Feminist legal theory

Introduction
Feminist legal theory, also known
asfeminist jurisprudence, is based on the
belief that thelawhas been fundamental in
women's historical subordination
The project offeministlegal theoryis twofold.
1.feminist jurisprudence seeks to explain ways
in which the law played a role in women's
former subordinate status.
2. feminist legal theory is dedicated to
changing women's status through a reworking
of the law and its approach togender.

History
The termfeminist jurisprudencewas
coined in 1977 byAnn Scalesduring
the planning process for Celebration
25, a party and conference held in
1978 to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the first women
graduating from Harvard Law School

Main approaches to feminist legal theory

the liberal equality model;

the sexual difference model;
the dominance model;
and thepostmodernor anti
essentialistmodel.

Liberal equality Model

Theliberalequalitymodel operates from within the
liberal legal paradigm and generally embraces
liberal values and the rights-based approach to
law, though it takes issue with how the liberal
framework has operated in practice. This model
focuses on ensuring that women are afforded
genuine equalityas opposed to the nominal
equality often given them in the traditional liberal
frameworkand seeks to achieve this either by
way of a more thorough application of liberal
values to womens experiences or the revision of
liberal categories to take gender into account.

Sexual Difference Model

The difference model emphasizes the significance of
gender differencesand holds that these differences should
not be obscured by the law, but should be taken into
account by it. Only by taking into account differences can
the law provide adequate remedies for womens situation,
which is in fact distinct from mens.The difference model is
in direct opposition to the sameness account which holds
that womens sameness with men should be emphasized.
To the sameness feminist, employing womens differences
in an attempt to garner greater rights is ineffectual to that
end and places emphasis on the very characteristics of
women that have historically precluded them from
achieving equality with men

Dominance model
The dominance model rejects liberal feminism and
views the legal system as a mechanism for the
perpetuation of male dominance. It thus joins certain
strands ofcritical legal theory, which also consider the
potential for law to act as an instrument for
domination.
In the account of dominance proposed by
Catherine MacKinnon, sexuality is central to the
dominance. MacKinnon argues that women's sexuality
is socially constructed by male dominance and the
sexual domination of women by men is a primary
source of the general social subordination of women.

Anti-essentialist model
Feminists from thepostmoderncamp have deconstructed
the notions of objectivity and neutrality, claiming that
every perspective is socially situated. Anti-essentialist and
intersectionalistcritiques of feminists have objected to the
idea that there can be any universal womens voice and
have criticized feminists, as didBlack feminism, for
implicitly basing their work on the experiences of white,
middle class, heterosexual women. The anti-essentialist
and intersectionalist project has been to explore the ways
in which race, class, sexual orientation, and other axes of
subordination interplay with gender and to uncover the
implicit, detrimental assumptions that have often been
employed in feminist theory.