Kentanji Brown Jackson Confirmed to Serve on U.S. Supreme Court

Posted on April 8, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Image from the White House website here.

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Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative Fellowship – Call for Applications

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative Fellowship

2022-2024 Research Fellowship or Postdoctoral Fellowship

Vulnerability theory presents an alternative to both a “rights-based” and a “social contract” paradigm for thinking about state responsibility, decentering the individual and focusing attention on the law’s construction and maintenance of the social structures and relationships in which we all live our day-to-day lives. Vulnerability theory explores the distorting effects of current conceptions of “liberty” and “equality” on the ways we understand and order essential social institutions such as the family, workplace, financial system, or health care, as well as considering the proper ordering of the paired relationships of cooperation and contribution contained within these institutions (parent/child; employer/employee etc.). The theory draws theoretical attention to the inherent inequality and unavoidable dependence of the human condition, which we argue must be acknowledged and justly addressed through the ways law shapes and maintains these social institutions and structures.

The Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative holds regular workshops and hosts visiting scholars from around the world. Learn more about the Initiative at our website. You can find our updates on Facebook and Twitter and learn more about the theory at Vimeo, SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and SSRN.

Job Description: Applicants for this position should be interested in vulnerability theory and articulate how they intend to use the theory in their research.

Responsibilities of a research or postdoctoral fellow include the following:

Assume primary responsibility for the development of your research and career.
Play an active role in seeking career and research advice, both from the faculty supervisor and from other faculty members as appropriate.
Perform the research required by the faculty supervisor to a high standard and in accordance with all institutional and federal regulations.
Assist in teaching courses aligned with VHC’s mandate when appropriate and attend the Initiative’s workshops and events.
Work in a collegial and cooperative manner with the faculty supervisor and other co-workers.

Start Date: The appointment will be a two-year full-time Research or Post-Doctoral Fellowship and will commence on August 1, 2022.
Remuneration: Your salary will be set at $60,000.00 per year. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, short-term and long-term disability, and retirement savings. More information here.
Research Assistance: You will also be provided a research fund of $1,200 per year to cover costs of your research and you may apply for additional funding if attending relevant conferences or for business-related travel.
Minimum Qualifications: A doctoral degree or equivalent (Ph.D., M.D., etc) in an appropriate field. Excellent writing ability and strong oral communication skills. The ability to work effectively and collegially with colleagues.
Competitive candidates will have a background or interest in jurisprudence, critical theory, philosophy, or political science, as well as vulnerability theory.

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Spindelman on Kavanaugh on Dobbs

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Marc Spindelman’s new essay, Dobbs‘ Dilemma (Why Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Ideal of “Scrupulous Neutrality” in Dobbs is a Pipe Dream), is available here on SSRN. It’s also published in today’s National Law Journal (here; paywalled).

Posted in Courts and the Judiciary, Feminist Legal Scholarship | Comments Off

CFP: The COVID Care Crisis Symposium Part II: Imagining Solutions and Taking Action

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

June 16-17, 2022

Virtual

Micro-abstracts due April 15.

Organized by Professors Cyra Akila Choudhury, Meera Deo, and Shruti Rana

Following up from our first COVID Care Crisis Symposium held in January 2021, we now invite colleagues to participate in the second symposium.

This second symposium seeks to take stock of COVID responses and to re-envision the workplace, to imagine the future of work, and to dream new realities for the academy. For legal academia, what has changed? And if change has not come, why not? And for the future, what changes can we envision and implement—individually, collectively, and institutionally? The hard work of rebuilding, renewal and re-imagining has begun, and we invite you to join us in naming, theorizing, and building solidarity to meet these challenges.

Topics proposed in the call for papers include but are not limited to responses to the following:

What has been the impact on caregivers’ scholarship and knowledge production during the pandemic? What may we have lost in these last two years?
What is the “new normal” in academia? What should it be?
What lessons about teaching, scholarship, and service have we learned during the pandemic that we can use in the future to make academia more equitable?
Has the US learned from the COVID Care Crisis in terms of addressing the needs of families with caregiving responsibilities? What were the international responses that we adopted or failed to adopt?
How did border closures, conference cancellations, and uneven global impacts of and responses to the pandemic affect inequalities in the global legal profession? What innovations or lessons from the pandemic can we build on to foster a more diverse and accessible profession in the U.S. and globally?
How has the pandemic changed the legal profession, legal institutions, and law schools? How should legal academia respond to or anticipate these changes?
In the latter part of the pandemic, we have seen an exodus from work and workplaces; how has this shaped our views of work?
How can we measure, memorialize or quantify the negative impacts of the pandemic and the COVID Care Crisis on knowledge production, promotion, and equality, from educational contexts to careers to public and civic participation?
What concrete steps did Promotion and Tenure Committees or other campus leadership take to mitigate the impact of the COVID Care Crisis on faculty and staff at all or any levels? What different strategies were used to support legal scholarship, clinical practice, academic support, leadership positions, or other roles? What could have been done better? How can we better support caregivers in these precarious positions going forward?
How have things changed or stayed the same for subordinated communities, including those who are in the intersections of race x gender x sexuality in our workplaces?
If we could reimagine academia into the ideal workplace, what would that look like? How can we achieve it?

Full details here.

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FIU Law Review Symposium Edition: The COVID Care Crisis and Its Implications for Legal Academia

Posted on March 17, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

The FIU Law Review has published (here) a Symposium Issues on “The COVID Care Crisis and its Implications for Legal Academia.”

Here is the table of contents:

The COVID Care Crisis and its Implications for Legal Academia, Cyra Akila Choudhury

“Blood, Sweat, Tears:” A Muslim Woman Law Professor’s View on Degenerative Racism, Misogyny, and (Internal) Islamophobia from Preeclampsia and Presumed Incompetent to Pandemic Tenure, Nadia B. Ahmad

The Center Cannot Hold: Zoom as a Potemkin Village, Hadar Aviram

Stereotypes, Sexism, and Superhuman Faculty, Teneille R. Brown

The Foundational Care Crisis, Stephanie M. H. Moore

The Need for Social Support from Law Schools During the Era of Social Distancing, Michele Okoh, Ines Ndonko Nnoko

Crisis, Rupture and Structural Change: Re–imagining Global Learning Engagement While Staying in Place During the COVID–19 Pandemic, Shruti Rana, Hamid Ekbia

Everything I Know About Teaching Was Reinforced by Auditing Remote Kindergarten, Allie Robbins

Archiving The Pandemic: What it Has Meant To Chronicle What We Wish To Forget, Katyayani Suhrud

So many of these essays will resonate with many of the readers of this blog!

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What’s Wrong with the Latest Proposed Federal “Menstrual Products Right to Know Act “

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Emily Waldman (Pace) and I have a lot to say about the absence of adequate federal oversight of menstrual products in our forthcoming book, Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods (forthcoming June 21, 2022, NYU Press). We devote an entire chapter to consumer health and environmental issues, including the “Menstrual Products Right to Know Act,” first proposed by U.S. Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) in 2017. That bill would have required all manufacturers of menstrual products to list the names of each ingredient or component on product packaging. Unfortunately, the bill has been introduced repeatedly without advancing. A new version under discussion represents a massive step back.

Representative Meng is a fantastic advocate for menstrual equity. She is responsible for so many positive changes, including federal laws giving incarcerated individuals the right to free menstrual products and the ability to buy menstrual products with flexible spending accounts.

The latest version of the Menstrual Products Right to Know Act, currently under discussion for reintroduction, does not require meaningful disclosure of all of the ingredients in menstrual products. The “Baby and Adult Hygiene Product Association” (yup, the industry group representing the big commercial manufacturers of menstrual products) is pushing for watered down language. Under the version of the bill favored by industry, the FDA could set its own thresholds that trigger any obligation to disclose added ingredients like artificial fragrances. Needless to say, that takes a lot of the “teeth” out of the legislation as an effective consumer disclosure law. First, the dangerous ingredients in menstrual products are not necessarily those intentionally introduced during the fabrication process but rather those found in the materials that make up the product components. Second, why should there be any safe harbors for added fragrances? We already know that scented tampons can alter the pH levels of the vagina and increase the risk for yeast infection and bacterial vaginosis. Neither the FDA nor the industry group has demonstrated that any level of added fragrance is safe for consumers.

In 2019, New York enacted a law requiring the disclosure of ingredients intentionally added to menstrual products. That already represented a step back from the proponent’s original goal of requiring all packages of tampons in the state to carry a “plain and conspicuous printed list of all ingredients with percentages of the components of the tampon and the applicator” (emphasis added).

