FEMINIST JURISPRUDENCE LAW AS A PATRIARCHAL INSTITUTION Professor Susan Dimock York University 2007 Copyright © Susan Dimock 2007 Not to be used without written permission of the copyright holder. Patricia Smith, Feminist Jurisprudence Catharine Mackinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of State WARNING: THIS LECTURE CCONTAINS LANGUAGE AND CONTENT THE SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING FEMINISM descriptive/ empirical claim normative claim PATRIARCHY FEMINIST JURISPRUDENCE analysis and critique of law as patriarchal institution LIBERAL FEMINISM public/private equal rights remove barriers equal opportunity RELATIONAL FEMINISM ethic of care differences between men and women transform institutions to accommodate difference SAMENESS / DIFFERNCE DEBATE RADICAL FEMINISM (FEMINISM UNMODIFIED) gender is a social construction based on power must eliminate dominance so as to reconstruct gender genuine sex equality INTERNAL / EXTERNAL CRITIQUE paradigm shifts and cultural revolution 1 LAW AS PATRIARCHAL male point of view as legal standard standards of harm, due care, etc. specific laws LEGAL IDEALS neutrality abstract limits on judicial review judicial restraint precedence separation of powers division between public and private law standing POWER SEXUAL INEQUALITY sex as inequality (gender) and inequality as sex (sexualized dominance and subordination) SEXUAL EQUALITY R. v. Lavalle (1990) 1. S.C.R. 852 self-defence (subjective and objective conditions) victim of unlawful assult reasonable apprehension of death lack of alternatives to self-help admissibility of expert testimony relevance of expert testimony 2