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TEACHING FEMINISM, LAW, AND BUSINESS
by Lucy V. Katz*
The master's tools can never dismantle the master's house.1
For me, the varieties of curriculum change in order to be
accurately understood need to be set against models of the
larger society and should be overlaid on an image of a broken
pyramid.... The liberal arts curriculum has been particularly
concerned with passing on to students the image of what the
'top' has been.... We are taught that the purpose of education
is to assist us in climbing up those peaks and pinnacles to
enjoy the 'fulfillment of our potential,' which I take to mean
the increased ability to have and use power for our individual
selves.... The words 'success,' 'achievement' and 'accomplishment' have been defined in such a way as to leave most
people and most types of life out of the picture.2
The question this article presents is: can one be a feminist teacher
in a business school? For many of us this is an increasingly urgent
question. Whether or not we identify ourselves as feminists, we are
drawn to women's issues and to the growing literature on feminist
theories of all sorts. Many participate in women's studies programs,
and teach women and law courses. If my own institution is typical,
these parts of our lives do not fit very well with our basic professional
* Associate Professor of Business Law & Coodirector, Women's Studies Program,
Fairfield University.
AUDRE LORDE, SISTER OUTSIDER 123
2 Peggy
(1984).
McIntosh, Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-Vision: A Feminist Perspective, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women 4 (1983) (unpublished
manuscript on file with author).
214 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
identification as business school faculty teaching business law or legal
environment of business courses. We are, most definitely, teachers
in the "master's house." Our feminist work is tangential, marginal,
to our 'real' work, which involves propelling our students to the top
of the socio-economic pyramid. Feminism is thus a source of fragmentation in our already fragmented lives. We are forced to split
ourselves between our professional standing as business law teachers
and our commitment to feminist teaching and goals.
There are many different feminist theories and practices, and
serious debate and disagreement exists among academics who identify
themselves as feminists.' This article identifies certain strands and
trends that frequently appear in work that purports to be feminist,
as well as certain teaching practices that are often used in women's
studies classes. Not all feminists agree or act in accordance with
these ideas; certainly we do not all teach the same things the same
way. Moreover, much of what is now called feminist pedagogy did
not originate with the women's movement. There is much to gain,
however, by at least looking for some identifying patterns associated
with feminist pedagogy and then thinking about how they might fit
with business teaching.
Whatever our feminist identity, the splitting of that identity from
our main teaching role is not a positive way to live our professional
lives. It reinforces already ingrained notions of ourselves as 'other,'
'different,' and 'less than' some standard of the 'good' (male) business
professor. It can inhibit professional fulfillment and personal wellbeing. At worst we are forced to hide our feminist interests in
pursuit of tenure or other signs of status or approval. At best we
carve out our own niche, doing the women's stuff, or perhaps the
multicultural stuff, while everyone else gets on with the real work
of the school. Mostly, we just work out our own compromises,
adopting, as women do, multiple identities. We teach law, generally,
according to traditional models. We might add a bit of insight into
women's issues in traditional courses, or we may experiment with
active, collaborative, student centered learning.' We do research and
For good descriptions of the different theoretical approaches to feminism, see
&
FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, READINGS IN LAW AND GENDER 5-11 (Katharine T. Bartlett
Rosanne Kennedy eds., 1991); MARY Jo FRUG, POSTMODERN LEGAL FEMINISM ix-xxiii
(1993); THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL DIFFERENCE 1-12, 157-261 (Deborah L.
Rhode ed., 1990); and works cited in Ramona L. Paetzold, Commentary: Feminism and
Business Law: The Essential Interconnection, 31 AM. Bus. L.J. 699-715 (1994).
Collaborative learning refers to various processes in which students work with
each other to understand course materials, rather than passively absorbing material
presented by the teacher. Student-centered and experiential learning refer generally
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 215
consult on sexual harassment. We get invited to have dinner with
women guest speakers. Our feminism is tolerated as. an inevitable
eccentricity, harmless enough though sometimes irritating at faculty
meetings. Students seek us out about sexual assault or sex discrimination problems, and sometimes we advocate for them. For many of
us, feminist activities take place in other parts of the University. We
get appointed to committees on sexual harassment. We teach 'overload' courses in women's studies programs and work on campus-wide
women's political issues.
Our feminism itself furthers this split, or fragmentation of ourselves from our jobs. While there are many different branches of
feminism and feminist theory, many of them are hostile to business
and business education. To some scholars, business and capitalism
epitomize the patriarchy, something to be opposed and transformed
through a feminist vision. According to this line of thought, we are
collaborating with our own oppressors by preparing legions of young
people to take their place in a sexist, racist, homophobic, capitalist
system. Even injecting feminist ideas and practices into this system
is invidious as long as the goals of the system remain.
As feminists in a business school, we are seen as marginal to
business education, and also to women's studies and feminism. Add
to this the marginal status of both women's studies and business in
many academic institutions, and the problematic position of law itself
in the business school, and one must begin to question why anyone
would want to identify as a feminist, teaching law, teaching business.
Yet perhaps this split need not be quite as wide, as absolute, as
portrayed. Perhaps there is a link to be made between our feminism
and the business schools with which we have cast our professional
lot. Perhaps we need not accept the definitions of ourselves and our
interests as quite so alienated from the central mission of our institutions. Today, business theorists argue for more critical, creative
and collaborative approaches to management and organizations. As
these ideas begin to enter the academy, feminist business faculty
ought to have a central role in the changes that will result in business
to methods that place students in an active, rather than a passive, role in learning.
See Kenneth A. Bruffee, Collaborative Learning and the "Conversation of Mankind,'
46 C. ENG. 635 (1984); George W. Spiro, Collaborative Learning and the Study qf the
Legal Environment, 10 J. LEGAL STUD. EDUC. 55 (1992).
1 For some, to participate in universities at all, from the standpoint of any discipline,
is to be coopted by the patriarchy. See Ellen Messer-Davidow, Know How, in
(EN)GENDERING KNOWLEDGE: FEMINISTS IN ACADEME 281, 282, 285-3 (Joan E. Hartman
& Ellen Messer-Davidow eds., 1991).
216 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
education. Feminist theories argue for new ways of structuring education, and they often demand a critical stance towards established
institutions and ways of transmitting knowledge. As law teachers,
moreover, we are especially well-situated to contribute to this project.
We are already in that same critical stance towards business. As
lawyers and law teachers our role is to question, to critique, those
whose central mission is the pursuit of profit. As feminist lawyers,
we have a rich tradition of jurisprudence and pedagogy in the law
schools from which to draw. From our position as law faculty, then,
it is a logical move to a feminist critique and restructuring of business
education.'
There is another reason for maintaining our feminism in business
teaching: our students. Forty-seven percent of undergraduate business degree recipients today are women, as are 27% of masters level
business graduates.7 We abdicate our responsibilities as educators if
we do not consider the needs of these women and the impact on
them of the current business educational environment. Women's
alienation from, and silence within, the law schools is extensively
documented." We have to ask ourselves whether our business students are experiencing the same phenomena, and why 13% of women
graduate business students drop out before matriculation, compared
to 9% of men, or why 22% of women applicants are rejected for
admission to business masters programs, compared to 18% of males.9
To ask whether one can be a feminist teacher in a business school,
then, is to ask not just whether one can teach women's studies
business courses, but whether one can be engaged in an effort to
I Others have made this point very persuasively before me. See Elaine D. Ingulli,
Transforming the Curriculum: What Does the Pedagogy of Inclusion Mean for Business
Law? 28 AM. Bus. L.J. 605-647; Dawn Bennett Alexander, The Role of Gender
Considerations in the Business Curriculum: Is There One? (1993) (presented at the
1993 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, Colorado Springs,
Colorado); Paetzold, supra note 3.