Why does the industry group oppose full disclosure of what is in tampons and pads? Because if people actually knew what was in their products there were buying, consumers might think twice about their purchases. Contemporary research suggests that many of the common menstrual products that millions of people use regularly for several days every month for multiple years may, in fact, contain chemicals with harmful or unknown long-term effects on human health.

There is shockingly little federal research about the contents of menstrual products, and the FDA does not require that companies guarantee these products’ safety.

Anything short of full disclosure will allow manufacturers to continue to keep the contents of their products a mystery, to the detriment of the health of those who uses these products inside their bodies or very close to highly absorbent vaginal tissue.

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Open Access Book Announcement—The Politics and History of Menstruation: Contextualising the Scottish Campaign to End Period Poverty

Posted on March 10, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

On May 28, 2022, Menstrual Hygiene Day, the Open Library of Humanities will publish a new open-access volume, The Politics and History of Menstruation: Contextualising the Scottish Campaign to End Period Poverty. Here is the publisher’s description:

In 2021, Scotland became the first country in the world to make universal access to free period products a legal right. This has attracted extraordinary attention internationally, positioning Scotland as a leader on menstrual policy. Yet, little is known about why Scotland has been able to take on this role, and why at this historical moment of watershed change in many practices and policies surrounding menstruation, including sustainable period products, transgender menstruation, workplace menopause, tracking apps, menstrual disorders.

This special collection tracks the roots of the current developments through the history of politics, activism, medicine, public health, the arts and education around menstruation in Scotland and transnationally. It is the first collection to analyse and contextualise Scottish menstrual policy. Using archives, interviews, and case studies from other countries and historical periods, our collection poses the question: Why Scotland? Why menstrual rights? Why now?

The volume is edited by Bettina Bildhauer (University of St Andrews), Camilla Røstvik (University of Leeds) and Sharra Vostral (Purdue University, USA). A few of the essays have already been published. If interested, head over to the Open Library of Humanities (here) to read these essays:

Bettina Bildhauer, Uniting the Nation through Transcending Menstrual Blood: The Period Products Act in Historical Perspective
Lara Owen, Researching the Researchers: The Impact of Menstrual Stigma on the Study of Menstruation
Camilla Mørk Røstvik, Bee Hughes and Catherine Spencer, The Red Gown: Reflections on the In/Visibility of Menstruation in Scotland

I’m excited to read the entire book!

Posted in Feminism and Culture, Feminism and Economics, Feminism and Politics, Sisters In Other Nations | Comments Off

University of San Francisco Seeks Visitors 2022-2023

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

The University of San Francisco School of Law is seeking applicants for one or more Visiting Professorships for the 2022-2023 academic year. USF Law welcomes outstanding candidates in subjects including property, human rights, international law, contracts, torts, evidence, and critical race theory. The Visitor(s) may also have the opportunity to teach an elective/seminar, if the schedule permits, as part of a commitment to two courses each semester.

The University of San Francisco School of Law is steeped in a commitment to social responsibility and justice, hallmarks of Jesuit education, and focused on the training of skilled, ethical, and engaged lawyers. The Law School has a proud 110-year history of preparing its diverse graduates to be excellent and ethical attorneys who serve their clients and communities with integrity and in a socially responsible manner. The law school is committed to recruiting and retaining BIPOC faculty to reflect its mission and practice.

USF is located in one of the world’s most dynamic and progressive cities, which affords our community a global perspective and access to premier arts, culture, and centers of innovation. The campus sits in a beautiful neighborhood just north of Golden Gate Park and halfway between Ocean Beach and the Financial District.

Successful candidates possess a J.D. degree from an ABA-accredited law school and will demonstrate:

a record of professional excellence and strong classroom teaching skills;
a commitment to service and potential for success as a contributing member of a dynamic and diverse community
a willingness and ability to perform in either an in-person, hyflex, or remote modality.

The Visiting Professor is a temporary non-tenure-track appointment given to faculty with special skills to complement the law school curriculum. The appointee will usually be on leave or be retired from a full-time faculty position at another university. While in residence, the Visiting Professor will plan, organize, and teach in the school’s programs; perform research, and complete any other duties as assigned by the Dean or Associate Dean.

For additional information and to apply, please visit the USF Job Listing.

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What Questions Law Review Editors Ask Peer Reviewers

Posted on February 16, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

I’ve been asked twice in the last two submission cycles to provide an “external peer review” for a law journal where many of us would be thrilled to publish.

I’ve noticed some similarities in the questions I’ve been asked each time. I pass them along here in generic form. Many of us wonder what happens when our submissions go out for review. Here’s a slice of insight:

Is the Article’s account of the X [the state of the law/the development of the law] accurate and thorough?
Does the Article’s discussion of Y [interesting particular problem/question/focus that the author has] make a significant contribution to the scholarship in the field?
Is the Article’s evaluation of the problem identified by the author compelling compelling?
Does the Article make a persuasive case for adopting the normative solution the author advances?

These are good questions that could also help students who might be assigned to read a law review article for a class, among other scenarios.

Sharing this info FWIW!

Posted in Feminist Legal Scholarship, Law Schools | Comments Off

Emory Law Seeks Two New Faculty Members: (1) AI, Machine Learning, Data Science; (2) Bankruptcy/Commercial Corporate Law

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Emory University School of Law is seeking applications for two newly posted faculty positions. Additional information about both positions can be found below:

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science

Emory University School of Law seeks applications from legal scholars whose work engages issues related to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data science. Candidates should have exceptional records in research, teaching, and service and have attained a J.D., Ph.D., or equivalent degree.

Over the next several years, across its departments, Emory University “will hire 50 to 60 faculty members with a focus on, but not limited to, four topical areas: AI and Health; AI and Social Justice/Law; AI and Business/Economics and Entrepreneurship/Law; and AI and the Humanities and Arts.” Additional information about this initiative can be found here.

Candidates for the position must complete the online application, which requires creating an account, uploading a resume or CV, and providing basic personal information. In addition, applicants should submit a cover letter, a current CV, a published or unpublished academic article, a brief research agenda, and an indication of teaching interests (if not listed on the CV) to the chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee at law.faculty.appointments@emory.edu. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis over the next several academic terms.

Bankruptcy/Commercial/Corporate Law Professor (Open Rank)

Emory University School of Law seeks to fill positions in bankruptcy, commercial and/or corporate law. The positions are open to entry-level candidates and lateral candidates of all levels of experience. Candidates must have a J.D., Ph.D., or equivalent degree, and a distinguished academic record. Candidates should have a strong track record and/or show outstanding promise in research in bankruptcy, commercial law, corporate law or related fields, and the ability to teach one or more courses in these areas.

Entry-level candidates are strongly encouraged to participate in the AALS Faculty Appointments Register when the portal is opened for the 2022-23 hiring cycle. Lateral candidates must complete the online application which requires creating an account, uploading a resume or CV, and providing basic personal information. In addition, applicants should submit a cover letter, a current CV, a published or unpublished academic article, a brief research agenda, and an indication of teaching interests (if not listed on the CV) to the chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee at law.faculty.appointments@emory.edu. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis over the next several terms for positions beginning in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.

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Book Pre-Launch Event March 9, 12:50pm EST “Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods” @haublawatpace @egwaldman @nyupress Comments by @noa_asher @czarnezki @ KTQ @ProfLGTenzer + more

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

On March 8, 2022, 12:50pm-1:40 pm, Pace University is pleased to host a virtual book pre-launch for Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods by Emily Gold Waldman and me. The book will be published in June 2022 by NYU Press.

The Zoom event is free and open to members of the public, with pre-registration here.

Here’s the description of the program and the line-up:

Menstruation Matters:
Challenging the Law’s Silence on Periods
Virtual Book Pre-Launch and Spotlight on Haub Law Faculty

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 | 12:50 pm – 1:45 pm

Explores the burgeoning menstrual advocacy movement and analyzes how law should evolve to take menstruation into account.

Approximately half the population menstruates for a large portion of their lives, but the law is mostly silent about the topic. Until recently, most people would have said that periods are private matters not to be discussed in public. But the last few years have seen a new willingness among advocates and allies of all ages to speak openly about periods. Slowly around the globe, people are recognizing the basic fundamental human right to address menstruation in a safe and affordable way, free of stigma, shame, or barriers to access.

Menstruation Matters explores the role of law in this movement. It asks what the law currently says about menstruation (spoiler alert: not much) and provides a roadmap for legal reform that can move society closer to a world where no one is held back or disadvantaged by menstruation. Bridget J. Crawford and Emily Gold Waldman examine these issues in a wide range of contexts, from schools to workplaces to prisons to tax policies and more. Ultimately, they seek to transform both law and society so that menstruation is no longer an obstacle to full participation in all aspects of public and private life.

