Reproductive Rights Prof Blog

New York City Buildings Are Now Required to Have Lactation Rooms

New York Magazine (August 12, 2016): New York City Buildings Are Now Required to Have Lactation Rooms, by Laura June 

A bill requiring some New York City-run buildings to have rooms allocated specifically for lactation as of July 2017 was passed unanimously by the City Council and signed by Mayor de Blasio. There will be no restroom facilities in the rooms, but they will be equipped with electrical outlets for pumps. New York job center buildings, medical centers, and borough offices owned by the City are just some of the buildings protected by the new law. 

    Mayor de Blasio said in a statement, "This bill is about fairness, access, and health — no new mother should be unable to breast-feed because she can’t find a private space." He added that the "bill takes our city one step toward being a place where all women feel comfortable breast-feeding whenever they need to, wherever they need to.”

The Art of Waiting

New York Times (Aug. 31, 2016): Review: "The Art of Waiting," What to Expect When You're Still Not Expecting, by Jennifer Senior:

In this book review of Belle Boggs's "The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood," Senior describes the book as a dispeller of myths.  Myths about infertility abound: it is primarily a while, upper-middle-class problem, it is a woman's problem, it is rare and unnatural.  None of these myths is even remotely true.  The psychological experience of infertility and the attempts to treat it are harrowing:

There is always one more treatment to try or redo, provided she’s willing to spring for it or disappear into a canyon of debt. There’s adoption to consider; there’s also the simple possibility of giving up, of deciding there’s another kind of life to be lived.  Ms. Boggs did that for a while. It was both horrible and a great relief. “I felt split in two,” she writes. “The person I had hoped to become was torn away, leaving only the person I had always been.” She eventually resumes trying.

Apart from the psychological devastation of trying and failing to have children is the crushing social isolation.  As Senior puts it, "There’s something truly challenging, if not excruciating, about being out of step with your cohort." 

At times the book seem hermetic because Boggs focuses primarily on her mileu of artists and writers.  Nonetheless, concludes Senior, Boggs's has given "a cold, clinical topic some much-needed warmth and soul."

 

Call for Papers: Conference on Applied Feminism and Intersectionality

The Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law seeks paper proposals for the Tenth Anniversary of the Feminist Legal Theory Conference March 30-31, 2017.

The conference will examine law through the lens of multiple identities.  It will explore how intersecting identities inform -- or should inform -- feminist legal theory and justice-oriented legal practice, legal systems, legal policy, and legal activism. Beginning in 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw identified the need for law to recognize persons as representing multiple intersecting identities, not only one identity (such as female) to the exclusion of another (such as African American). Intersectionality theory unmasks how social systems oppress people in different ways.  While its origins are in exploring the intersection of race and gender, intersectionality theory now encompasses all intersecting identities including religion, ethnicity, citizenship, class, disability, and sexual orientation. Today, intersectionality theory is an important part of the Black Lives Matter and #SayHerName movements. For more information, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/.

We welcome proposals that consider the following questions from a variety of substantive disciplines and perspectives: What impact has intersectionality theory had on feminist legal theory?  How has it changed law and social policy? How does intersectionality help us understand and challenge different forms of oppression?  What is its transformative potential? What legal challenges are best suited to an intersectionality approach? How has intersectionality  theory changed over time and where might it go in the future?P

Please submit an abstract by Friday October 28, 2016 to ubfeministconference@gmail.com. Your abstract must contain your full contact information and professional affiliation, as well as an email, phone number, and mailing address. In the “Re” line, please state: CAF Conference 2017. Abstracts should be no longer than one page. We will notify presenters of selected papers in November. Please indicate at the bottom of your abstract whether you are submitting (1) solely to present or (2) to present and publish in the University of Baltimore Law Review symposium volume. Authors who are interested in publishing in the Law Review will be strongly considered for publication. For all presenters, working drafts of papers will be due no later than March 3, 2017. Please contact Prof. Margaret Johnson at majohnson@ubalt.edu if you have further questions. For additional information about the conference, please visit law.ubalt.edu/caf.