7 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS,
INTEGRATED POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION DATA SYSTEM (IPEDS) COMPLETIONS SURVEY,
table 256 (Bachelor's degrees conferred by institutions of higher education, by racial/
ethnic group, major field of study, and sex of student: 1990-91 (1993); id. at table 259,
(Master's degrees conferred by institutions of higher education, by raciallethnic group,
major field of study, and sex of student: 1990-91) (latest available data). Among
undergraduates, the largest number of nonwhite women are African American (8%),
followed by Asians (4%) and Latina women (3%).
1 See Stephanie Wildman, The Question of Silence: Techniques to Ensure Full Class
Participation, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC. 147 (1988); Catherine W. Hantzis, Kingsfield v.
Kennedy: Reappraising the Male Models of Law School Teaching, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC.
155 (1988); Lani Guinier, et al., Becoming Gentlemen: Women's Experience at One Ivy
League Law School, 3 U. PA. L. REv. 1 (1995).
1 Terry R. Johnson, et. al., Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences in MBA Pipeline
Dropout: Wave II of the GMAT Registrant Survey, SELECTIONS, Winter 1994, at 16, 18.
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 217
transform education from within that setting. To begin to answer
this question, this article first examines some elements of what is
often identified as feminist pedagogy, and what it means to be a
feminist teacher. It then reviews current thinking on feminist law
teaching. Next the article discusses recent trends in business and
business education that appear compatible with aspects of feminist
pedagogy. Finally, it suggest ways in which feminist approaches can
be central to contemporary business schools, in spite of the many
remaining contradictions between feminist social critiques and the
business environment.
In my classes I do only some of the things associated with feminist
pedagogy. In many ways I remain a fairly traditional teacher. The
ideas referred to in these pages, however, have become more and
more important to me in my teaching. At the same time, I see more
of the similarities between feminist and business teaching goals.
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
There is some sort of crisis in the Intro to Women's Studies
course. It involves race, gender and sexual orientation. Students are in the hall crying. Students are in the classroom
crying. At the next class, the teacher is crying. The teacher
is crying?
I am guest lecturing at lona college on the need to construct
new theories of law on spousal abuse and self defense. Someone raises a hand: "I was in an abusive relationship," she
says, and then gives some details. Another student does the
same, and another. Ahh, I think. This is what they mean by
introducing explosive personal material into the classroom. I
never meant this to happen. What happens next?"
Throughout my teaching career I have wondered about the terms
feminist classroom and feminist pedagogy. I had, of course, vague
ideas of what these meant, and I even assumed that in some ways I
was a feminist teacher. But incidents such as the two related above
told me there was something more, something I did not quite understand that defined a feminist classroom. I use that term here in its
most inclusive sense, to refer to a concern with women and a
commitment to viewing ideas and events from a women's perspec-
1o Journal notes of class by the author (1992-1994).
218 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
tive." This general statement can be broken down into seven characteristics usually associated with feminist pedagogy. Four have to
do with the substance of teaching, three with process. 2 All incorporate the effort to develop a critical consciousness in students and a
critical stance towards institutions and how they produce and define
knowledge. This does not mean that feminists never opt for a traditional stance in both teaching and research." Moreover, there are
probably very few teachers who embrace all seven characteristics;
and many feminist teachers use only one or two. The seven are
simply goals that are associated, in varying degrees, with what is
often described as feminist pedagogy.
Substantively, feminist teaching 1) is concerned with women; 2)
challenges basic assumptions about the construction of knowledge
based on gender as a category of analysis; 3) emphasizes experience
and context; and 4) is interdisciplinary. Procedurally it is 5) nonhierarchical; 6) multi-voiced; and 7) political."
Women
Feminist pedagogy is concerned with women, in that it makes
women and women's experience a central part of what is studied."
Women as workers, creators of value, consumers, or investors, for
example, would be included as a natural component of the business
curriculum, not with parenthetical references, as different or marginal
to the real knowledge base of the discipline.
" Katharine Bartlett's definition puts this well: "., .I refer to positions as feminist
in a broad sense that encompasses a self-consciously critical stance toward the existing
order with respect to the various ways it affects different women 'as women.' Being
feminist is a political choice about one's positions on a variety of contestable social
issues." Katharine T. Bartlett, Feminist Legal Methods, 103 HARV. L. REV. 829, 833
(1990).
12 Old dichotomies die hard. Substance and procedure are, in fact, intertwined:
teaching process, like legal process, creates substantive results. I use it here because
the distinction between what is taught and how it is taught is a useful one, and a
familiar one to lawyers.
" See
DAPHNE PATAI & NORETTA KOERTGE, PROFESSING FEMINISM: CAUTIONARY
TALES FROM THE STRANGE WORLD OF WOMEN'S STUDIES (1994); and CHRISTINA HOFF
SOMMERS, WHO STOLE FEMINISM? How WOMEN HAVE BETRAYED WOMEN (1994) for two
recent works critical of much academic work that is defined as feminist.
1 By
gender I mean the characteristics associated culturally with femininity or
masculinity, rather than to biological features. See GARY N. POWELL, WOMEN AND MEN
IN MANAGEMENT 35 (1993); DEBORAH L. RHODE, JUSTICE AND GENDER 5 (1989). The term
"gendered" generally refers to something, such as an occupation or behavior, that is
culturally defined as having the characteristics, or representing the position, or
interests, of one gender. Joan Williams, for example, writes of the gendered labor
system, meaning one which defines and values men's and women's work differently.
Joan C. Williams, Deconstructing Gender, in FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra note 3, at
95, 107.
12 McIntosh, supra note 2. McIntosh describes five phases of curricular revision: 1,
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 219
Through a variety of theoretical approaches, feminist pedagogy
makes gender a central category of analysis, meaning it uses gender
as an epistemological tool, a methodology with which to view the
subject of the course.'" Some feminists question or even reject the
possibility of value-free research, and they are instead concerned
with exposing and examining the social construction of knowledge,
as well as the ways in which accepted knowledge becomes a means
of dominance and oppression.1 7 Radical and postmodern feminists
examine knowledge as a function of power, a system in which dominant groups control and oppress all those in subordinate positions.',
Interdisciplinary
Feminist pedagogy is interdisciplinary. It challenges the very
grounding of discrete categories of knowledge such as finance, marketing, accounting, and other disciplines, and instead hypothesizes
the need for new categories that would provide different perspectives
on, or entirely redefine, what is worthy of study and how best to
study it.' 9 Because feminist theories attach meaning and relevance
to women's experience and perspective in various contexts, they
necessarily cut across and unify traditional disciplines.
Feminist pedagogy values experience and context, particularly, but
not solely, women's experience and the context of women's lives, as
sources of knowledge.2 0 Those who write of the silencing of women
in the classroom, and especially in the law classroom, often blame a
denigration of experience and an overemphasis on abstract reasoning
as its source.2 1 Devising ways to recognizing women's experience, in
the classroom and within disciplines, is thus a major project within
most branches of feminism. There are also feminist scholars who are
womenless curricula; 2, putting women into the curriculum, often characterized as the
'add women and stir' model; 3, considering women, or their absence, as a problem or
anomaly; 4, making women the subject of the discipline; and 5, redefining the curriculum to be truly inclusive in substance and process. Very few courses, teachers or
institutions have reached stage 5.
" Paula A. Treichler, Teaching Feminist Theory, in THEORY IN THE CLASSROOM 60-
71 (Larry Nelson ed., 1986).
I Margaret L. Andersen, Changing the Curriculum in Higher Education, in RECONSTRUCTING THE ACADEMY: WOMEN'S EDUCATION AND WOMEN's STUDIES (Elizabeth Nun-
nich et. al. eds., 1988).
1 See Marta B. Calas & Linda Smircich, Using the "F" Word: Feminist Theories
and the Social Consequences of OrganizationalResearch, in GENDERING ORGANIZATIONAL
ANALYSIS 222-234 (Albert J. Mills & Peta Tancred eds., 1992).