Posted in Recommended Books, Upcoming Lectures | Comments Off

ERA Symposium, March 3-4, 2022 @ERAProjectCLS @columbiajgl

Posted on February 10, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

ERAP project logo

This Zoom event is free and open to the public. Registration is here.

Posted in Upcoming Conferences | Comments Off

Sage Advice on Law Review Submissions via Break Into Tax from Leandra Lederman, Jonathan Choi & Indiana Law Journal 3L Editor Abbi Semnisky

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Some colleagues may know that Leandra Lederman (Indiana) and Allison Christians (McGill) are the cohosts of a YouTube video series called Break Into Tax that reviews important tax-related concepts and ideas in a fun and student-friendly way.

In a recent session, Professor Lederman and special co-host fellow tax prof Jonathan Choi (Minnesota) talked with Indiana 3L Abigael Semnisky, who is finishing up her time as the Executive Articles Editor of the Indiana Law Journal. Their session, called “Optimizing Law Review Submissions,” is available here. Even though I’m in my 20th year teaching, I learned many new things!

Here are a few tips/stats/facts from the program that I jotted down in my notes:

Many journals, including the Indiana Law Journal and the Minnesota Law Review fill their entire books during the spring submissions season. They do not have August/September seasons.
Last year, the Minnesota Law Review received 1585 submissions for the spring cycle (with 475 of those arriving on the very first day that submissions were open!). The journal received 1270 total submissions in February and 315 in March. By the end of March, they had filled their volume completely. The Indiana Law Journal reports similar figures.
The Indiana Law Journal accepts about 5% of the submissions they receive. Approximately 2/3 of the offers extended to authors are accepted. Minnesota accepts about 2% of all submissions. Approximately 2/3 of their offers extended are accepted.
In the view of outgoing EAE 3L Abbi Semnisky, the abstract is infinitely more important than the cover letter. Jonathan Choi revealed that he typically revises his abstracts multiple times. The abstract should set up the article’s subject for a general audience, explain why it is important, and why the article’s claims are novel. Don’t be shy about asking your home institution’s EAE for tips on making your abstract punchier (but please don’t recommend a buddy’s articles to your home institution’s journal; follow instead the advice of the NYT Ethicist here).
The cover letter is less important in Abbi Semnisky’s view. If you submit one, make sure that it is different from the abstract. Your letter should refer to your expertise and why the article matters (without repeating the abstract). A reference to your personal citation counts isn’t unwelcome, either.
How about titles? Punny or long ones are disfavored (i.e., there appears to be some anecdotal truth to the conventional wisdom that one should avoid titles with semi-colons).
What about those footnotes? 3L Abbi Semnisky is looking for approximately a 70% text to 30% footnote ratio. Footnotes not filled in or sparsely footnotes parts of the paper may rise some eyebrows.
Indiana Law Journal prefers to receive submissions in MS Word form, even though the Scholastica platform permits submission of either a PDF or a Word document. Having a Word document allows the student editors to see how many journal pages the article might take up in its formatting program. The sweet spot for article length is 20k-28k words.
For those who like Mendeley (I’m talking to you, Louie), Jonathan Choi has created a Bluebook extension here. Amazing!
On expedites, this EAE tends not to distinguish between expedites from specialty journals versus main journals (this is somewhat contra the conventional wisdom I’ve heard through the years). Expediting definitely bumps an author out of the undifferentiated pile. Jonathan Choi and Leandra Lederman both do not counsel sending your article to a journal that you would not accept “just to get an offer.” The EAE will not necessarily expedite based on the fact that the author is under board review at another journal.
Deadlines to respond to an offer may range from 1 week to 2 weeks, subject to negotiation. Be honest, be kind, and try to meet the journal half-way. Jonathan Choi did mention that there are some journals that expect answers on the spot or in a few hours.

Thanks to Leandra, Jonathan and Abbi for doing this helpful video!

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Nunna, Price & Tietz on “Hierarchy, Race & Gender in Legal Scholarly Networks”

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Keerthana Nunna (Michigan JD ’21), W. Nicholson Price II (Michigan) and Jonathan Tietz (Michigan) have posted to SSRN their working paper Hierarchy, Race & Gender in Legal Scholarly Networks. Here is the abstract:

A potent myth of legal academic scholarship is that it is mostly meritocratic and that it is mostly solitary. Reality is more complicated. In this Article, we plumb the networks of knowledge co-production in legal academia by analyzing the star footnotes that appear at the beginning of most law review articles. Acknowledgements paint a rich picture of both the currency of scholarly credit and the relationships among scholars. Building on others’ prior work characterizing the potent impact of hierarchy, race, and gender in legal academia more generally, we examine the patterns of scholarly networks and probe the effects of those factors. The landscape we illustrate is depressingly unsurprising in basic contours but awash in details. Hierarchy, race, and gender all have substantial impacts on who gets acknowledged and how, what networks of knowledge co-production get formed, and who is helped on their path through the legal academic world.

The full paper is available here.

Here’s a short summary of some of the paper’s main findings:

Not to hide the ball: we find that authors tend to acknowledge scholars from peer schools, most of all their own school, but also to typically acknowledge folks from somewhat fancier schools. We find that men are acknowledged more than women and nonbinary scholars,3 and white scholars more than scholars of color. We examine intersectional effects, which are complex; read on to find out more. One bright spot here: networks of scholars of color appear to be particularly robust.

I’m looking forward to digging into the data more.

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CFP—Rewriting the Abortion Narrative: The Power of Popular Culture

Posted on February 3, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Abstracts are due 2/15/22

Rewriting the Abortion Narrative: The Power of Popular Culture

With the Supreme Court poised to radically change or even overturn Roe v.

Wade after hearing the Mississippi Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

Organization case, critical attention is being turned toward the changing

ways popular culture depicts abortion. Popular culture is uniquely

positioned to offer these narratives, particularly given the research that

suggests that the way abortion is depicted in popular culture impacts

cultural perceptions of abortion and may even, as Steph Herold has noted,

“have very real ‘policy implications,’ particularly in such a politically

charged climate.”

We are currently accepting proposals for essays that deal with

popular-culture depictions of abortion in the last 20 years that are

changing the narrative about abortion in a wide range of popular culture,

including film, television, literature, and music, blogs, podcasts or

social media.

Underlying questions of the project include, but are not limited to:

– How can popular culture contribute to the destigmatization of

abortion?

– How can popular culture correct misinformation and misunderstanding

about abortion?

– How have abortion narratives changed in the last 25 years?

– To what extent might the entertainment industry influence pulic policy

pertaining to abortion rights?

– Are current abortion narratives showing the obstacles and barriers to

abortion experienced by many women?

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

– Greater opportunities for first-person abortion narratives

– Absence of race, ethnicity, and class diversity in abortion narratives

– Availability of medication abortions

– Safety of abortion

– Abortion comedies

– Backlash against anti-choice legislation

– Abortion stigma

– Family and friend support for abortion

Please submit a 250-word abstract by Feb. 15, 2022.

*Submission Information: *Submit proposals of 300 to 500 words by *Feb. 15*

to Brenda Boudreau at bboudreau@mckendree.edu and Kelli Maloy at

kem25@pitt.edu. Abstracts should outline the author’s theoretical

framework and identify the goals of the essay Complete essays, of

approximately 4000-6000 words, will be due by June 1, 2022.

*About the Editors*

Brenda Boudreau is a professor and the James M. Hammil Chair of English at

McKendree University. She has published on a wide range of film and

television series. She serves on the Popular Culture Association board and

currently serves as the VP of Awards.

Kelli Maloy is an Associate Professor of English at the University of

Pittsburgh at Greensburg. Her publications and areas of research include

contemporary writing by Irish women and topics in popular culture.

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Ever Wondered About Best Way to Submit Piece to an Online Law Review or Journal?

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Here is some info about submitting to the online companions at 20 journals.

Posted in Academia | Comments Off

New Book Announcement: Anthony C. Infanti, Tax and Time: On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Anthony C. Infanti (Pitt) has published Tax and Time: On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination (NYU Press 2022). Here is the publisher’s description:

green book cover

The relationship between tax law and society, Anthony C. Infanti asserts, is too often overlooked by those who work outside of the field of fiscal policy. Yet, the way a country collects and spends its revenue can be viewed as a quantifiable reflection of how a country sees itself, sending messages about both what it values now and what it aspires to be in the future.

