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The Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues: An Inside Perspective on Lawmaking by and for Women
This Article is written to inform constituencies who seek to advance the status of women through the federal legislative process- including lawmakers, Congressional staff, women's organizations, and interested individuals of the general public-about the inner workings of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues during the 108th Congress, particularly in the second session. Historians and academics studying women and the law may also find this Article useful. Commonly known as the Women's Caucus, this bipartisan group consists of women Representatives who work together to advance women's issues through raising awareness of and taking action on federal legislation and policy particularly affecting women.Roman Rape: An Overview of Roman Rape Laws from the Republican Period to Justinian’s Reign
The modern Western crime of rape is commonly defined as "[u]nlawful sexual activity (esp. intercourse) with a person (usu. a female) without consent and usu. by force or threat of injury," and it is often seen as an assault of the person's body and a violation of self-autonomy. However, this differs significantly from the conception of rape in ancient Rome. In fact, "there is no single word in... Latin with the same semantic field as the modern English word 'rape.'” For the Romans, the act of rape was covered under a variety of legal terms, but each of those words possessed wider definition fields than the modern word "rape." Thus while charges of seduction, attempted seduction, adultery, abduction, or ravishment all covered rape, there was no legal charge consisting solely of rape itself. Similarly, determination of whether rape occurred greatly differs from Roman times to modern times. While in modern times, attention focuses mostly on the actions of the rapist and sometimes the victim, for the Romans, the occurrence of rape, the possibility of a legal charge, and also the punishment thereof, depended on the victim's status. That is, what actually occurred did not have legal consequences unless the victim fit in a particular social category. Indeed, socio-political factors played a very important role as legislation on sexual activity underwent changes throughout the course of Roman history, and accordingly, the development and refinement of rape-relevant laws strongly reflected this influence.Cambridge Law School for Women: The Evolution and Legacy of the Nation’s First Graduate Law School Exclusively for Women
Although several scholars have briefly discussed CLSW in conjunction with work on other subjects, this Article presents the first comprehensive history of the school. The Article begins in Section Two by exploring how and why CLSW came into being in 1915 after two young Radcliffe suffragists led an unsuccessful campaign for admission to Harvard Law School. Section Three examines the design, pedagogical foundations, and day-to-day workings of the school during its first two years. Sections Four and Five explore the historical events that led to CLSW's closure in 1917. These sections also document and discuss the school's subsequent, and previously undocumented, reopening in 1921. In Section Six, the Article traces the careers of eight of the students who attended CLSW. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the school's legacy and what its history reveals about American legal education in the early part of the twentieth century. In doing so, it debunks the gender-influenced myths that have arisen about the school. Throughout, the Article explores how the idea and desire for CLSW grew out of the women's suffrage movement and its accompanying emphasis on professional roles for women, while the school's form was largely dictated by the increasing emphasis on the elite model of legal education championed by Harvard Law School.The Passage of Community Property Laws, 1939-1947: Was “More Than Money” Involved?
