV to Professor Tracy Thomas, Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, at [email protected] by August 15, 2023.   

 

 

CFP AALS Teaching Reproductive Justice in a Post-Dobb World

The Section on Family & Juvenile Law is pleased to announce a Call for Participants for its pedagogy panel on Teaching Reproductive Justice in a Post-Dobbs World.  The program is co-sponsored by the Sections on Minority Groups, Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity, and Women in Legal Education.

The panel will be held during the AALS Annual Meeting in early January 2024 in Washington, DC. The goal of the session is to discuss and share our ideas about teaching reproductive justice, both in regards to the  Dobbs decision and related developments as well as how to create a separate course on reproductive justice.  The panel will show how family and juvenile law professors are integrating these teaching methods into their courses and the overall family and juvenile law curriculum. Presenters will be asked to share relevant materials in advance of the Annual Meeting.

 

If you are interested in participating, please send a 400-600 word description of what you'd like to discuss. Submissions should be sent to Naomi Cahn, [email protected] and Jeffrey Dodge, [email protected]. The due date for submissions is June 23, 2023.  We will notify the selected presenters by July 1, 2023. 

Reevaluating Regional Law Reform Strategies After Dobbs

I was so grateful for the chance to present at the University of Akron School of Law's Future of Reproductive Rights Symposium in October 2022. My publication, Reevaluating Regional Law Reform Strategies After Dobbs, is now published in Volume 14 of ConLawNow (2023). The abstract provides: 

This article studies the triad of 2016 social media campaigns known as “#AskDr.Kasich,” “#askbevinaboutmyvag,” and “#PeriodsforPence” to garner insights to inform the vital work of regional law reform in a post-Dobbs America. While these campaigns, each located in the regional mid-South, were motivated by restrictive state abortion bills, they uniquely positioned menstruation and women’s bodies at the center of their activism—not abortion alone. They leveraged, as a political fault line, the contradiction of these states’ governors’ perceived disgust relating to basic women’s reproductive health, relative to their patriarchal assuredness in regulating and controlling women’s bodies. In so doing, they tapped into meaningful disruptions in the geographies, religiosities, and masculinities of abortion politics. These campaigns achieved regional collective solidarity and a frame transformation in the rhetoric of abortion access. They catalyzed the lens of “disgust,” used manipulatively in anti-abortion rhetoric, into a source of poignant activism. Masculine discomfort with menstruation and women’s health paradoxically became a tool to protect abortion access.

 

 

 

CFP Gender, Health and the Constitution

Gender, Health & the Constitution

Constitutional Law Conference

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron

Friday, October 13, 2023

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron seeks proposals for its annual Constitutional Law Conference.  The Center is one of four national centers established by Congress in 1986 on the bicentennial of the Constitution for legal research and public education on constitutional law.  Past presenters at the Center have included Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Arthur Goldberg, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Professor Reva Siegel, Professor Lawrence Solum, Professor Maggie Blackhawk, Professor Katie Eyer, Professor Ernest Young, Professor Julie Suk, and Professor Paula Monopoli, among many others.

The 2023 Conference brings together scholars to explore the constitutional questions at the intersection of gender and health.  The daily news features issues of gender and health, whether related to Covid, abortion, transgender treatment, or maternal health.  Bodily autonomy and health rights raise questions about balancing against the interests of the state and third parties.  And individuals struggle to seek justice for their own lived reality.  This conference invites papers and presentations on any and all aspects related broadly to the theme.  Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Covid: mandates, illness, and gendered differences
• Abortion and reproductive justice
• Transgender school and medical treatment bans
• Maternal health, pregnancy, and surrogacy
• Medical malpractice, including gaslighting of women patients
• Exclusion of women and gendered treatment in medical research
• Barriers in access to healthcare
• Gendered aspects of aging
• Biology as a basis for sex discrimination
• Rights related to gender-affirming care
• Gendered implications of medical conscientious objections

The Conference will be held live, in person on Friday, October 13, 2023, at the University of Akron School of Law.  Presenters may also participate virtually to facilitate participation by all who are interested in joining.  Unfortunately, we are not able to pay for travel expenses, and hope that speakers can be reimbursed from their home institutions.