Tax and Time sheds light on two of the most misunderstood universal human experiences: time and taxes. Anthony C. Infanti asserts that time in tax law is the product of pure imagination and calls into question the world beyond time that we have created for ourselves. Written with clarity and powerful insight, Tax and Time demonstrates how the tax laws have been used to imaginatively manipulate time in ways that perpetuate economic and social injustice. With its social justice focus, the book brings a sorely needed critical perspective to technical tax policy discussions. Infanti calls for a systematic reexamination and reworking of the relationship between time and tax law, asserting that the power of the legal imagination to manipulate time in tax law can both correct past injustices and help us to envision—and actually work toward—a better and more just society.

For anyone who is interested, the book’s Introduction is available for free on SSRN here.

NYU Press logo Tony Infanti is the foremost American scholar of U.S. tax law and policy’s multiple intersections with LGBT taxpayers. Chapter 2 of the book, Time Travel Avoided (or, Justice Denied), explores how the IRS seemingly failed to apply its own rules of construction when it came to recognizing rights of same-sex couples in the pre-Windsor era, and the tax law’s ongoing and stubbornly persistent preferences for “married” taxpayers. The Chapter also looks at the ways the IRS struggled with issues of tax exemptions for racially segregated school in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. At least in the early days, the IRS “chose not to apply substance-over-form principles in an apparent effort to disturb existing power structures in US society as little as possible.” (p. 88)

For anyone interested in the relationship between taxation and a capacious understanding of justice, this book is a must-read. It is completely accessible to non-tax scholars and students and would make for great reading in a seminar or other course looking at the intersections of financial institutions/systems and equality/inequality.

Posted in Recommended Books | Comments Off

Lessons from Outgoing Editors at Stanford Law Review, Harvard Law Review, and Yale Law Journal (and please stop calling scholarship “sexy”)

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Tonight I attended the “Stanford-Harvard-Yale Joint Journal Information Session” billed as follows:

Description: Wondering how to submit to the Stanford Law Review, Harvard Law Review, or Yale Law Journal? Join our live Q&A webinar next week, January 31 at 4:00 PM PT/7:00 PM ET. This joint session, co-hosted by the outgoing Articles Chairs of all three journals, will answer your questions about the nuts and bolts of the article selection process. The event aims to increase transparency and encourage submissions, so will be centered around your questions and concerns. We particularly encourage young scholars, first-time authors, scholars of color, and other diverse scholars to attend. We can’t wait to see you there!

The program was informative and I’m grateful to the students for their time. I’ve never had an article advance very far in the process at any of those three journals, but I figured I’d log on and try to learn something. Hope springs eternal, right? Judging by the questions from the audience, many people found the session informative and helpful.

What did I learn? The journals have some similar practices. Some issues they handle differently. Here are some of my main take-aways (idiosyncratic to me; I was not trying to take detailed notes):

Observations Across All Three Journals

What good is an “exclusive” submission? Well, it may give the students a head start on processing your article, but it does not mean that the article will necessarily be fast-tracked.
The students do say they look at every article and take preemption and peer review seriously.
The journals are take seriously anonymity and peer review.
The journals try to respond to expedite requests as best they can, but turn-arounds of hours or a few days are almost impossible to accommodate.

Yale Law Journal

Yale’s “fall” submissions seasons runs from approximately July 15 through the end of the first week in August.
They don’t read cover letters or resume (because they are too busy with the articles). You can include these materials, but they won’t be read.
So what’s the “extra” document upload on the YLJ site for? Appendices to empirical pieces, mostly.
If you get to final board review, your chances of acceptance are roughly 10%.

Harvard Law Review

If you get to final board review, your chances of acceptance are roughly 50%.
The journal will consider proposals for book reviews (or completed book reviews, but they don’t get many) in April.
The journal receives submissions every day of the year, but they have especially robust submission/review cycles approximately February 1 to mid-April and then again August 1 to mid-September.

Stanford Law Review

If you get to final board review, your chances of acceptance are roughly 10%.
If you submit an article “exclusively” to Stanford, they assume you are not submitting to any other journal. You can let them know the submission is exclusive via Scholastica.
They don’t read cover letters or resume (because they are too busy with the articles). You can include these materials, but they won’t be read.
They start reviewing when their portal opens and stop reviewing around the first week of March. There is another week after their quarter ends–around March 21–but otherwise, they will be done reviewing for the academic year at the end of March.
The students leave about 7 slots for articles to be accepted in the fall cycle.
The Stanford Law review looks for two kinds of articles: “hawks” and “owls.” “Hawks” are “sexy and innovative.” “Owls” take a fresh look at a more familiar topic.

The “sexy” reference for scholarship was completely cringeworthy. I assume only good intentions on the part of the students–the desire to convey enthusiasm for articles with new perspectives and original topics. But we all can do better than using terms like “sexy” to describe excellent scholarship. The term is lazy, sensationalist and unnecessarily sexual.

Posted in Academia | Comments Off

CFP: Third Bienniel Conference on Critical Trusts and Estates @OCULaw April 8-9, 2022

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

building on blue background Oklahoma City University School of Law will host the Third Biennial Conference on Critical Trusts and Estates April 8-9, 2022 in Oklahoma City. The conference provides a forum for a wide range of work dealing with connections between succession law, broadly defined, and systemic inequality. We invite submissions of proposals for both individual papers and panels from any of a wide range of perspectives – historical, empirical, doctrinal, textual, theoretical and practical. We especially welcome submissions from junior scholars and those who have not attended in the past. Please send 200-300 word proposals to Phyllis Burke, at pdburk@okcu.edu by February 21, 2022.

There is no charge to attend the conference and remote-participation options likely will be available. There is no publication commitment associated with the conference. Participants are expected to pay their own travel and hotel. Some meals will be provided.

Posted in Call for Papers or Participation | Comments Off

#Menopause as a Lens for Evaluating the Intersections of Ageism & Sexism & Racism

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

What started off a few years ago as an investigation of state sales taxes on menstrual products has taken my work in many unexpected directions.

My colleague Emily Gold Waldman (Pace) and I have combined forces (and expertise) to write a book that takes a 360-degree look at the many ways that menstruation intersects with the law. We undertake a sustained investigation of the intersections of menstruation and sales tax, for sure, but also poverty, education, employment, prisoners’ rights, environmental issues, corporate law, and cultural taboos, to name some of the major topics we cover. The book will be published this coming June by NYU Press. The book is called Menstruation Matters: Challenging the Law’s Silence on Periods.

The work on menstruation has led—unexpectedly and wonderfully— to a series of three related forthcoming pieces, co-authored with Naomi Cahn (UVA). In that trio, we look at menopause as another life-cycle event with unexpected intersections with the law. We focus on menopause in the employment context; the legal treatment of menopause as compared with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and menstruation; and how menopause is conceptualized both as a medical problem and something that can be “managed” through technology (with all of the attendant privacy-related concerns). For anyone who is interested, here are those three menopause papers:

Working Through Menopause, 99 Wash. U. L. Rev. (forthcoming)
Contextualizing Menopause in the Law, 43 Harv. J. Gender & Law (forthcoming 2022)
Managing and Monitoring the Menopausal Body, 2022 U. Chi. L. Forum (forthcoming 2022)

We’d be excited to hear from anyone else working on similar issues or in related areas!

Posted in Elder Law, Employment Discrimination, Feminism and Culture, Feminism and Law, Feminism and Medicine, Feminism and Technology, Sisters In Other Nations | Comments Off

Evaluating Menstrual Leave as a Viable Workplace Policy

Posted on January 23, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Marian Baird (University of Sydney Business School), Elizabeth Hill (Political Economy, University of Sydney) and Sydney Colussi (University of Sydney Business School) have published their article Mapping Menstrual Leave Legislation and Policy Historically and Globally: A Labor Entitlement to Reinforce, Remedy, or Revolutionized Gender Equality at Work? 42 Comp. Lab. L. & Pol’y J 187 (2021). Here is an except from the introduction:

Professor Marian Baird

Women’s participation in the labor market continues to be of interest to governments in most nations, yet it is widely acknowledged that women do not participate on equal terms or with equal outcomes to men. While gender and cultural norms are important determinants of women’s labor market experience, institutional arrangements, and particularly formal labor law, also have a significant influence in shaping women’s work life. Over 2.7 billion women across the world are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Amongst the 189 economies assessed by the World Bank in 2018, 104 economies were found to have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, while 59 economies have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace and, in 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working.