" JEAN Fox O'BARR, FEMINISM IN ACTION 277-281 (1994); Treichler, supra note 16,
at 68.
u DIANA Fuss, ESSENTIALLY SPEAKING: FEMINISM, NATURE AND DIFFERENCE 113
(1989); Treichler, oupra note 16, at 68.
2 See KC Worden, Overshooting the Target: A Feminist Deconstruction of Legal
220 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
critical of an experiential approach, arguing that experience itself
must be examined critically, since it is always partial, and an integral
part of a male-dominated system of ideas.2 2 Nevertheless, experience
as a subject of academic interest has strong roots in feminist scholarship.
Non-hierarchical
The experiential emphasis in parts of feminism also has a procedural component. Many women teachers have been drawn to pedagogical techniques that reject a teacher-centered, lecture mode in
favor of student-centered activities that make students literally learn
from experience. These might include group exercises or projects, or
even outside activities, which are used to develop the knowledge
considered important to the course. Such methods are part of the
recognition of personal experience as a valid source of knowledge.
Of course, many feminists lecture in class, and many men, especially
business faculty, use experiential techniques. Group projects are now
a major factor in management courses, where they are used to teach
about how groups function in business. This is, in fact, a major point
at which feminist and business pedagogy converge.
Another strong trend in feminist pedagogy is an effort to break
down the hierarchy of the traditional classroom. Experiential learning
itself calls into question traditional teaching structures, and therefore
many feminist teachers seek to break down formal barriers between
teacher and student and rely on student centered classroom processes.24 Students might choose some or all of the course materials or
Education, 34 AM. U. L. REV. 1141 (1975); Cynthia L. Hill, Sexual Bias in the Law
School Classroom: One Student's Perspective, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC. 603 (1988); Cheris
Kramare & Paula Treichler, Power Relationships in the Classroom, in GENDER IN THE
CLASSROOM; POWER AND PEDAGOGY 41 (Susan L. Gabriel & Isaiah Smithson eds., 1990).
2 Joan W. Scott, The Evidence of Experience, CRITICAL INQUIRY, Summer, 1991, at
773.
2 See,
e.g., CHERYL L. TROMLEY
& LISA A. MAINIERO, DEVELOPING MANAGERIAL
READINGS (2d ed. 1994);
John W. Collins, Experience-Based Ethics Study: The Implications for Business Law
SKILLS IN ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR: EXERCISES, CASES AND
Teachers, 10 J. LEGAL STUD. EDUC. 107 (1992); Robert S. Adler & Ed Neal, Cooperative
Learning Groups in Undergraduate and Graduate Contexts, 9 J. LEGAL STUD. EDUC.
427 (1991).
2 Feminist pedagogy begins with a vision of what education might be
like but frequently is not. This is a vision of the classroom as a liberatory
environment in which we, teacher-student and student-teacher, act as subjects, not objects. Feminist pedagogy is engaged in teaching/learning - engaged with self in a continuing reflective process; engaged actively with the
material being studied; engaged with others in a struggle to get beyond our
sexism and racism and classism and homophobia and other destructive
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 221
topics; they may lead class discussions. As Nancy Miller has noted,
such teaching involves risk.
By relinquishing the standard peacock model of graduate
teaching, designed to dazzle the hens, in favor of a more
ambiguous and less predictable pedagogy, I ran the risk of
losing my own identity as the teacher-the one who is supposed to know-and the guaranteed seduction that strutting
(ones's stuff) traditionally effects. 5
In other words, feminist teaching often involves giving up at least
some of the control and power usually vested in us as university
faculty.
Of course most of us do not easily give up our traditional role as
teacher, and many of us question how far one should move in this
direction. Moreover, to be student centered and nonauthoritarian
does not mean conforming to some model of the woman teacher as
warm, concerned and nurturing. Such stereotypes are in fact quite
harmful to women.2 6 There is, however, a strong interest among
feminist teachers in creating a classroom that forces students into
taking more responsibility for their learning.
MVulti-voiced
Feminist teaching is also multivoiced. Feminist teaching, therefore,
includes issues of race, sexuality, ethnicity and class in addition to
issues of gender. As one writer noted, feminism involves, "jtjhe
concerted and persistent search for excluded points of view, excluded
from or marginalized by particular institutions."2 7 Feminist theorists
as well as those engaged in practical politics are struggling with this
aspect of their work, and solutions are far from perfect. However,
there is an effort today among all feminists to understand the
hatreds and to work together to enhance our knowledge; engaged with the
community, with traditional organizations, and with movements for social
change.
Carolyn M. Shrewsbury, What is Feminist Pedagogy? 4 WOMEN's STUDIES Q. 8 (1983).
See also Joan E. Hartman, Telling Stories: The Construction of Women's Agency, in
(EN)GENDERING KNOWLEDGE:
supra note 16, at 71.
FEMINISTS IN ACADEME, supra note 5, at
11;
Treichler,
2 Nancy K. Miller, Master, Identity and the Politics of Work: A Feminist Teacher
in the Graduate Classroom, in GENDERED SUBJECTS: THE DYNAMICS OF FEMINIST TEACH-
ING 195, 198 (Margo Cully & Catherine Portugues eds., 1985).
26 There is a growing body of research showing that women professors are evaluated
negatively when they fail to conform to a stereotype of women as warm and relational,
but also when they adopt a more objective, directive, 'male' teaching style.
27 Martha Minow, Feminist Reason: Getting It and Losing It, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC. 47,
60 (1988).
222 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
intersections of different sources of oppression, and to locate gender
within a wider system of social and political marginalization."
Political
In varying degrees, feminist pedagogy claims to be political, in the
sense that it involves concern for social and political change. Some
feminists, building on radical educational theory, stress that all education is political, because it transmits social and political values.
Since feminism poses fundamental challenges to the status quo, a
feminist classroom naturally encourages actively working for change.2
This aspect of feminist pedagogy can become overwhelming, "[a]
venture more profoundly radical than most of us had imagined (or
even secretly wished)."30 The ultimate goal of many feminist theorists
is a complete reconstruction of human knowledge,3 heady stuff for
the typical MBA program to incorporate. Not all feminist teachers
see their classes as a training ground for revolt. However, by its
nature, feminist scholarship does lead students to a new view of how
things ought to be, and in that sense is inevitably concerned with
politics.
The possibilities of this sort of teaching in the business school by
now begin to look even more daunting than when my question was
first posed. Fortunately, as law teachers we come from a discipline
in which feminist principles and theory have been developing over
two decades. Feminist jurisprudence has in fact been at the forefront
of much of contemporary feminist theory. Feminist teaching has,
therefore, been incorporated into many law school settings. There
are texts and journals on women and law,32 and articles on feminist
jurisprudence appear in the top law reviews. Thus, unlike many of
" BELL HOOKS, TALKING BACK: THINKING FEMINIST, THINKING BLACK (1989); Ian
Barnard, Bibliography for an Anti-Homophobic Pedagogy: A Resource for Students,
Teachers, Administrators, and Activists, 7 FEMINIST TCHR 50 (1994); Barbara Omolade,
A Black Feminist Pedagogy, 3 & 4 WOMEN'S STUD. Q. 31 (1993); HIMANI BANNERJI, ET.
AL., UNSETTLING RELATIONS, THE UNIVERSITY AS A SITE OF FEMINIST STRUGGLES (1991);
O'BARR, supra note 19, at 104-110 (1994).
2
KATHLEEN
WEILER,
WOMEN
TEACHING
FOR CHANGE: GENDER,
CLASS
&
POWER
(1988); Ellen Messer-Davidow, Know-How, in (EN)GEN)ERING KNOWLEDGE, supra note 5,
at 281, 286, 300.