Papers will then be published in a Winter 2024 Symposium Edition of the Center for Constitutional Law’s open-access journal, ConLawNOW (also indexed in Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein).  Papers are typically shorter essays of 10,000 words.  Publication is expedited within four to six weeks of final paper submission.  The journal is designed to put issues of constitutional import into debate in a timely manner for an opportunity to impact discussion and decision.

Those interested in participating in the 2023 Constitutional Law Conference should send an abstract and CV to Professor Tracy Thomas, Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, at [email protected] by August 15, 2023.   

International Conference on Family Planning Session Recordings Available

The International Conference on Family Planning was held in Thailand in November 2022. Conference tracks included content related to universal health care coverage, gender equality, reproductive rights, quality of care, contraceptive technology, reproductive health among youth, reproductive health in humanitarian settings, and the impact of COVID-19 on reproductive health. 

Use this spreadsheet to search for sessions presenting research and advocacy that supports your work! 

Conference, Mainstreaming Reproductive Health

To celebrate the publication of Feminist Judgments: Health Law Rewritten, edited by Seema Mohapatra and Lindsay F. Wiley, UCLA School of Law hosted an in-person conference on “Mainstreaming Reproductive Health in Health Law, Policy and Ethics” on February 10, 2023.

This national conference brought together health law, food and drug law, employee benefits, health information privacy, bioethics, and medical experts from across the country to share insights on how and why government and institutional leaders have traditionally siloed off reproductive and sexual health from other health care needs. We focused on the implications of this exceptionalism for efforts to secure access to reproductive and sexual health care in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. We identified strategies for mainstreaming reproductive and sexual health within efforts aimed at securing equity, patient safety, and patient autonomy in health care financing and delivery.

This event was co-sponsored by UCLA Law’s Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, UCLA Law’s Health Law and Policy Program, and SMU Dedman School of Law's Tsai Center for Law, Science and Innovation.

If you were unable to join the event in person, you may view the panel recordings here. 

Conference on Health, Equity, and Law after Dobbs

American University Washington College of Law's Health Law and Policy Program has opened registration for an inter-disciplinary conference on "Health, Equity, and Law after Dobbs" scheduled for February 24th and 25th in Washington, D.C. The event will take a distinctly inter-disciplinary approach bringing together scholars with legal, medical, public health, and sociological perspectives on the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. The conference also brings together four academic programs collaboratively planning the event: American University Washington College of Law, American University Department of Sociology, The George Washington Law School, and The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. The event is also hosted in partnership with the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics. The conference goals are described here:  

By assembling an interdisciplinary group of researchers, practitioners, and advocates, the conference will provide a fuller picture of both the impact of the law on the books and the realities of the law on the ground. The goal of the conference is to help scholars, practitioners, advocates, and students understand current policy and practice related to abortion, as well as the reverberating effects of the Dobbs decision on the delivery of health care and society more broadly. It also aims to develop a research agenda and a broader strategic focus for advancing more equitable access to reproductive health care in the long term.

Register for the free event here. Check out the agenda for the program here. 

Conference Jan. 27, The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America

Harvard Radcliffe Institute, The Age of Roe: The Past, Present, and Future of Abortion in America

Harvard Radcliffe Institute will hold a major public conference January 26–27, 2023, to probe the complex and unpredictable ways that Roe v. Wade and its aftermath shaped the United States and the world beyond it for nearly half a century. The existential issue of abortion—and the galvanizing impact of Roe in particular—transformed the nation’s politics and public policy and its social movement energies, as well as the operations of the courtroom and the clinic. 

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eminent thinkers will gather as a diverse group, along many axes of difference, neither to praise Roe nor to bury it. Focusing on five major themes—voices from the front lines, international contexts, race and class, American public life, and visions of the future—a broad array of scholars, clinicians, and activists will engage in searching, interdisciplinary discussions to anatomize Roe’s impacts, including in the post-Dobbs landscape.