Professor Elizabeth Hill

While these and other laws remain a critical focus in achieving gender equality at work, and have received considerable academic and policy attention, menstrual leave and its role as a workplace measure to promote women’s advancements in paid work remains largely unacknowledged and under examined, despite growing interest in the subject, in both academic and public spheres. There are no cross-national global studies of menstrual leave and there is little discussion of its use or implications for workplace gender relations. Available studies primarily focus on the policy’s historical development, including its complex relationship with both pronatalist state agendas and feminist trade union movements.This literature also sheds light on the class implications of menstrual leave, which evidently has the capacity to divide women from men, and each other. Menstrual leave is also rarely addressed in the critical menstrual studies literature, which provides broad analysis on the systemic disconnect between menstruating bodies and public spaces, but seldom engages with menstruation in the workplace, and rarely as a workplace gender equality measure.

Research Associate Sydney Colussi

It is in this context that we argue it is timely to evaluate menstrual leave legislation and policy and its potential role in improving or undermining women’s equality in paid work. Our analysis focuses on the design, motivation and intent embedded in national labor codes and company menstrual leave policies, and the official discourses used to frame their introduction. This is a necessary first step given the lack of empirical literature evaluating the impact of menstrual leave on workplace gender equality.

The full article is available on ProQuest, Lexis and Westlaw (institutional subscription required; sorry). It’s worth a read for anyone interested in gender inequality and employment law.

Professor Baird, Professor Hill and Research Associate Sydney Colussi are co-convenors of TheBody@Work Project at the University of Sydney Business School. That project “reimagines the future of embodied work and investigates how workplaces can make radical strides to offer a truly inclusive and supportive experience for all workers.” (More info here.)

Emily Gold Waldman (Pace) and I take up the topic of menstrual leave in the U.S. context in our forthcoming book, Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods, due out from NYU Press in June 2022. Our conclusion there is that, unless carefully crafted, menstrual leave policies would be subject to constitutional challenge. We also discuss the lack of consensus in the U.S. context about the need for menstrual leave. Ultimately, even if well-drafted policy passes constitutional muster, the details matter. One concern is potential backlash against those who actually take menstrual leave.

I look forward to following this issue and to reading more from Marian Baird, Elizabeth Hill and Sydney Colussi!

Posted in Employment Discrimination, Sisters In Other Nations, Women and Economics | Comments Off

What’s the Difference Between an Article and an Essay? Part 3

Posted on January 22, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

I’ve previously mused here and here on the differences between an “article” and an “essay” intended for publication in a law review.

Today I stumbled across this definition from the editors of the Harvard Law Review:

A piece will be considered an essay if it is 25 law review pages or fewer in length, and its primary purpose is to advance an idea, summarize a development, or initiate or engage in discussion.

This question is one that is on my mind more often than not—probably because I don’t want to overclaim about what it is I’m writing. But I am not sure that the HLR definition nails it. I think “articles” advance ideas and engage in discussion, too. So is the only difference length?

I think I’m less certain of the answer than when I first blogged about this almost ten years ago!

Posted in Academia, Feminist Legal Scholarship | Comments Off

It’s Not a Feminist Judgment, but 9th Cir. Judge Writes Shadow Opinion to His Own Majority Opinion

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

Judge Lawrence VanDyke

So, it’s not remotely a feminist judgment, in the sense of embracing feminist methods or values (however broadly defined). All the same, a concurring opinion of Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals embraces the project’s methods. Using the same law and facts that he used to write the majority opinion for a three-judge panel deciding a Second Amendment challenge to COVID-related gun store closures, Judge VanDyke has written an “alternative opinion” (to his own opinion) as a concurrence.

His point? Show his colleagues, whom he predicts will hear the case en banc, how to reach the same conclusion with different reasoning.

#PeriodTok is #MenstrualCapitalism in Disguise (and Period Underwear May Not be as Safe as You Think)

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

picture of underwear with two blood drops

image source: Plan International UK

In an article for the New York Times, Menstruation Gets a Gen Z Makeover, writer Pooja Makhijani shines a light on the the stigma-busting, shame-free ways that some young people are talking about menstruation. She writes:

Members of Gen Z and beyond are more forthcoming about their periods than generations past, and they are more likely to care whether the products they use are environmentally sustainable. The convergence of the two ideals may signify a cultural shift in how young people are approaching menstruation.

More options for reusable period products like absorbent underwear, menstrual cups, cloth pads and panty liners, and applicator-free tampons are on the market now than ever before — some made just for teens and tweens…..

The article even features a picture of Nadya Okamoto (but no mention of her ouster from the organization she co-founded, Period) who has reinvented herself as a sustainable menstrual products entrepreneur. Okamoto and others take to Instagram and TikTok to share experiences and product tips. One pediatrician hailed these videos as sources that young people gravitate toward, because “Teens are looking for conversations around people’s experiences, not five-star Amazon reviews.”

But let’s be clear: Most of the “influencers” promoting products on #PeriodTok are there to sell something. Yes, the messages feel more “real” and personal than glossy ads or typical web promo text. Yes, the messages often promote body positivity and empowerment. That is great. The savvy consumer will remember, though, that there’s a whole industry out there selling menstruation-related products and services that seek to profit from menstruation. In a nutshell, this is simply the latest incarnation of menstrual capitalism: the marketing and selling of menstrual hygiene products by means of feminist messages that attempt to create a public-relations “halo effect” for companies that are, at their core, commercial enterprises that seek to profit from the bodies of menstruating individuals.

Oh, and the New York Times article is framed with a profile of a woman who “together” with her two daughters have founded a company to sell “a line of undergarments for tweens, which includes reusable period underwear that offers an environmentally friendlier alternative to disposable pads and tampon.” (As someone who teaches Corporations, Tax Trusts & Estates, I have lots of questions about the venture’s potential structure and operation, but that’s not the subject of this post.) Special products for tweens are wonderful. They have different needs that adults do, to be sure. But it’s all part of the same cycle (no pun intended) of selling more products.

Historian Lara Friedenfelds, quoted in the article, notes that Gen Z concerns about at the nexus of menstrual products and environmental issues are not new to the 21st century. For those who can afford more sustainable products, menstrual cups, period underwear and even modern riffs on cloth pads may be welcome alternatives.

round picture showing products that contain PFAs

image source: riversideca.gov

With the emphasis on menstrual products’ environmental profile, it is easy to overlook that some of these eco-conscious products raise serious health concerns. As Emily Gold Waldman and I explain in our forthcoming book, Menstruation Mattters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods (NYU Press 2022), some period underwear contains nanosilver, commonly used as an odor reducer in athletic clothes and shown in animal studies to enter the bloodstream after contact with genital tissue. Researchers have also found that the period underwear Thinx contains high levels of PFAs— substances that make cookwear non-stick. (There are also contradictory studies; the company itself denies that its products contain PFAs, but its patent application suggests otherwise.) What are PFAs? I’m no scientist, but some perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances have been linked to all sorts of problems, including reduced fertility, disruptions to the immune system, thyroid disease, cancer, liver damage and pregnancy-induced hypertension. So choosing period underwear because of its reusability may come with trade-offs that should be part of the conversation. I don’t think #PFAs are trending on #PeriodTok.

If that weren’t enough, add into the mix the insufficient about links between toxic shock syndrome and menstrual cup use. Given that a common recommendation is to change one’s cup every 8-12 hours, there need to be more and better warnings about the risks of toxic shock syndrome.

Discussions about menstruation should be free of shame and stigma. But the conversations also should acknowledge that some participants have profit-minded goals when products are the subject. And even products that are “better” for the environment may not be better for human health.

Posted in Women and Economics, Women's Health | Comments Off

Don’t Leave Students Questioning How and Why We Use the Socratic Method

Posted on January 14, 2022 by admin

photo of woman with brown hair and glasses

Professor Jamie Abrams

As our Feminist Law Prof community finalizes syllabi for 2022 in a rapidly-changing COVID-19 teaching environment, it is time again to reflect on the robust literature critiquing the Socratic method. We can all continue to modernize this technique to better meet the needs of all students. Certain performances of the Socratic method, which I call “problematic performances” in a recent law review article about inclusive Socratic teaching, are marginalizing and harmful for students when deployed in ways that are professor-centered, power-centered, fear-inducing, and abstractly framed around the “norm of perspectivelessness.” Literature revealing the gendered and racialized harms of the Socratic method is well-documented, sustained, and notably pioneered by the influential work of Professor Lani Guinier. The Socratic method can – indeed, must – be performed inclusively. It can be styled around techniques that are student-centered, skills-centered, client-centered, and community-centered, as I argue in a forthcoming book project with the University of California Press on the imperatives of inclusive Socratic teaching.