" Treichler, supra note 16, at 66.
31
Id.
J. RALPH LINDGREN & NADINE TAUB, THE LAW OF SEX DISCRIMINATION, (2d ed.
1993); MARY Jo FRUG, WOMEN AND THE LAW (1992); HERMA HILL KAY, SEX-BASED
DISCRIMINATION (3d ed. 1992); BERKELEY WOMEN'S L. J.; COLUM. J. GENDER & L.;
32
L. J.; WOMEN'S RTS. L. REP. (Rutgers University Law School); and YALE J. L.
FEMINISM.
&
HARVARD WOMEN'S L. RTS. L.; STANFORD J. GENDER & SEX ORIENT.; WISCONSIN WOMEN'S
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 223
our colleagues, we have a history and tradition to draw on in our
efforts to alter the master's house.
FEMINISTS TEACHING LAW
Justice is engendered when judges admit the limitations of
their own viewpoints, when judges reach beyond those limits
by trying to see from contrasting perspectives, and when
people seek to exercise power to nurture differences, not to
assign and control them. 3
The feminist legal literature provides both substantive and procedural challenges to traditional law teaching. Substantively, feminists
search for new ways to look at old legal categories. They have
developed a feminist jurisprudential approach to specific content
areas.3 4 Making gender a central analytical category, feminist scholars
have developed a powerful critique of liberal equality theory, demonstrating how such theory, based on the idea of rights that belong
to all persons in equal measure, is used to institutionalize power
imbalance.3 5 While they disagree among themselves, together they
have forever altered our thinking about the meaning of equal protection. 36 The feminist critique of liberal equality has brought about
' Martha Minow, Justice Engendered, in FEMINIST JURISPRUDENCE 217, 240-241
(Patricia Smith ed., 1993).
14 Feminist jurisprudence is sometimes labeled as an offshoot of critical legal studies,
which also challenges the basic assumptions of American law and stresses experience
over abstraction and collective over individualistic goals. However, this analysis
belittles some of the most outstanding work in feminist jurisprudence. While some
postmodern feminists might acknowledge their CLS links, Carrie Menkel-Meadow,
Feminist Legal Theory, Critical Legal Studies, and Legal Educatioh, or, The Fem-Crits
Go to Law School, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC. 61 (1988), liberal, socialist, radical and cultural
feminists claim other theoretical roots. See Ingulli, supra note 6, at 617-19; Worden,
supra note 21.
3 RHODE, supra note 14, at 59 (1989). Liberal equality theory defines equality as
treating like things alike. Thus rights oriented liberal feminists, focusing on litigation
and legislative reform as the route to higher status for women, argue that in essential
respects men and women are alike. They work for women's access to positions of
power and privilege, from which women can then achieve on the same footing as men.
Radical, Marxist or postmodern feminists, on the other hand, question the way in
which liberalism defines relevant differences. They argue that liberal equality theory
reinforces a male norm, and argue the need for profound change in existing power
structures to overcome the disadvantages of difference. Id. at 81-86.
1 CATHERINE A. MACKINNON, FEMINISM UNMODIFIED: DISCOURSES ON LIFE AND LAW
(1987); CATHERINE A. MACKINNON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN (1979);
RHODE, supra note 14; Christine A. Littleton, Reconstructing Sexual Equality, in
FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra note 3, at 35; Wendy W. Williams, The Equality Crisis:
224 1 Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
new analyses of basic gender discrimination law 3 1 and exposed the
way existing law ignores the intersection of race and gender, or
ethnicity and gender, as sources of oppression." Catherine MacKinnon
has succeeded in creating a totally new substantive definition of sex
discrimination that includes sexual harassment.3 9
In common law areas, feminists have challenged long-standing
definitions of rape and sexual assault, 0 while MacKinnon has argued
strenuously for making connections between sexual violence and
pervasive gender discrimination." Others have exposed the longstanding oppression of women in family law.4 2 The more businessoriented legal fields have also been the subject of feminist criticism.
Mary Jo Frug, for example, created a post-modern feminist study of
contracts.4 3 Leslie Bender and others have analyzed the gendered
nature of tort doctrines such as the reasonable person standard and
the duty to rescue." Joan Williams has argued that the debates over
Some Reflections on Culture, Courts and Feminism, id. at 15; MARTHA MINNOW, MAKING
ALL THE DIFFERENCE (1990); Feminist Reason: Getting It and Losing It, 38 J. LEGAL
EDUC. 47 (1988). Minnow's work is especially important, because she develops a very
broad theoretical framework encompassing all excluded points of view: those based
on race, religion, class, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity,
as well as gender; and because of her analysis of how dominant points of view become
embedded in social and political structures.
1 See LINDGREN & TAUB, supra note 32, at 93-102; 147-173; Vicki Schultz, Telling
Stories About Women and Work: Judicial Interpretations of Sex Segregation in the
Workplace in Title VII Cases Raising the Lack of Interest Argument, 103 HARV. L. REv.
1749 (1990).
8 Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist
Politics, in FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra note 3, at 57.
* CATHERINE A. MACKINNON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN (1979).
* SUSAN ESTRICH, REAL RAPE (1989); Frances Olsen, Statutory Rape: A Feminist
Critique of Rights Analysis, 63 TEX.L.REv. 387 (1984).
,, See MACKINNON, FEMINISM UNMODIFIED, supra note 36, at 25-55; and Difference
and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination, in FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra note 3, at
42
See, e.g., Frances E. Olsen, The Family and the Market: A Study of Ideology and
Legal Reform, in FEMINIST JURISPRUDENCE supra note 33, at 65-93.
1 Mary Jo Frug, Re-reading Contracts:A Feminist Analysis of a Contracts Casebook,
34 AM. U. L. REV. 1065 (1986); see also Clare Dalton, An Essay in the Deconstruction
of Contract, 94 YALE L.J. 997 (1985).
* Leslie Bender, Feminist Theory and Tort, 38 J. LEGAL EDUC. 1 (1988) (arguing
that the standard of care need not focus solely on reasonableness but could include
the level of care that would be taken by a neighbor or social acquaintance or a
"responsible person with conscious care and concern for another's safety." Id. at 25;
Lucinda M. Finley, A Break in the Silence: Including Women's Issues in a Torts Course,
1 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 41 (1989) (discussing the social construction of the doctrines
of intrafamilial immunity, damages, wrongful life and wrongful birth, and the public
duty doctrine.).
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 225
work and parenting, as well as abortion, are based on highly patriarchal notions of autonomy and free choice. 4 5 The list could go on
and on; these examples merely provide some sense of the rich body
of work from which we can draw as feminist legal scholars.
Feminist process has also influenced both legal process and the
law school classroom. The work of cultural, or relational feminists,
who claim that women's approach to knowledge, relationships and
reasoning about basic ideas and values is different from men's,4* has
led many to question the value of the adversary process itself. Carrie
Menkel-Meadow, and others, for example, argue that as women enter
the legal profession there will be more emphasis on consensual,
caring, relational goals, and more use of processes such as mediation,
in which mutual gain is the goal.4 7
Cultural feminism has been criticized by women as different from
one another as Mary Jo Frugs and Sandra Day O'Connor.49 Critics
argue either that there are no such differences, or that differences
may exist but reflect a male-dominated power structure. Cultural
feminists are accused of generating a politically dangerous re-creation
of the Victorian ideal of womanhood. Nevertheless their ideas have
led to a great deal of new thinking among women in law that attacks
the gendered characteristics of the adversary system itself: objectivity; neutrality; individualism; abstract notions of justice; rationality;
and win-lose outcomes.
Cultural feminists also address the alienation of women in law
school, due to a classroom setting that is deliberately intimidating,"5
" Joan Williams, Gender Wars: Selfless Women in the Republic of Choice, 66 N.Y.U.