Part I of this article reviews the legal landscape that provided the backdrop against which Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania later adopted community property laws. It also examines the tax consequences of the two Supreme Court cases, Lucas v. Earl and Poe v. Seaborn, that resulted in the disparate tax treatment of married couples in common law and community property law states. Part II briefly reviews the subsequent passage of community property laws by Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania; the passage of a federal tax reduction bill that provided for equal treatment of community property law and common law jurisdictions; and the subsequent history of those laws in each of the five states. The immediate repeal by Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Oregon of their community property laws following passage of the Revenue Act of 1948 suggests that the passage of the community property laws was simply a tax saving measure. This is the belief of some reputable scholars. This article does not refute that such laws were passed, in part, to achieve tax savings; however, it does suggest that other social forces were at work, as well. Part III of this article suggests that legislatures were able to pass community property laws, in part, because they gave little in the way of rights to wives, but went far, symbolically, in building married women's confidence that their household responsibilities were worth a portion of their husbands' salaries. Such confidence was necessary if the pre-war social order, with women primarily in the home rather than the workforce, was going to be successfully reinstated after the war. This Part examines the social and cultural context in which a few states passed community property laws together with the legislative debate in Pennsylvania--the only state for which a substantive legislative history is available--over the passage of its community property law. Part IV concludes that although states passed community property laws, in part, for the tax benefits, more than money was involved.Expanding Gender and Expanding the Law: Toward a Social and Legal Conceptualization of Gender that is More Inclusive of Transgender People
In Part I, the article first describes the many different ways in which one can be transgender. Many transgender women and men defy gender stereotypes. Part I next suggests a non-linear view of gender. Often, when we get past the binary gender system, the notion that there are only two genders, female and male, we do so by seeing gender as a spectrum or line running from female to male. In Part II, the article argues that the sex-gender distinction is not part of the new conceptualization of gender, the gender galaxy. In Part III, after a brief overview of transgender law, the article shows how much of current law and policy is, at best, inclusive and protective of only a portion of the transgender communities.Hands Off Policy: Equal Protection and the Contact Sports Exemption of Title IX
The disparity between what the Constitution permits of public schools and what Title IX permits of private ones is unquestionably stark. This Article calls this disparity into question. First, it asks under what circumstances, if any, allowance for sex discrimination in athletics may be justified under constitutional standards. Then, it considers the practical relevance of the disparity between how a school may lawfully discriminate under Title IX and how it may do so under the Equal Protection Clause. Finally, it offers a prescription for bringing into balance the gender equity messages sent by Title IX and the Constitution.Global Sex Trafficking and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000: Legislative Responses to the Problem of Modern Slavery
Human trafficking is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Generally, trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons across international borders for labor purposes, by means of force, fraud, or coercion. Commerce directly related to human slavery yields approximately $7-$10 billion a year, trailing only behind drugs and weapons trade for international profit. According to recent congressional findings, over 700,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year, including approximately 50,000 women and children into the United States. Women and girl children are the primary targets for sexual exploitation into prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other commercial sex activities. Police authorities readily admit that their estimates regarding the volume of victims are conservative. These facts are a stark indication that the problem of human slavery is immediate, large, and local.“Just” Married?: Same-Sex Marriage and a Hustory of Family Plurality
To contribute to a full moral deliberation about same-sex marriage, this Article inquires into the meanings of marriage, sexuality, and family from historical and narrative perspectives that are situated at the intersection of religious and political domains.“Has the Millennium Yet Dawned?”: A History of Attitudes Toward Pregnant Workers in America
This Article will focus on what might be considered the "prehistory" of the PDA in an attempt to shed new light on the equality/difference debate. Beginning as early as the nineteenth century, pregnant workers have been forced into either the equality approach or the difference approach depending mostly on race and class. This Article will show that, at times, both approaches restrained the autonomy of women and even caused harm to individual women and society by contributing to the development of the stereotypes and social attitudes that continue to permit pregnancy discrimination today.Dealing with Hate in the Feminist Classroom: Re-Thinking the Balance
The goals of this essay are two-fold. First, by describing the experience the author had in Law and Feminism, the essay will show how hateful and harassing speech in a seminar devoted to issues of gender, race and sexuality can rob students of important educational experiences. The story of the author’s class is meant to remind legal educators and administrators of the concrete harm, both personal and educational, of hate speech. Too often the hate speech debate focuses on the theoretical and the abstract; participants forget that the principles at stake have demonstrable consequences for real people. Second, while this essay does not endorse university institution of hate speech codes, it does take issue with the absolutist position on free speech. The absolutist view is the source of the administrative policy of non-interference with student speech. In my classroom, this view allowed hate speech that was extremely disruptive to continue. In some ways, the egregious nature of the author’s experience is what makes it instructive; if the speech she describes here cannot be regulated under the absolutist approach, then that approach needs to be rethought. It is the goal of the essay to offer the author’s unfortunate experience as a way to demonstrate the need for a more balanced approach to hate speech and harassment in the law school context.