Conference and CFP, Equal Justice Under Law?

American University, Annual Symposium, Equal Justice Under Law

CFP Deadline Jan. 3, 2023

2023 Annual Symposium: Equal Justice Under Law?

On February 3, 2023, the American University Law Review's 2023 Annual Symposium—Equal Justice Under Law?—will explore what is left of the Constitution after the 2021-2022 U.S. Supreme Court term. The Law Review is thrilled to announce that Dean Erwin Chemerinsky will be this year's Keynote Speaker. Dean Chemerinsky is a distinguished scholar and has authored fourteen books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. Additionally, the Law Review will host multiple Supreme Court practitioners as panelists this year to weigh in on the Court's recent term and the questions it raises moving forward.

Call for Papers: American University Law Review’s 2023 Annual Symposium

Download PDF Here!

The American University Law Review is placing a call for submissions of original legal articles and scholarly commentaries for its forthcoming Annual Symposium issue, this year dedicated to a review and response to the 2021 through 2022 Supreme Court term and the upcoming term. Specifically, the Law Review seeks submissions analyzing the rapidly evolving response to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, Carson v. Makin, Shurtleff v. City of Boston, and pending cases before the Supreme Court in the next term on affirmative action, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and free speech. Approximately four to six submissions will be selected, with a publication date slated for the spring of 2023.

Conference: Seeking Reproductive Justice in the Next Fifty Years

After Roe and Dobbs: Seeking Reproductive Justice in the Next Fifty Years, Boston University School of Law, January 26, 2023

It is impossible to overstate the importance of exploring the legacy and future of Roe v. Wade in the wake of the Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The constitutional, political, and policy landscape is changing by the day, with major implications for law, medicine, and public health. This symposium marks what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe and will evaluate various dimensions of reproductive justice as it existed until Dobbs and into the next 50 years. The symposium has a multi-disciplinary approach, which will include attention to law, history, social movements, health equity, and reproductive health and justice, including the critical role of advocates in Boston and the Northeast region. A related issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics will be co-edited by Professors Aziza Ahmed, Nicole Huberfeld, and Linda McClain, to be published in the fall of 2023. 

This symposium will occur Thursday, January 26, 2023 at BU School of Law and is co-sponsored by BU Law and BU School of Public Health, and is part of BU Law’s commemoration of its 150th anniversary (For those interested in coming to Boston, our timing coincides with “The Age of Roe” conference at Harvard Radcliffe on Friday, January 27^th.)

This symposium is an inaugural event for BU Law’s new program in reproductive justice, which will launch officially in fall 2023.

Center for Constitutional Law Con Law Scholars Forum on "The Future of Reproductive Rights"

 

 

 

Martha Fineman's Feminist Legal Theory Project Historical Archive at Risk of Being Lost

Preserving Our Legacy: An Important Piece of Feminist History is at Risk of Being Lost

One of these women was Martha Albertson Fineman, who in the early 1980s launched the Feminism and Legal Theory Project at University of Wisconsin Law School. For decades, the project has brought together scholars and activists from the U.S. and abroad to explore the most pressing contemporary legal issues affecting women. In multiple-day sessions, organized around specific, evolving sets of issues, feminists presented working papers and debated women’s legal rights. Fineman recorded and preserved these groundbreaking conversations, as well as the working papers and other written material prepared for these sessions.

Fineman is now struggling to convince librarians more accustomed to collecting individuals’ or organizations’ papers of the importance of this historic trove of audio, visual and written materials documenting the collective development of feminist concepts, aspirations and theory.***

For close to four decades, Fineman’s Feminism and Legal Theory Project has hosted hundreds of conversations where feminist thinkers from across the United States and world have shaped and explored a wide range of concepts relating to women’s position within law and society. Those conversations delved into the “public nature of private violence,” the legal regulation of motherhood, feminism’s reception in the media, the relevance of economics to feminist thought, the complexities of sexuality, conflicting children’s and parental rights, the origins and implications of dependency and vulnerability, and the extent and nature of social responsibility.