L. REV. 1559 (1991).
. CAROL GILLIGAN, IN A DIFFERENT VOICE (1982); JEAN BAKER MILLER, TOWARD A
NEW PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN (1976). See Joan C. Williams, Deconstructing Gender, in
FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra note 3, at 95, 98.
11 Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Portia in a Different Voice: Speculations on a Women s
Lwyering Process, 1 BERKELEY WOMEN'S L.J. 39 (1985); Carolyn Jin-Myung Oh, Questioning the Cultural and Gender Based Assumptions of the Adversary System: Voices of
Asian-American Law Students, 7
BERKELEY WOMEN's
L.J. 125 (1991-92).
FRUG, supra note 3, at 7-10, 37 (1992) (referring to difference theory as essentialist
"sentimental boosterism," and "crude Gilliganism").
* Sandra Day O'Connor, Portia's Progress, 66 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1546 (1991). See also
Wendy Williams, The Equality Crisis: Some Reflections on Culture, Courts. and Feminism, 7 WOMEN'S RTS. L. REP. 175 (1982).
" See, e.g., Taunya Lovell Banks, Gender Bias in the Classroom, 38 J. LEGAL EDIC.
137 (1988); Wildman, supra note 8; Suzanne Homer & Lois Schwartz, Admitted But
Not Accepted: Outsiders Take an Inside Look at Law School, 5 BERKELEY WOMEN's L.
J. 1 (1989-90).
4
226 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
that devalues experience, that "decontextualizes problems" and insists on formal, hierarchical analytic reasoning.5 ' The Socratic method,
still the dominant teaching mode, can be oppressively authoritarian
and intimidating to some women (and some men).52 A recent study
by the Law School Admission Council showed that women's grades
in their first year at law school are lower than men's, in spite of
higher college grades. Moreover, although women score lower than
men on the LSATs, their performance that first year is even lower
than their scores would predict. The study's director hypothesized
that these results were due to a negative classroom environment for
women.
3
Feminist teachers argue for more emphasis on cooperative, collaborative and empathic lawyering, more clinics, simulations, pro bono
programs, and interactive learning projects.Y Some emphasize clinical
education as a way of contextualizing otherwise abstract doctrine. 5
Others, such as Catherine Hantzis, require students to experience
some aspect of the law outside the classroom: they participate in
demonstrations when studying the first amendment, sit in wheelchairs for several hours to experience disability, or take field trips
to battered women's shelters." Some teachers reject the more extreme forms of the Socratic method, decentralizing the classroom,
sharing authority with their students, and using group work and
mock hearings, and even journals and consciousness-raising sessions."
Lee E. Teitelbaum. et. al., Gender, Legal Education and Legal Careers, 41 J.
LEGAL EDUc. 443, 449 (1991) (questioning many aspects of relational feminism, but
documenting women's alienation in traditional law school settings).
5 Deborah L. Rhode, Missing Questions: Feminist Values and Gender Bias, 45 STAN.
L. REV. 1547 (1993); Guinier, supra note 8.
- Ken Myers, Study of Gender Difference Finds I-L Women Draw Lower Grades,
The NAT'L L. J., Jan. 30, 1995, at 17.
* Rhode, supra note 52, at 1559-60.
Abbe Smith, Rosie O'Neil Goes to Law School: The Clinical Education of the
Sensitive New Age Public Defender, 28 HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 1 (1993).
Clinical education places law in context. Law is not simply engraved words
in a heavy book. Law takes shape in a particular context: in chaotic courtrooms, in crowded jail cells, in crumbling public housing projects, on the
streets. Like feminism, clinical education has the potential to connect doctrine
to people, to connect ideology to institutions, to provide both a broad and a
narrow view. Clinical pedagogy and feminism are interdisciplinary in approaching these complex interrelationships. Id.
Id. at 8.
,I Hantzis, supra note 8.
9I
suspect, but cannot prove, that very few women teachers practice the Socratic
method in its more abusive forms. Patricia A, Cain, Teaching Feminist Legal Theory
at Texas: Listening to Difference and Exploring Connections, 38 J. LEGAL EDuc. 65
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 227
There is thus a strong basis in the law schools for a feminist legal
pedagogy, and for the incorporation of feminist techniques into business law classes.
FEMINISTS TEACHING BUSINEsS LAW
When was the last time someone told you that your way of
approaching problems, be they legal or institutional, was all
wrong? You are too angry, too emotional, too subjective, too
pessimistic, too political, too anecdotal, and too instinctual. I
never know how to respond to such accusations. How can I
"legitimate" my way of thinking? I know that I am not just
flying off the handle, seeing imaginary insults and problems
where there are none. I am not a witch solely by nature, but
by circumstance and choice as well. I suspect that what my
critics really want to say is that I am being too self-consciously
black (brown, yellow, red) and/or female to suit their tastes
and should "lighten up" because I am making them feel very
uncomfortable, and that is not nice. And I want them to think
that I am nice, don't I?"
When a company reinvents itself, it must alter the underlying
assumptions and invisible premises on which its decisions and
actions are based. This context is the sum of all the conclusions
that members of the organizations have reached.59
Teaching Business
Moving women to the center of a discipline is hard enough in
traditional liberal arts and sciences courses and law schools. In the
business school, without a longstanding feminist tradition, it is even
more difficult. But both business scholarship and business education
are changing, in ways that open the door for feminist work. There
is a fundamental questioning of basic assumptions about business and
the study of business. Old categories of knowledge, including the
(1988). (Cain had students take turns sharing personal stories of what it means to be
male, female, black, or white, in relation to the course material. She encouraged the
students to develop listening skills, which, she notes, is discouraged by the traditional
law school emphasis on structuring argument.) See also Wildman, supra note 8; Hantzis,
supra note 8.
Regina Austin, Sapphire Bound, 1989 Wis. L. REV. 539, 540.
Tracy Goss, et. al., The Reinvention Roller Coaster: Risking the Present for a
Powerful Future, HARV. Bus. REV., Nov./Dec. 1993, at 97-8.
228 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
separation of the traditional business disciplines, and older organizational structures within business firms, are being questioned and
deemphasized in favor of more holistic, multidisciplinary forms.
Changes in the American workforcess and the globalization of business
are leading to interest in multiple viewpoints and work styles.
In management scholarship there are now feminist women and
men publishing research that questions much of that discipline's
received knowledge."' Feminists study how gender stereotypes construct definitions of labor and work structures. They pose fundamental challenges to work in organizational theory, suggesting alternative
systems of knowledge about organizations and work. Feminists look
at how organizations, for example, contribute to and are formed by
the construction and maintenance of gendered persons; they expand
the focus on work to include household labor, and examine the
relationship of work and work structures to underlying social structure and individual status.6 2 Feminists in economics and finance are
challenging those disciplines' reliance on rational maximization of selfinterest as the organizing, motivating force in economic decisionmaking. Instead, they argue, many decisions are motivated by more
altruistic and collaborative aspirations. Peggy McIntosh's work on
transforming the curriculum is vital here. Her stages of curricular
change to incorporate feminism parallels theories of organizational
change to incorporate all types of diversity. 3
Today's applied management literature includes concern with fundamental change. Companies are told to reinvent, to reengineer
themselves, to question all their underlying operative assumptions,
to flatten themselves by sharing and diffusing authority,64 to encourage creativity and innovation. Firms must become "learning organizations," able to nurture diverse workforces and operate in a global,
B.
JOHNSTON, WORKFORCE 2000: WORK AND WORKERS FOR THE TWENTY-
AT WORK (Jerry A.
Jacobs ed., 1995); Calas
&
o WILLIAf
FmsT CENTURY (1987).
61 See, e.g., GENDER INEQUALITY
Smircich, supra note 18; POWELL, supra note 14. The Women in Management section
of the Academy of Management has a large membership with an interest in feminist
research in management.