One simple and straightforward way to perform the Socratic method inclusively is to bring clarity and transparency to how this technique aligns with our course learning and outcomes and how students should engage with it effectively. What do we want our students to be able to do at the end of our class? How does the Socratic method help students achieve these goals? Faculty, for example, might deploy the Socratic method to build analytic reasoning skills, apply legal doctrine to diverse client representations, critique the strengths and weaknesses of legal rules, and so much more. Both faculty and students alike will benefit from transparency in articulating why we use the Socratic method in our classrooms and how students can perform with it. Here is some simple proposed language to stimulate your thinking:

I will use the Socratic method as a tool for class participation. The Socratic method positions students as active class contributors engaging, analyzing, and thoughtfully evaluating the material and how it affects our communities and lives. It also can contribute to your professional development as you work on legal reasoning, public speaking, and rule-based application skills. We will all approach the Socratic method transparently and collaboratively. All students will be on call. When on call, relax as best as you can, and remember that this is a conversation and a dialogue roleplaying the practice of law in our communities on behalf of clients. The key to Socratic participation when not on call is to recognize that your classmates will be presenting key concepts and rules, not your professor. Listen carefully and take notes while your classmates participate. We are all committed to the same goals – learning the legal rules, testing their boundaries, and bridging these rules into practice readiness.

For further reading on these topics, consider reading my prior writings on Reframing the Socratic Method and Legal Education’s Curricular Tipping Point Toward Inclusive Socratic Teaching.

—Jamie R. Abrams, University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law

Posted in Law Teaching | Comments Off

Laufer-Ukeles on The Power of Blood: The Many Faces of Menstruation in Jewish Law and Beyond @UDaytonLaw

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Christine Corcos

Pamela Laufer-Ukeles, University of Dayton School of Law; Academic Center for Law & Science (Mishpat College of Law), is publishing The Power of Blood: The Many Faces of Menstruation in Jewish Law and Beyond in volume 41 of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law (2021). Here is the abstract.

This Essay discusses competing narratives relating to menstruation as portrayed in Jewish law and culture, and assesses the implications of such narratives for modern legal systems. These narratives depict menstruation in all its contradictions — as taboo and power, as health and imperfection, and as reflecting biological difference but not inequality. Each narrative will be discussed from a textual, legal, communal and, occasionally, personal perspective, conveying different meanings that have different cultural impacts, modern applications and reflect different aspects of the quest for equality.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Posted in Academia | Tagged Law and Gender | Comments Off

In Memoriam Lani Guinier, 1950-2022

Posted on January 8, 2022 by Bridget Crawford

image source: BOHN, John GLOBE STAFF/The Boston Globe

Rest in peace and power, Professor Guinier. You will be missed.

The New York Times obituary is here.

Harvard’s notice is here.

Posted in Deaths | Comments Off

All In by @BillieJeanKing is a Fabulous Read

Posted on December 29, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Cover Image of Billie Jean King memoir, I just finished reading Billie Jean King’s memoir (written with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers), All In. It’s a fantastic read for anyone interested in sports, second-wave feminism, Title IX, LGBT rights, social change (or several or all). The last few chapters, devoted mostly to her post-tennis life, won’t appeal to everyone, but they are what law professors might call “bring down” chapters–explaining how everything in the book (her life!) leads up to her current views on social change/social justice and current projects.

Billie Jean King is someone who lives her values. I had tears rolling down my eyes by the end of the book, which she ends this way:

It’s been a lovely, sometimes lonely, often soul-shaking, ultimately gratifying ride. It’s been full of sparks and recrimination. But I came through it.

I am free.

Amen and thank you, Billie Jean King.

Posted in Feminism and Culture, Feminism and Sports, Feminist Legal History, Firsts, LGBT Rights | Comments Off

Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Property Opinions–Change the Way You Teach Your 1L Course This Spring

Posted on December 19, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Eloisa C. Rodriguez-Dod (FIU) and Elena Maria Marty-Nelson (Nova Southeastern) have edited a wonderful collection of Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Property Opinions (Cambridge U Press 2021).

For anyone interested in teaching with feminist judgments, Linda Berger, Kathy Stanchi and I have some ideas here.

Faculty whose libraries subscribe to the Cambridge Core already have digital access to all of the Feminist Judgments books, so assigning a chapter or two to students is a (copyright-hassle-free) great option.

Among the contributors to this fabulous volume are Hannah Brenner Johnson, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Dan Burk, Andrea B. Carroll, Richard Chused, Phyliss Craig-Taylor, Olympia Duhart, Angela Fernandez, Alexandra Flynn, Jill Fraley, Brian Frye, Jon Garon, Erika George, Marc-Tiroc Gonzalez, Lindsey Gufstason, Carrie A. Hagan, Hannah Haksgaard, Taja-Nia Henderson, Berta Hernandez-Truyol, Meghan Hottel-Cox, Susan Etta Keller, Diane Klein, Stevie Leahy, Stacy Leeds, Donna Litman, Guadalupe Luna, Julia D. Mahoney, Elena Maria Marty-Nelson, Kali Murray, Meredith Render, Eloisa Rodgriguez-Dod, Stephanie M. Stern, Natasha N. Varyani, Pamela A. Wilkins, Danaya C. Wright, and Lua Kamal Yuille.

Check it out!

Posted in Feminist Legal Scholarship, Law Teaching | Comments Off

Free Menstrual Products for 141 Middle Schools in Loire, France

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Via the podcast Nova, this news of a program in the Loire-Atlantique region of France to make menstrual products available for free in 141 middle schools:

Après une expérimentation de plusieurs mois dans quelques établissements, la mesure est étendue sur toute la Loire-Atlantique.

D’après le département, en France, 1,7 millions de filles et de femmes sont touchées par la précarité menstruelle et doivent trouver des alternatives. Ces alternatives ne sont pas toujours bonnes, et peuvent avoir de graves répercussions sociales et sanitaires telles que l’absentéisme ou la mise en danger de la santé.

C’est pour ces multiples raisons que 141 collèges publics comme privés bénéficient de cette mesure. Normalement, deux distributeurs seront installés dans chaque établissement.

En plus de cela, les filles de 6ème auront un kit des premières règles constitué de tampons et de serviettes avec un guide pédagogique. Et les garçons de 6ème auront aussi un livret informatif pour mettre fin au tabou autour des règles.
Le conseil régional des Pays de la Loire travaille aussi sur ce projet, mais pour les lycées.

The regional government is sponsoring a similar program for high schools.

H/T Mary Anne Case.

Posted in Sisters In Other Nations, Women and Economics, Women's Health | Comments Off

Menopause and the Law: 3 Forthcoming Articles Exploring Intersections of Gender, Age, Disability

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Emily Gold Waldman (Pace), Naomi Cahn (UVA) and I have just posted to SSRN three working papers on menopause and the law. We had so much to say that we needed three articles to do it! Here they are:

Contextualizing Menopause and the Law, forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender – an analysis of menopause in the broader context of the socio-legal treatment of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and menstruation, arguing that the law should move beyond individual one-off accommodations for “abnormal” manifestations of these conditions and instead recognize the broad spectrum of what can be considered “normal” experiences

Working Through Menopause, forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review – situates menopause in U.S. equality jurisprudence broadly and suggests a place for menopause in employment law in particular. We articulate a normative vision for menopause equity in the workplace and suggests possible pathways for achieving it.

Managing and Monitoring the Menopausal Body, forthcoming in the University of Chicago Legal Forum – a look at menopause hormone therapy, menopause apps and other digital technologies, with a critique of “menopause capitalism.” We define (and critique) that as the marketing and selling of menopause-related products through messages that celebrate autonomy, community, or femininity by businesses that are, at their core, commercial enterprises.

Each article in the trio has one of our names first, second, third, reflecting the joint efforts.

We would be glad for any and all feedback!

Posted in Feminism and Culture, Feminism and Technology, Feminism and the Workplace, Feminist Legal Scholarship, Sexism in the Media, Socioeconomic Class, Women and Economics, Women's Health | Comments Off

Please add your tributes to #GloriaWatkins #bellhooks here

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Please use the comments to post your tributes to Gloria Watkins (aka bell hooks) here. We’ll aggregate all of the comments into a single post after December 30, 2021.

May she rest in peace and power.

Photo of Gloria Watkins Writer bell hooks. Liza Matthews bell hooks Institute

Posted in Academia | Comments Off

bell hooks, a literary giant

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Lolita Buckner Inniss

bell hooks, a literary giant, has passed on. In the single, brief interaction that I had with her, she reminded me of what it takes to achieve such greatness.

Posted in Academia | Comments Off

Will Colorado be the Next State to Repeal the #TamponTax?

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Watch out for legislation coming in 2022. The Denver Post has a story here.