“Feminism teaches us that the best ideas come from working together in inclusive, supportive groups,” said Fineman. “Feminism has grown through consciousness raising and the sharing of experience. The best ideas and the best politics emerge from collective engagements and processes.”***

“In the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, we created what I called ‘uncomfortable conversations’—events where people who shared values, but disagreed about strategies and implementation, could talk,” said Fineman. “If there were areas of disagreement around collective objectives, you could talk about them and work through them hopefully in a constructive manner. That’s how actual progress can be made.”***

Fineman recorded all of these conversations—a treasure trove of close to four decades of feminist intellectual history. But she is now struggling to find a home for this invaluable archive of the first generation of feminist legal thinkers.

“History has something to teach us. If we don’t collect the history and preserve it, then it can’t teach us,” said Fineman.***

After speaking with people at women’s history archives, Fineman is concerned about how decisions to preserve women’s history are made. “Who makes the determination about what and who in the past matters? How and why they make such decisions ultimately shapes what will constitute women’s or feminist history,” said Fineman. “An important piece of feminist history is at risk of being lost or isolated and sidelined.

CFP International Research Conference on Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law in Athens, Greece

International Conference on Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law

The International Research Conference Aims and Objectives

The International Research Conference is a federated organization dedicated to bringing together a significant number of diverse scholarly events for presentation within the conference program. Events will run over a span of time during the conference depending on the number and length of the presentations. With its high quality, it provides an exceptional value for students, academics and industry researchers.

International Conference on Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law.

Call for Contributions

Prospective authors are kindly encouraged to contribute to and help shape the conference through submissions of their research abstracts, papers and e-posters. Also, high quality research contributions describing original and unpublished results of conceptual, constructive, empirical, experimental, or theoretical work in all areas of Feminist Legal Theory, Gender and Law are cordially invited for presentation at the conference. The conference solicits contributions of abstracts, papers and e-posters that address themes and topics of the conference, including figures, tables and references of novel research materials.

Feminist Scholar Presentations This Week at Law & Society Annual Meeting

Law & Society Annual Meeting 2022 (Lisbon & virtual)

 

Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network

LSA Conference

July 13-16, 2022, in Lisbon, Portugal

Please note: All times listed are in Lisbon time (GMT +1/ -5EST).

prepared by Cyra Choudhury 

 

Wednesday July 13

8:15 – 10:00 AM

Roundtable: #Metoo and Global Gender Justice

Chair                Chaitanya Lakkimsetti
Presenters:       Vanita Reddy, Ashwini Tambe, Ayesha Khurshid, Ashley Currier

10:15 AM – 12:00 PM

Author Meets Readern (AMR):  Accidental Feminism and The Work of Rape: New Directions in Feminist Theory and Queer Governance

Chairs:             Stu Marvel, Libby Adler

Authors:          Rana Jaleel, Swethaa Balakrishnan

Readers:           Liz Montgomery, Aziza Ahmed, Greta LaFleur

12:45 – 2:30 PM

AMR Global Intersectionality and Contemporary Human Rights
Chair:               Robin Walker Sterling

Author:            Johanna Bond

Readers:           Carla LaRoche, Dina Francesca Haynes, Seema Mohapatra

2:45 – 4:30 PM

 Paper Session: Gender-Based Violence: Contexts and Comparisons

            Chair:               Elizabeth MacDowell

            Discussants:     Aziza Ahmed, Samantha Godwin

Presenters:       Meghan Boone, Heidi Matthews, Julie Goldscheid, Rachel Van Cleave, Christine Bailey, Nancy Cantalupo

Roundtable: Femicide: Law and Society (Virtual)