62
Joan Acker & Donald R. Van Houten, Differential Recruitment and Control: The
Sex Structuring of Organizations, in GENDERING ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, supra note
18, at 15.
See supra note 11.
See PETER F. DRUCKER, MANAGING FOR THE FUTURE, THE 1990s AND BEYOND 157,
174-6 (1992). In contrast to old style hierarchical, command and control organizations,
Drucker states that "tomorrow's model is the symphony orchestra or the football
team or the hospital." Id. at 330.
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 229
multicultural environment.65 Old functional categories, like old values,
6
must be constantly deconstructed and reinvented." Managers must
be ready to process and use new information, to question the basic
assumptions behind every decision, and to accept contradictions and
ambiguity in decision-making.
Today, business leaders, and hence business teachers, must emphasize interdisciplinary, cross-functional approaches. They must appreciate and incorporate multiple management styles, and begin to
value styles that stress cooperation and collaboration rather than
pure competition. There is a demand for managers with interpersonal
skills, 7 skills in communication and in building relationships across
class, gender and cultural boundaries."
Just as managers are rethinking the compartmentalization of the
firm into discrete functional departments, educators are rethinking
the compartmentalization of the curriculum. 6 9 In business education,
the very notion of "disciplines" such as accounting, marketing, finance
and management as discreet bodies of knowledge is subject to challenge. Schools are now concerned with educating generalists, who
can think holistically, handle cross-functional jobs, and deal with
complexity and rapid change.7 o New paradigms and new analytic tools
are needed to deal with the uncertainty and complexity of the
business environment.71
" Karen 0. Dowd & Jeanne Liedtka, What Corporations Seek in MBA Hires: A
Survey, SELECTIONS, Winter 1994, at 34, 38; Gene Hall, et. al., How to Make Reengineering Really Work, HARV. Bus, REV., Nov./Dec. 1993, at 119.
* See, e.g., Roger Martin, Changing the Mind of the Corporation, HARV. Bus. REV.,
Nov./Dec. 1993, at 81 (arguing that for a company to change, managers must uncover
"what makes up the company's 'unconscious'-the buried principles of strategy enacted
in what managers routinely do with customers, suppliers, employees, and each other."
He urges managers to "reverse engineer" the corporate mind. Id. at 86.)
" In a recent survey of what businesses look for in hiring MBAs, the most commonly
sought skill was communication, defined as: "Development of skills in listening, negotiating, and having an awareness of others' needs. Communication training that
includes emphasis on listening, clarifying, obtaining and providing feedback, and being
sensitive to diverse perspectives is essential." Dowd and Liedtka, supra note 65, at
38.
* See, e.g., Dowd and Liedtka, supra note 65, at 38.
Bruno Dufour, Dealing with Diversity: Management Education in Europe, SELECTIONS, Winter 1994, at 7: "We must implement changes and redesign programs on a
permanent basis, asking questions of wide scope. For example, why should we teach
basic marketing anymore? Why don't we teach project management instead of basic
accounting or basic finance? Why can't we teach integrative topics from the beginning
rather than only at the end of a course of study?" Id. at 12.
7 Id. at 11-12. At my own school of business we have consolidated five traditional
core courses into three sequential, team-taught interdisciplinary courses that encourage
students to view business as an integrated, interdependent set of activities.
* Id. at 13.
230 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
A major and highly influential report on management education
concludes that, "[blusiness schools should emphasize the importance
of a broad education and avoid the specification of increased business
course requirements and electives at the expense of opportunities
for enrichment elsewhere in the university." The report urges that
"[miore attention should be addressed to synthesis and integration
of specialized functional areas in the curriculum than is now provided... ."7 It encourages interdisciplinary approaches to business
issues, curriculum and pedagogy, including collaboration across academic areas. 3 The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) has incorporated these ideas into its new accreditation
standards, demanding that schools graduate "managerial leaders"
instead of specialists in narrow functional areas. The standards now
require curricula that provide "an understanding of perspectives that
form the context for business," including ethical and global issues,
political, social, legal and regulatory, environmental and technological
issues and the impact of demographic diversity.74 Business curricula
should "[i]ntegrate the core areas and apply cross-functional approaches to organizational issues."7 5 At the AACSB 1992 annual
meeting, then-President Robert K. Jaedicke spoke of the need for
interdisciplinary research to deal with the "messy and ill-defined
issues of modern managers."76
"New paradigms," "context," "interdisciplinary," "messy and illdefined"-here is familiar territory to feminists. The meaning of
terms may vary somewhat in feminism and management scholarship,
but the similarities are worth searching for. Feminist scholarship is
holistic and interdisciplinary. Students trained to challenge and question existing dogma will bring to their business careers just the
skepticism and originality that business now demands. Feminists are
comfortable with ambiguity, and they welcome any questioning of
W. PORTER & LAWRENCE E. McKIBBIN, MANAGEMENT EDUCATION AND
12 LYMAN
DEVELOPMENT: DRIFT OR THRUST INTO THE 21ST CENTURY? (1991). The authors highlight
three "driving forces" for change in business education: accelerating rates of change
and complexity in technology; globalization of markets, communication, and human
resources; and increasing demographic diversity.
73' Id.
" AMERICAN ASSEMBLY OF COLLEGIATE SCHOOLS OF BUSINESS, STANDARD C.1.1
ACHIEVING QUALITY AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT THROUGH SELF-EVALUATION AND
PEER REVIEW: STANDARDS FOR BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTING ACCREDITATION (undated).
7 Id. at Standard C.1.3.e.
6 Jean Evangelauf, Business Schools Urged to Reorient ProgramsToward Managerial
Leaders, CHRONICLE HIGHER EDUC. (1992).
1995 ! Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 231
disciplinary boundaries.7 7 Feminism challenges traditional categories
of knowledge, which many of them see as symptoms of a patriarchal
need for abstract, rational ordering of ideas. Feminism encourages
structures that are flexible and inclusive. Teachers can model collaborative management when they create nonhierarchical, collaborative
classrooms. They teach interpersonal communication skills, and respect for others, through attention to experience and experiential
learning as a valuable source of knowledge. They can create managers
who are self-reliant, creative risk-takers and good problem solvers
when they force students to take responsibility for their own decisions and their own learning.
Because of its efforts to deal with race, class, ethnicity and sexual
orientation, feminism enables us to address multiculturalism and
promote the business goal of incorporating diverse people into management. At its best it can inculcate in students an ease with
difference and an appreciation of inclusive structures. These facets
of feminism make it important in preparing students for the internationalization of business, replacing colonialist attitudes towards
difference with truly inclusive understandings of different cultures.
To be sure, feminism has no monopoly on experiential, collaborative
work, nor on theories about transforming the corporation. Feminist
teachers can, however, contribute significantly to efforts already
under way to dismantle traditional thinking about management and
organizations.
There is also a danger that the prominence in some feminist
management literature today of cultural feminism, with its stress on
women's tendency towards collaborative and nonhierarchical ways of
thinking and behaving, falsely posits an essentialist notion of women
and disadvantages women who adopt other management styles. Relational feminism closely dovetails certain current management thinking on organizational structure and management styles. Business
scholars for at least two decades have been urging management to
reject hierarchical, authoritarian, chain-of-command management
structures in favor of more consensual, democratic systems. Part of
this stems from the early interest in Japanese management techniques, said to be far more collaborative, cooperative and participatory than western models. Theorists such as Douglas McGregor
argued for the importance of responsibility and empowerment in
GENDERING ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, supra note 18, at 1-8. For an excellent
overview of feminist critiques of organizational theory, see Jeff Hearn & P. Wendy
Parkin, Gender and Organizations: A Selective Review and a Critique of a Neglected
Area, id. at 46.