Posted in Women and Economics | Comments Off

CFP: Integrating Doctrine & Diversity: Inclusion and Equity Beyond the First Year

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

From Nicole P. Dyszlewski, Raquel Gabriel, Suzy Harrington-Steppen, Anna Russell and Genevieve Tung:

We are pleased to invite you to contribute a proposal for a new book, Integrating Doctrine & Diversity: Inclusion and Equity Beyond the First Year to be published by Carolina Academic Press. This work will build on the foundations established in our previous project, Integrating Doctrine & Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom, published earlier this year.

This new title will present case studies, teaching strategies, and personal reflections centered on how law faculty can engage with diversity, equity, and social justice topics in the upper-level JD curriculum. While we seek to present a wide spectrum of subjects, we intend to emphasize widely taught courses, including Evidence, Professional Responsibility, Criminal Procedure, Administrative Law (and/or courses with a substantial administrative component, such as Environmental Law), Tax, and Business Organizations. We also welcome submissions focused on upper-level experiential course work and Academic Success.

Each chapter will feature contributions from multiple authors. Each chapter will also have a selected annotated bibliography of additional resources, written by a law librarian, specific to each subject.

Format:

If you are interested in contributing, please email a statement of interest and a one paragraph summary of your piece to Genevieve Tung at gtung@law.upenn.edu. The deadline for proposal submissions is December 1, 2021.

Completed contributions must be no longer than 3500 words. The final manuscript will be prepared using The Bluebook, 21st ed. and The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed.

First drafts due: June 30, 2022

Final drafts due: Nov. 30, 2022

Publication: Spring 2023

Contact:

Please direct any questions to a member of the editorial team:

Nicole P. Dyszlewski, ndyszlewski@rwu.edu

Raquel Gabriel, raquel.gabriel@law.cuny.edu

Suzy Harrington-Steppen, sharrington-steppen@rwu.edu

Anna Russell, Anna_Russell@LB9.uscourts.gov

Genevieve Tung, gtung@law.upenn.edu

Posted in Call for Papers or Participation | Comments Off

New Issue of Columbia Journal of Gender & Law, 2021 Thirtieth Anniversary Symposium: Are You There Law? It’s Me, Menstruation

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Here are the essays published in Volume 41, Number 1 of the Columbia Journal of Gender & Law:

Anita Bernstein

Are You There, Law? It’s Me, Semen

Ann Bartow

“Are You There, Trademark Law? It’s Me, Misogyny.”

Naomi Cahn

Justice for the Menopause: A Research Agenda

Elizabeth B. Cooper

What’s Law Got to Do With It? Dignity and Menstruation

Christopher A. Cotropia

Law’s Ability to Further the “Menstrual Movement”

Bridget J. Crawford

Menstruation and the Bar Exam: Unconstitutional Tampon Bans

Amy Fettig

Menstrual Equity, Organizing and the Struggle for Human Dignity and Gender Equality in Prison

Michele Estrin Gilman

Periods for Profit and the Rise of Menstrual Surveillance

Beth Goldblatt, Linda Steele

Disposable Menstrual Products as Law’s Objects

Valeria Gomez, Marcy L. Karin

123-32

Menstrual Justice in Immigration Detention

Victoria J. Haneman

Menstrual Capitalism, Period Poverty, and the Role of the B Corporation

Lolita Buckner Inniss

It’s About Bloody Time and Space

Margaret E. Johnson

Asking the Menstruation Question to Achieve Menstrual Justice

Pamela Laufer-Ukeles

The Power of Blood: The Many Faces of Women’s Monthly Menses in Jewish Law and Beyond

Prianka Nair

Menstruation: An Ableist Narrative

Carla Spivack

Are Women Human? Tampon Taxes and the Semiotics of Exclusion

Divya Srinivasan, Bharti Kannan

Establishing the Unconstitutionality of Menstrual Exclusion Practices in India

Hawi Teizazu, Marni Sommer, Caitlin Gruer, David Giffen, Lindsey Davis, Rachel Frumin, Kim Hopper

“Do We Not Bleed?” Sanitation, Menstrual Management, and Homelessness in the Time of COVID

Emily Gold Waldman

Compared to What? Menstruation, Pregnancy, and the Complexities of Comparison

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf

Menopause and the Menstrual Equity Agenda

Deborah A. Widiss

Menstruation Discrimination and the Problem of Shadow Precedents

Inga T. Winkler

Menstruation and Human Rights: Can We Move Beyond Instrumentalization, Tokenism, and Reductionism?

Laura Agyropulo Coryton, Lucy Marie Russell

Paying for Our Periods: The Campaign to Tackle Period Poverty and End the Tampon Tax in the UK

Kit Johnson

Tales of a Flow Stayed By Nothing: Menstruation in Immigration Detention

Stevie Leahy

Benefits and Challenges to “Period Policies” – Menstruating Individuals Are Empowered Through Inclusive Dialogue and Advocacy

Maria Ni Fhlatharta

Menstrual Regulation as a Means of Reproductive Control: The Law’s Response to Disabled Bodies and Menstruation

Dara E. Purvis

How Sex Ed Fails People With Periods

Also, readers may be interested in the fourteen symposium companion essays that were published earlier this year:

Continue reading →

Posted in Feminist Legal Scholarship | Comments Off

Michigan Repeals the Tampon Tax

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

The Office of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s announcement is here.

Posted in Women and Economics | Comments Off

New Book Announcement – “Gender and Social Movements” by Jo Reger

Posted on November 4, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Jo Reger (Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, Oakland University) has published a new book called Gender and Social Movements (Wiley 2021). Here is the publisher’s description:

How does gender influence social movements? How do social movements deal with gender?

In Gender and Social Movements, Jo Reger takes a comprehensive look at the ways in which people organize around gender issues and how gender shapes social movements. Here gender is more than an individual quality, it is a part of the very foundation of social movements, shaping how they recruit, mobilize and articulate their strategies, tactics and identities. Moving past the gender binary, Reger explores how movements can shift understandings of gender and how backlash and countermovements can often follow gendered movement successes. Adopting both an intersectional and global lens, the book introduces readers to the idea that gender as a form of societal power is integral in all efforts for social change.

With a critical overview across different types of movements and gender activism, such as the women’s liberation, #Metoo and transgender rights movements, this book offers a solid foundation for those seeking to understand how gender and social movements interact.

Here is a list of women-owned book stores, if you’d like to order through one of them.

Posted in Activism, Recommended Books | Comments Off

25th Anniversary Silver Jubilee Celebration of Margaret Thornton’s Iconic Work, “Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession”

Posted on November 4, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

On Thursday, November 18, 2022, 10-11:30 a.m. [that’s evening time on Wednesday, November 17, 2022 on the east coast in the US and Canada; time zone converter here], the Australia National University College of Law will be holding a celebratory webinar in honor of Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession (Oxford 1996), a path-breaking work by Margaret Thornton.

Picture of book cover Dissonance and Distrust, Margaret Thornton

Here is a description of the program:

In 1996 Margaret Thornton’s landmark book Dissonance and Distrust was published. This webinar is a celebration of the book’s insights and its continuing relevance and resonance for study of women in the legal profession today. The seminar brings together Emerita Professor Mary-Jane Mossman for her opening address, followed by three Australian speakers, each taking one of the key themes in Dissonance and Distrust: Associate Professor Heather Roberts (ANU College of Law) on the Legal Profession and the Judiciary, Dr Susan Bartie (University of Tasmania) on the Legal Academy, and Associate Professor Ann Genovese (Melbourne Law School) on Critical Feminist Legal Theory. The event will close with a response from Professor Thornton and questions from the audience.

About Dissonance and Distrust

In Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession (Oxford 1996), Margaret Thornton provides a compelling theoretical account of the continuing resistance to the participation of women as legal professionals, despite their increased presence in law schools and in some areas of legal practice. She suggests that women are still ‘fringe-dwellers in the jurisprudential community’ (Thornton 1996: 3-4) and will remain so until it is recognised that the issue is not simply one of women being ‘let in’ to the profession in equal numbers to men, but also involves posing fundamental questions about the character and constitution of law as it is taught and practised.

About Margaret Thornton

Emerita Professor Margaret Thornton is a socio-legal and feminist scholar whose work on the legal academy and the legal profession is internationally recognised. She is regularly invited to participate in international projects.

She has published extensively in the area of discrimination and the law. Her book The Liberal Promise (Oxford, 1990) remains the only critical study of discrimination law in Australia. Her book, Dissonance and Distrust (Oxford 1996) is the only study of women in the legal profession in Australia. It was translated into Mandarin and published in Beijing (Law Press, 2001).