            Chair:               Dabney Evans

Participants:     Martin Di Marco, Claire Branigan, Esther Elisha

Thursday July 14, 2022

 8:15 - 10:00 AM

 Paper Session: Marriage and Parentage I

            Chair:               Laura Kessler

            Discussant:      Courtney Joslin

Presenters:       Erez Aloni, Ayelet Blecher-Prigat & Ruth Zafran (with Noy Naaman), Jessica Knouse, Noy Naaman, Cassia Roth

10:15 AM - 12:00 PM

Paper Session: Parentage II

           Chair:               Anibal Rosario Lebrón

            Discussant:      Erez Aloni

Presenters:       Susan Hazledean, Courtney Joslin (with Douglas NeJaime), Marcia Zug, Dara Purvis, Radhika Rao

12:45 – 2:30PM

Paper Session: Menstruation, Health, and the Law

            Chair:               Seema Mohapatra

            Discussant:      Dara Purvis

            Presenters:       Margaret Johnson, Marci Karin, Inga Winkler, Sarah Lorr

AMR: The New Sex Wars: Sexual Harm in the #MeToo Era

Author:            Brenda Cossman

Readers:           Penelope Andrews, Joseph Fischel, Ratna Kapur

2:45 – 4:30 PM

Roundtable: Abortion Rights after Roe: International Human Rights and Comparative Legal Approaches

Chair:               Rachel Rebouché

Presenters:       Mindy Roseman, Satang Nabaneh, Patricia A Skuster, Paola Bergallo

Roundtable: Social Parenthood in Comparative Perspective

Chair:               Courtney Joslin

Presenters:       Kristina Brant, Corinna Guerzoni, Christiane von Bary, Sofia Trevino, Lauren Hu

Paper Session: Reproductive Rights

            Chair:               Meghan Boone

            Discussant:      Elizabeth Kukura

Presenters:       Greer Donley (with David Cohen & Rachel Rebouché), Jill Lens (with Greer Donley), Francesca Laguardia, Elizabeth Kukura, Jessica Feinberg

Paper Session: Gender-Based Violence: Rape, Domestic Violence

            Chair:               Tugçe Ellialti-Kose

            Discussant:      Jamie Abrams

Presenters:       Jayne O’Connor, Tammy Kuennen & Leigh Goodmark, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael, Charisa Smith

Friday, July 15, 2022

2:45 - 4:30 PM

Roundtable: Gender, Power, Law, and Leadership I

Chair:               Renee Knake Jefferson

Presenters:       Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Laura Rosenbury, Paula Schaefer, Melinda Molina, Erin Buzuvis, Cindy Schipani, Carla Pratt

Paper Session: Infanticide laws in feminist context

            Chair:               Michelle Oberman

            Discussant:      Greer Donley

Presenters:       Daniel Grey, Emma Milne & Karen Brennan, Susan Ayres, Debra Wilson, Bruna Angotti

Paper Session: Law, Gender, and Democracy in International and Comparative Perspective 

            Chair:               Elizabeth MacDowell

            Discussant:      Suzanne Kim

            Presenters:       Ezgi Seref, Jonathan Crock, Jennifer Maher, Carla LaRoche

4:45 – 6:30 PM

Paper Session: Sex and Reproductive Rights

            Chair:               Jessica Knouse

            Discussant:      Jill Lens

Presenters:       Hillary Berk, Nofar Yakovi Gan-Or, Natalia Levin Schwartz, Bela Walker, Laura Lane-Steele

Paper Session: Speech, Testimony, and Truth: A Feminist Analysis of Human Rights Law

            Chair:               Valentina Ramia

            Discussant:      Julie Goldscheid

            Presenters:       Valentina Ramia, Brenda Dvoskin, Leyla Savloff, Farzana Ali

Paper Session: New Perspectives on Sex in Public

Chair:               Brenda Cossman

Discussant:      Gabriel Rosenberg

Presenters:       Joseph Fischel, India Thusi, Andrew Gilden, Lara Karaian (with Melanie Cantin)

 