232 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
'
employee performance. 8 Peter Drucker popularized the notion of
management as a web, not a pyramid, rejecting an authoritarian and
competitive mode of operating organizations." There is also a turn
away from the rational, analytical and competitive modes of reasoning
generally characterized as male, in favor of what is perceived of as
women's greater emphasis on relationships, listening, intuition, feelings and collaboration."0
Not surprisingly, feminists have developed management theories
based on the fit between these feminine styles and business needs.8
Women managers are said to be more democratic, more concerned
with an "empowering, people oriented style."8 2 They share informa-
tion and decision-making, and they deliberately seek to "enhance
others' self-worth."" Much of this leads to a greatly exaggerated and
sentimental notion of women and how they function in business.
Women, it is said, can transform the corporation into a more collaborative and democratic structure that will end exploitation of workers
and the environment, enrich community welfare, and stop plant
closings or relocations off-shore. At the same time a feminist corporation would improve profits by empowering its employees, and
84
maximizing dedication to work.
DOUGLAS MCGREGOR, THE HUMAN SIDE OF ENTERPRISE (1960).
See, e.g., PETER F. DRUCKER, THE COMING OF THE NEw ORGANIZATION (1988).
su Susan Schick Case, The Collaborative Advantage: The Usefulness of Women's
Language to Contemporary Business Problems, V Bus. & CONTEMP. WORLD 81 (1993).
78
7
"
ROSABETH Moss KANTER, MEN AND WOMEN OF THE CORPORATION (1977); Patricia
Yancey Martin, Feminist Practice in Organizations: Implicationsfor Management, in
WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT: TRENDS, ISSUES, AND CHALLENGES IN MANAGERIAL DIVERSITY
274, 275 (Ellen A. Fagenson ed., 1993), citing S. HELGESON, THE FEMALE ADVANTAGE:
WOMEN's WAYS OF LEADERSHIP (1990); EDITH GILSON, AND SUSAN KANE, UNNECESSARY
CHOICES: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE EXECUTIVE WOMAN (1987); SARAH HARDESTY BRAY
& NEHAMA JACOBS, SUCCESS AND BETRAYAL: THE CRISIS OF WOMEN IN CORPORATE
AMERICA (1986); ELINOR LENZ & BARBARA MYERHOFF, THE FEMINIZATION OF AMERICA:
How WOMEN'S VALUES ARE CHANGING OUH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIVES (1985); MICHAEL
MACOBY, WHY WORK? LEADING THE NEW GENERATION (1988); JOHN NAISBITT AND
PATRICIA AUBURDENE, RE-INVENTING THE CORPORATION (1985); JOHN NAISBITT AND PATRICIA AUBURDENE, MAGATRENDS 2000 (1990).
82 Lisa Mainiero, On Breaking the Glass Ceiling: The Political Seasoning of Powerful
Women Executives, ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAmics 5, 14 (1994).
11 Id. See also KANTER, supra note 81; and Judy Rosener, Ways Women Lead, HARV.
Bus. REv. Nov. / Dec. 1990. at 119-125.
* "A corporation run by feminist principles would oppose the exploitation of
employees and the environment. A value on community welfare-and the collectivewould foster concern with making the corporation a more habitable, hospitable, and
equitable
work environment.... Feminist management
would protect the physical
environment through recycling, cleaning up, or detoxifying industrial wastes, complying with regulations and rules that protect workers and the ecosystem, and using
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 233
Obviously, not all women fit this model, and such theories deserve
the same critical analysis as more traditional ideologies. Nor should
women in management be pressured to stress these particular differences from a so-called male model. In fact, many feminist scholars
take a very different approach. Some argue that once women achieve
status and power they will become just like men, i.e., competitive,
prescriptive and domineering." Others stress that, whatever the
source of any gender differences, the real issue is a deep and pervasive system of dominance and subordination: women have developed different ways of functioning because that is how society expects
them to be, and that is how they survive and succeed.8 6 Mainiero's
research among high level women executives bears out both the
existence of a women's management style and the roots of that style
in a system of exclusion and oppression. The women she interviewed
had learned to use an intensely interpersonal, interactive style to
gain corporate power and credibility, even when that style might not
have seemed natural to them. As one woman in her sample stated:
... [W]omen do have better skills in listening and in working
in positions where they don't have the power. Women have
been without power for so long, you have to figure out how
to get things done when you don't have the power behind
you. So you learn to influence others, in a positive way, in a
way that men generally do not. 7
There is a danger for women in some of this thinking. For one
thing, relational, collaborative styles have been traditionally devalued
in American culture. The current stress on interpersonal skills may
biodegradable materials. It would promote the public interest and return profits to
workers and the community (in addition to officials and shareholders). Feminist
managers would resist closing factories as tax write-offs or moving them to third
world countries, where cheaper labor is found. Feminist managers would cooperate
with and improve, rather than dominate and degrade, the community and environment." Patricia Yancey Martin, supra note 81, at 288. (citations omitted).
' SUSAN UNGER & MARY CRAWFORD, WOMEN AND GENDER, A FEMINIST PSYCHOLOGY
145, 159-171 (1992).
36 Nancy
Henley & Cheris Kramare, Gender, Power, and Miscommunication, in
MISCOMMUNICATION AND PROBLEMATIC TALK 18-43 (N. Coupeland et al. eds., 1991); Joan
Scott, Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or. the Uses of Poststructural Theory
for Feminism, 14 FEMINIST STUD. 33 (1988); FRUG, supra note 3, at 48 ("Under a
progressive reading of Gilligan, sex-linked differences in discourse function as a clue,
as a 'logic of identification' to the location of silenced, marginalized, or subordinated
groups for whom legal assistance may be helpful." Id.)
17 Mainiero, supra note 82, at 15.
234 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
mask perpetuation of extremely harmful negative stereotyping among
those with the real power to bring about change. In fact, recent
evidence indicates that for all the talk of the need for interpersonal
management skills, these are not really valued in the corporate
hierarchy."
For me, the biggest contribution of feminist scholarship to business
and business education is simply a focus on challenge and a questioning of received knowledge, wherever that may lead individuals.
Moreover, whatever one's position on the essentialist debate, it is
vital that business students become aware of the issue, as well as
the many different styles that make for effective management. Those
management styles now identified with women must simply become
a part of management education, though not solely associated with
women managers.
None of this is meant to imply that only women, or only feminists,
can improve business education. Many men and women are working
together to create nontraditional learning environments that fit current business needs. But feminism can contribute a great deal to this
effort, and, just as it should not claim to be the exclusive source of
better education, it should not hide its value or merge it into some-
thing else.
Teaching Law
In our business law classrooms, there are opportunities for incorporating feminist pedagogy in order to respond to what managers
and business educators tell us is needed in today's schools. We can
now consider what a feminist business law class might look like.
What follows are some ideas toward which we can move, in slow
steps, each semester.
To place responsibility for learning on the students, students would
work in small groups on assignments that would make them struggle
with the hard questions raised by legal issues. They would be encouraged to critique what they read and heard, both through traditional legal reasoning (an arguably "male" mode) and through their
own experience and knowledge of competing values and competing
data. There would be many ways to communicate with each other
about the course: in the group work; in brief written responses to a
class or to a segment of the course; in evaluations of teaching and
the course itself; by computer notes; as well as in traditional papers
and exams. From time to time the students would have to make
" Barbara Presley Noble, The Bottom Line on 'People' Issues, N. Y.
19, 1995, at F23.
TIMES,
February
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 235
decisions about the course: dates of exams, due dates for papers,
topics to be covered.
There are readings that would give students some understanding
of the social construction of legal values such as freedom, justice,
equality, and due process. Decisional law could be examined to see
how images of women and men are reflected in judges' language,
and how assumptions about knowledge and truth reflect patriarchal
thinking and oppress women and others. The adversary system can
be questioned, with discussion of different, more collaborative ways
to resolve disputes.