Saturday, July 16, 2022

8:15 - 10:00 AM

AMR Privacy as Anti-Subordination Tool

Chair:               Daniel Susser

Author:            Scott Skinner-Thompson

Readers:           Seda Gurses, Eddie Bruce-Jones, Daniel Susser

10:15 AM – 12:00 PM

Paper Session: Sexual Orientation, Sex, and Privacy

Chair:               Susan Hazeldean

Discussant:      Andrew Gilden

Presenters:       Britni Moore, Anibal Rosario Lebron, Michael Boucai, Naomi Mezey

Roundtable: After Carceral Feminism

            Chair:               Aziza Ahmed

            Presenters:       Leigh Goodmark, Aya Gruber, Cynthia Godsoe, Kate Mogulescu

12:45 – 2:30 PM

Paper Session: Race, Gender, and Autonomy in Comparative Perspective

            Chair & Discussant:     Johanna Bond

Presenters:                   Rabea Benhalim, Catherine Harnois (with Yaqi Yuan), Caroline Hodes, Amy Dillard, Louise Langevin

2:45 – 4:30 PM

CRN 07 Business Meeting

Paper Session: Feminist Jurisprudence and Adjudication

            Chair:               Jennifer Hendricks

            Discussant:      Rachel Rebouché

Presenters:       David Cohen (with Elizabeth Kukura), Jill Hasday, Yanira Reyes, Jasmine Samara

Paper Session: Pedagogy and Practice

Chair & Discussant:     Paula Monopoli

Presenters:                   Jamie Abrams, Daniela Kraiem, Chris Demaske

4:45 – 6:30 PM

Roundtable: Theorizing Feminist Solidarity

            Chair:               Cyra Akila Choudhury

            Presenters:       Jennifer Hendricks, Lua Yuille, Elizabeth MacDowell, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Roundtable: Gender, Power, Law, & Leadership II

Chair:               Hannah Brenner Johnson

Presenters:       Kcasey McLoughlin, Paula Monopoli, Abigail Perdue, Tonja Jacobi, Jonathan Stubbs

CFP Centering Family Violence in Family Law

Call for Papers

Centering Family Violence in Family Law

Abstract Submission Deadline: July 22, 2022

from the Family Law Center, UVA School of Law and National Family Violence Law Center, GW Law School

We invite submissions to contribute to a roundtable about the place of domestic violence in family law and scholarship. Submissions should consist of a proposed abstract under 300 words. The roundtable will be held on January 20, 2023 at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Although evidence shows that family violence is endemic, family law continues to design doctrines and procedures around an image of families in which violence is exceptional. Significant new empirical research indicates that, despite extensive law reforms designed to require courts to address family violence, mothers in custody litigation who seek to protect their children from paternal abuse typically face resistance from judges, if not outright hostility. Moreover, most family lawyers are ill-equipped to effectively represent protective parents and at-risk children, especially in an unreceptive family court culture. Cf. Meier, Denial of Family Violence:  An Empirical Analysis and Path Forward for Family Law, 110 Geo. L. J. 835 (2022).

 

How would family law practice, scholarship, and teaching change if each centered the reality of family violence instead of treating it as exceptional? 

This roundtable will bring together a group of diverse participants to explore how the realities of family violence and judicial intransigence should affect core doctrines and practices in family law, such as allocating custody and establishing parenthood. Participants will also consider how concern for family violence should inform discussions of systemic reforms such as decriminalization, abolition of the child welfare system, and parenting after incarceration. The roundtable’s goal is to carve out new ways to think about how family law can respond to the failure of the law, scholarship, and the courts to appropriately deal with violence within American families. 