The ideal law course would increase coverage of law's treatment
of marginalized groups, and not only in sections on employment
discrimination. First amendment topics would include Catherine
MacKinnon's antipornography work. 9 Equal protection classes would
discuss how we define equality, reasonableness, similarity and difference in ways that perpetuate existing power imbalances and force
everyone to conform to a single standard.
Feminist issues arise in other, more traditional business law topics
as well. In corporations, one might consider how the duty of loyalty
might be analyzed by a relational feminist. Insider trading and
securities fraud could lead to discussions of gender patterns among
professionals, and the conflicts that arise when certain information
must remain secret. Men and women's differing business and professional styles, and the source of those differences may be part of
management. Tort topics could include sexual assault and harassment,
and the feminist critique of basic tort concepts such as the reasonable
person or reasonable consumer standards, damage assessments, definitions of harm and legal wrong, bystander recovery and bystander
liability. 0 Contracts could open up questions about the efficient
breach theory, and the whole notion of rational economic behavior
and excuse for breach of contract." Questions might be raised such
as: Do women and men communicate differently; and if so, what does
that imply for oral and unilateral contracts? Why should not a promise
based on moral obligation be enforced? Do doctrines such as unconscionability incorporate feminist ethics? What about members of different ethnic groups or cultures, and their communication styles?
Students should understand that the underlying issues in the
debate over the constitutionality of the military exclusion of gay men
and lesbians are the same issues they will find in business. Students
" CATHERINE A. MACKINNON, ONLY WORDS (1993).
" See supra note 44.
* See suvra note 43.
236 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
should apply a knowledge of gender bias to questions of discrimination
against gay men and lesbians in the workplace, the need for insurance
benefits for nontraditional family members, and for marketing to an
increasingly open gay and lesbian community.
It is difficult to find teaching materials that incorporate feminist
pedagogy and theory into business law. However, there are texts on
women and law, and on employment law. The law reviews and the
growing feminist jurisprudence literature can be excerpted for business students.
FEMINIST TEACHING AND FEMINIST POLITICS, OR,
BOTHER?
Do
You WANT TO
So far, this article has said a great deal on how one might be a
feminist business law teacher. It has still not grappled with the main
question: can one be a feminist teacher in a business school? The
answer leads directly to the question of politics. Feminist pedagogy
is frequently defined as political. 2 It seeks fundamental change in
order to end the oppression of women. Yet business seeks change
only for its utility in meeting business goals: greater profits. The
two are hard to reconcile.
The difficulty for many of us in business education is how to
incorporate normative standards without falling into a purely utilitarian mode of thinking in which all groups are devalued as simply
resources to be exploited in the name of organizational success.
Merely teaching to improve business performance appears to turn
feminism into a tool of the patriarchy, helping to maintain and buoy
up a pervasively sexist system. Much management literature supports
this criticism. Managers are told they must learn to manage diversity,
including gender, in order to better compete, to take advantage of a
growing labor force. Women and people of color are discussed as
objects to be deployed, by men, for the ultimate goal of maintaining
the dominance of American business. Consider this statement, made
in an academic journal, in an issue devoted to women in business.
Women now represent over 40 percent of the work force and
will be an even more significant component in the future, but
organizations have been slow to capitalize on the potential of
their women employees. In particular, competent, promising
female professionals and managers represent a human resource that is frequently left underdeveloped. It is important
9 See supra text accompanying notes 29-31.
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 237
that organizational leaders recognize the valuable resource
that women represent in management and administrative
positions and use them effectively. Managers at all levels
need to develop the attitudes and expertise to make full use
of their female managers and professionals. Research can
provide a recognition of the major issues involved and the
knowledge of how to deal with them that will make managers
more effective in their roles."
11 Ronald J. Burke, Women in Corporate Management: Introduction, V Bus.
&
Workforce 2000, the document that demonstrates the changing demographics of the American workforce, is cited constantly to demonstrate that managers must learn to "deal with" the influx of "others"
into all American organizations.
To state the problem, however, is not to resolve it. There are
many good reasons for teaching feminism in the business school. All
teaching is political, in that all teachers and teaching institutions
transfer certain political values to their students along with "facts."
That is the nature of education. The current outcry from the religious
right over the teaching of family values is correct. Schools are vitally
important to the transmission of such values.
All teaching is also gendered, meaning that what we do in the
classroom carries with it, and has imposed on it, a meaning about
gender roles and gender status. The growing literature on the differential treatment of girls and boys and men and women in education
proves this.9 4 Yet the political nature of teaching is usually denied
because most of us teach such widely held political values that politics
becomes invisible, unnoticed. If everyone agrees with you, then your
opinions tend to be transformed into facts. If you teach what everyone
agrees with you are said to transmit academic knowledge, not political
and social values. Conversely, if you teach what is both unfamiliar
and critical, you are said to be politicizing education. That is why
injecting feminist critical questioning into a discipline is seen as
political, not academic?
CONTEMP. World 3, 7 (1993).
" MYRA SADKFR & DAVID SADKER, FAILING AT FAIRNESS: How AMERICA'S SCHOOLS
AAUW EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, How SCHOOLS SHORTCHANGE
GIRLS (1992).
- Katharine T. Bartlett, Feminist Legal Methods. in FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, supra
note 3, at 370, 374. Bartlett states: "The substance of asking the woman question lies
in what it seeks to uncover: disadvantage based upon gender. The political nature of
this method arises only because it seeks information that is not supposed to exist.
The claim that this information may exist-and that the woman question is therefore
necessary -is political, but only to the extent that the stated or implied claim that it
does not exist is also political. Id. at 375 (emphasis original).
CHEAT GIRLS (1994);
238 / Vol. 13 / The Journal of Legal Studies Education
Feminist teaching, by definition, seeks systemic change in the
status of women, and that is a political goal. If we teach women and
men to uncover implicit biases that oppress excluded groups, if we
encourage women to understand patriarchal structures and then
challenge them, then we work for change in the status of women. If
we show the patriarchal bases of law and how law has been and can
be changed, then we work for political change. If we can contribute
anything towards this process, does it matter much if what we teach
is also useful to business? If in the process we are part of a transformation of business, surely we should not give up.
In addition, in the business school, and throughout the university,
we can give political support to colleagues who want to bring about
change consistent with feminist ideas. We can support interdisciplinary teaching, and different teaching methods. We can take the lead
in faculty development efforts that educate teachers about gender,
race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities and other marginalizing
factors in the classroom and in our disciplines. Most of all, we can
maintain a critical stance towards our institutions. We can support
students who want a more inclusive university. We can work for,
and goad others to work for, real diversity among faculty and students.
The greatest reason, however, for bringing feminism into the
business school is still our students: those graduate and undergraduate women who now make up as much as 40% of the business
school population. We cannot continue to let them graduate, as is
now .the case, with no acknowledgement of feminist work in business
disciplines, including law, and with no appreciation of the implications
of gender for their own careers." Otherwise they may never be able
to overcome those difficulties.
We cannot let our students graduate with no understanding of
what is meant by the social construction of knowledge; and with no
sensitivity to the ways in which gender, race, class, ethnicity, and
other marginalizing factors are used to perpetuate existing power
systems. We certainly cannot leave them in ignorance of the data
that demonstrates how difficult it is, still, for women to move into
the top echelons of business and government. In other words, we
must give them the intellectual tools to question, from a gender
perspective, much of the received knowledge they will have to cope
with throughout the rest of their lives.
Finally, the answer to my preliminary question is another question,
the inverse of the first: the real question is not whether one can be
a feminist teacher in the business school. It is, rather, how can one
- Heidi Hartmann, Commentary, in
WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT,
8upra note 81, at 297.
1995 / Teaching Feminism, Law, and Business / 239
not be a feminist teacher in the business school? It may be a slow
and hard journey, but in the end there is no turning back.