We offer the following “provocations” for new thinking about how to place family violence at the center of family law:

• Shared Parenting:  How might we talk about shared parenting and its appropriate place in child custody if we acknowledged the history of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment among many (possibly most) separating parents, both those that litigate and those that do not?
• Functional Parenting:  As we seek to expand parenting rights and recognition to functional parents, how can we ensure that abusive partners are not empowered to extend their abuse through parenting litigation (a well-documented problem among biological parents)?
• Pedagogy: How should we best integrate the realities of family violence in our teaching, particularly in broad courses such as Family Law, Criminal Law, and Child, Family & State?
• Formerly Incarcerated Parents:  As we work to reintegrate formerly incarcerated parents into the community and their families, how can we ensure that reintegration maximizes and protects healthy and caring parent-child relationships?
• The Child Welfare System:  As we work to reform the child welfare system and its known racial and class injustices, how can we best integrate the realities of family violence into such reforms to ensure they do not exacerbate the victimization of children or safe parents?
• A Supportive State:  As we develop state tools to affirmatively support familial stability and security, how should such policies change if family violence is pervasive rather than an aberrant imperfection? 

We are delighted to report that the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law has agreed to publish eight short (5,000-word) papers from this gathering. We will be requesting drafts (3,000-5,000 words) one week in advance of the conference so they can be circulated and read by all participants. 

We plan to host the event in person, although the format may change depending on public health considerations. We will supply meals, and we have some funding available. If you need funding to attend, then please provide an estimate of your travel costs.  

Thank you.  Please submit abstracts to [email protected].  And please let us know if you have any questions!

2022 Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series: Spotlight on New Books in the Field

The Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series is co-sponsored by the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, together with The Feminism and Legal Theory Project, The Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative, the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies at Osgoode, the Family Law Center at the University of Virginia School of Law, and the AALS Section on Women in Legal Education. The series is coordinated by Bridget J. Crawford (Pace), [email protected] and Kathy Stanchi (UNLV), [email protected]

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2022  Virtual Summer Feminist Legal Theory Series

Spotlight on

New Books in the Field:

Gender, Race and Diversity in the Center of the Conversation

This summer, the U.S. Feminist Judgments Project will host a series of virtual conversations featuring authors and editors of new books in the field, with a focus on how to best use those texts to raise and frame issues of gender, race and other diversity issues in teaching and scholarship. There will be a particular emphasis on how feminist legal theory can enrich both classroom discussions and scholarly perspectives by scholars working across subject matters.

The dates and featured books are:

Date	Book	Authors or Editors
June 8, 2022	Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods (2022)	Bridget J. Crawford (Pace) & Emily Gold Waldman (Pace)
June 22, 2022	Fight the Power: Law and Policy Through Hip-Hop Songs (2022)	Frank Rudy Cooper (UNLV)
July 6, 2022	Panes of the Glass Ceiling: The Unspoken Beliefs Behind the Law’s Failure to Help Women Achieve Professional Parity (2022)	Kerri L. Stone (FIU)
July 20, 2022	Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions (2020)	Ann C. McGinley (UNLV) & Nicole Buoncore Porter (Chicago-Kent)

Sessions will run from 11:00 am to 12:15 pm Pacific/2:00 to 3:15 pm Eastern. Attendees from all parts of the academy with a verified academic email address are welcome to attend any and all sessions. There is no charge to attend. All sessions are held via Zoom.

Preregistration for all participants (speakers and attendees) is required via this link: https://pace.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYsceGgrTsuEtd7jdyjQVGVExQa0ODkK5Fd

All attendees including speakers must register. Attendees need to register only once and then can attend any of the sessions in the summer series. Regular attendance is encouraged but not required. Approximately one week before each session, all registrants will receive an excerpt of the book that will be the subject of the discussion.

After a pause in August, the Feminist Legal Theory Series may continue into the academic year with occasional sessions featuring additional works.Authors or editors of recent books are welcome to self-nominate their work for consideration to be featured in a future session.

Con Law Scholars CFP The Future of Reproductive Rights at the Center for Constitutional Law

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW SCHOLARS FORUM
THE CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AT AKRON
Friday, October 28, 2022 (virtual)

The Future of Reproductive Rights

The Center for Constitutional Law at Akron seeks proposals for its annual Constitutional Law Scholars Forum. The Center is one of four national centers established by Congress in 1986 on the bicentennial of the Constitution for legal research and public education on the Constitution. Past program topics have focused on the history of race discrimination, LGBTQ rights, civil rights remedies, federal courts, and women’s suffrage. Presenters at the Center have included Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Arthur Goldberg, Judge Jeffrey Sutton, Professor Reva Siegel, Professor Lawrence Solum, Professor Katie Eyer, Professor Ernest Young, Professor Julie Suk, and Professor Paula Monopoli, among many others.

The 2022 Forum brings together scholars to explore the question of the future of reproductive rights and justice. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon issue a monumental decision in the pending case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, altering the fifty-year constitutional consensus on protection for reproductive autonomy under the federal Constitution. What will the parameters of constitution liberty look like after this decision? Anticipating this change, states have already begun legislating for and against reproductive choice. Some of these cases, like those in Texas, have added justiciability hurdles to the debate before the Supreme Court. At the same time, women in the U.S. and abroad continue to seek affirmative rights related to pregnancy, surrogacy, and other reproductive interests. This Forum invites papers and presentations on any and all aspects related broadly to this topic of reproductive rights and justice.

The Forum will be held virtually on Friday, October 28, 2022. This virtual meeting allows for expanded access to scholars by reducing costs, balancing work/life/health demands, and reaching widely across geographic bounds. Papers will then be published in a symposium edition of the Center’s open-access journal, ConLawNOW (also indexed in Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein). Papers are typically shorter, essay style and publication is expedited within four to six weeks of final paper submission. The journal is designed to put issues of constitutional import into debate in a timely manner while they have the opportunity to impact the discussion and decisions.

Those interested in participating in the Constitutional Law Scholars Forum should send an abstract and CV to Professor Tracy Thomas, Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, at [email protected] by August 30, 2022.

 

Download Constitutional Law Scholars Forum CFP 2022

Sonia Rankin on "Would You Make it to the Future? Teaching Race in an Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law Classroom"

Sonia M. Gipson Rankin has posted a forthcoming work titled Would You Make It to the Future? Teaching Race in an Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law Classroom on SSRN. This work is forthcoming in the Family Law Quarterly. The abstract previews: 

Would you make it to the future? For the last five years, I have started my Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) lecture in Family Law with this question. Students take the query seriously. They ponder their lived experiences such as home training, medical history, education, financial well-being, personality traits, work ethic, and social graces when determining if they would be the “model DNA” someone might select in a future society. The good-natured jokes about being nearsighted, having a pitiful jump shot, and wearing orthodontic headgear turn reflective when someone raises the question: would someone in the future select my race?

In this paper, Section I describes how race connects to family law. Section II explains cognitive dissonance theory, color blindness ideology, and the relationship of these theories to racial inequality in family law and how this connects to assisted reproductive technologies. Section III provides the framework for race-centered learning outcomes, a relevant rubric for reflection papers, and examples of case law and legislation that addresses race and ART. Section IV concludes by addressing how these skills and assessments in our family law curricula can impact systemic change in the practice of family law and the legal academy.

The article concludes: 

Legal education must be at the forefront of assisted reproductive technology. Our students will serve be crafters and litigators of ART contracts and decisions, policymakers and drafters of legislation, and will hold the hands of clients planning the biggest decisions of their futures. Showing students distinctions in family law shows the academy is responsive to realties in the practice of law. Race can serve as the first way to unpack cognitive dissonance. Professors must show the fallacies in the law so students can learn how to use their agency to critique the law and be excellent advocates for their clients. A racial cognitive dissonance lens allows students to review the impact of all the law, given the role of technology in the law that did not exist when the law was being formed. Understanding cognitive dissonance and cultural competency can help reduce legal issues in family law and ART.

A tagline for Gattaca [a "1997 science fiction film [depicting] a future society that uses reproductive technology and genetic engineering to produce genetically enhanced human beings"] states, “There is no gene for the human spirit.” There is a part of our lived journey that cannot be captured by DNA nor contract law but can only be bettered through our interactions with each other.