Margaret also has a particular interest in the impact of the corporatisation of universities on the legal academy and has conducted research in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, as well as Australia. Publications from this research include Privatising the Public University: The Case of Law (Routledge, 2012). Her current ARC-funded research focuses on work/life balance in corporate law firms, particularly the gendered effects of globalisation, competition and technology.

More details and the registration link are here.

Posted in Courts and the Judiciary, Feminist Legal Scholarship, Feminists in Academia, Firsts, Law Schools, Legal Profession, Sisters In Other Nations | Comments Off

Michigan on Target to Repeal #Tampon Tax

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

From the AP (here):

The Michigan Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would eliminate the so-called “tampon tax” on menstrual products, sending it to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who is expected to sign it into law.

Michigan would join over 20 other states that have either ended the sales tax on menstrual products or never had one…. * * *

Both chambers in the Republican-controlled Legislature have voted in the last month to approve lifting the tax, and now one of the bills is heading to Whitmer’s desk where it is expected to be signed into law. The Democratic governor has backed efforts to abolish the tax in Michigan.

Posted in Women and Economics | Comments Off

CFP–Inheritance: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Call for Book Chapters

Inheritance: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Editors:

Suzanne Lenon, Associate Professor, Dept. of Women & Gender Studies, University of Lethbridge, Canada

Daniel Monk, Professor, Department of Law, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Abstract Submission Deadline: January 15, 2022

Why Inheritance?

Inheritance catapults private intimacies into the public domain of law. Behind the seemingly strict legal formalism of inheritance, succession and probate law – writing wills/determining intestacy – lies a whole set of social, cultural, familial, and affective processes. It is this intersection of the social and the legal that interests us.

Inheritance is a topic of interest to a wide range of scholarly fields/inquiry. Historians of the distant and recent past have used wills to reveal and sometimes challenge assumptions about religious practice and the role of women. Philosophers have focused on the principle of testamentary freedom to question the notion of life and harm after death. And the centrality of will-writing in fiction has meant that many literary scholars know more about the subject than most lawyers. More critically, social historians, political theorists, critical race scholars and feminists have focused on inheritance as a site to address issues of nation-making, the creating and entrenching of classed, gendered and racial inequalities, and perpetuating biological models of race, white supremacy and patriarchy. In doing so they expose and trouble the violence underlying colloquial phrases such as ‘family money’, and the practices and protection of the legal industry of ‘estate planning’.

At the same time, other scholars point to inheritance – and particularly will-writing – as practices for sustaining existing religious, and other minority groups and for imagining and recognising new communities and relationships of care. All these scholars highlight the centrality of inheritance to shifting, contesting and queering understandings of ‘kinship’ and ‘family’. Scholarship here – most notably within the field of sexuality studies

looks at inheritance not only as the set of legal processes for the distribution of wealth and property upon death, but as an affective structure of belonging and as co- constitutive relationships between the personal and the social and the legal. In doing so it reveals the richness and complexity of ideas and practices associated with ‘passing on’, ‘legacies’ and ‘heirlooms’ and begs the questions: what do we do with our inheritances, what do our inheritances do to us?

Thinking about inheritance reveals the tenacity of existing power structures but also the essential and constant work of ‘private’ law to sustain them, and, consequently, the possibilities of alternatives. In foregrounding ‘generationality’, scholarship about inheritance provides a space to think about both the past and the future, of both society and the self.

We hope to explore these questions and more and in bringing together contributions from across disciplines our aim is to demonstrate the foundational place of inheritance in law and society. The following are suggestive only of the potential subjects of interest:

The Politics of Testamentary Freedom
Making and Remaking Family and Kinship
Sustaining and Challenging Inequality
Queering Inheritance
The Practices of Will-Writing
Religious Laws and Practices
Heirlooms and Material Objects
Inheritance in Literature
Inheritance & Reparations
Methodological Approaches to Inheritance
Property & Kinship
Historical Perspectives
Inheritance Families
Inheritance & Racial Inequalities
Inheritance in Settler Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts

We welcome proposals that look beyond legal doctrinal analysis and adopt different approaches and understandings of ‘inheritance’ from diverse fields such as law, sociology, anthropology, history, political theory, feminism, critical race studies, socio- legal studies, queer studies, and law & literature.

We welcome contributions from both established and junior scholars (including PhD students).

To submit your chapter proposal, please send a 500-word abstract with title, short bio, and contact information to Suzanne Lenon (suzanne.lenon@uleth.ca) and Daniel Monk (d.monk@bbk.ac.uk) by January 15, 2022. Selected authors will be expected to submit a full paper (length 6000-8000 words) by July 15, 2022.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to informally discuss a potential proposal. We are in conversation with an academic press regarding publication.

Posted in Call for Papers or Participation | Comments Off

Toxic Substances in Tampons and Pads Near You (Really Near You)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

In a Journal of Women’s Health preprint, researchers at the University of Michigan have published the results of their study of exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 25 users of tampons and menstrual pads.

Here is an excerpt from Ning Ding et al., Feminine Hygiene Products & Volatile Organic Compounds in Reproductive-Aged Women Across the Menstrual Cycle: A Longitudinal Pilot Study, J. Women’s Health (2021), DOI: 10.1089/jwh.2021.0153:

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) include a wide variety of chemicals in many household products, including personal care products, paints, adhesives, gasoline, and building materials….VOC exposure has been associated with developmental, reproductive, neurologic, immunologic, and carcinogenic effects in animal models and humans. Several VOCs are listed on the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)’s Substance Priority List due to their known or suspected toxicity and the potential threat to human health. ***

Vaginal and vulvar tissues are more permeable than exposed skin due to differences in tissue structure, occlusion, hydration, and susceptibility to friction. The mucosa of vaginal and vulvar epithelia have high permeability to contaminants given the absence of a keratinized stratum corneum and loosely packed skin layers. Arteries, blood vessels, and lymphatic vessels are abundant in the walls of the vagina, which allows for direct uptake of chemicals through peripheral circulation.

Given the toxicity of certain VOCs and the unique characteristics of the vaginal and vulvar tissues, potential VOC exposure through this exposure pathway should be minimized. ***

In the present study, we detected 36 VOCs in a small cohort of women, including hexane, n-nonane, hexanal, non- anal, benzene, toluene, p-isopropyltoluene, 2-butanone, and methyl isobutyl ketone. We did not observe significant longitudinal changes in urinary VOC concentrations across the menstrual cycles. Compared with women who used pads or liners during the period, tampon users had significantly higher 2-butanone and methyl isobutyl ketone concentrations. Higher n-nonane, benzene, and toluene estimated from menstrual products were associated with higher urinary concentrations in women. While our findings from this pilot study do not support the hypothesis that the use of menstrual products increases urinary VOC concentrations during the period, they do suggest that tampons may contribute to higher exposure to 2-butanone and methyl isobutyl ketone than sanitary pads. Future studies with repeated measurements and a larger sample size are warranted to confirm our results.

Upshot: There is a whole lot we don’t know about the safety of tampons and pads. Menstrual products are almost entirely unregulated by the federal government, as Emily Waldman and I explain in our forthcoming book, Menstruation Matters: Challenging Law’s Silence on Periods (NYU Press 2022). And state disclosure laws have been so watered down as to be largely ineffective.

The lack of knowledge about the long-term safety of menstrual products used close to highly-absorbent tissue or inside the human body should ring alarm bells. But it’s not clear that our legislators are listening.

Posted in Women's Health | Comments Off

New Italian Budget Still Discriminates in the Form of Tampon Taxes

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

In world news (here), the draft budget for 2022 in Italy still endorses gender discrimination in the form of the tampon tax, but decreases the VAT from 22% to 10%. Governments continue to generate money from the literal bodies of those who need these products to manage an involuntary biological process.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s cabinet on Tuesday passed a draft budget for 2022 worth some 23 billion euros (26.7 billion U.S. dollars), which would deliver expansionary measures including a sharp cut in income taxes.

The draft indicates the main policy framework the government intends to follow for next year, including the targeted budget balance and the projections for expenditure and revenue.

The budget aims at boosting Italy’s growth to 4.7 percent next year, according to the forecast provided by the Economy and Finance Ministry in late September. * * *

Overall, the government set aside some eight billion euros to implement the tax cut. The measure would be mainly devoted to decreasing the tax wedge, namely the difference between the total labor costs borne by an employer and the net take home pay of a single average worker.

Despite having partially reduced it recently, Italy still showed the fifth highest tax wedge — amounting to 46 percent of total labor costs — among the 37 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2020.

The cabinet approved a cut from 22 percent to 10 percent of the so-called tampon tax, meaning the value-added tax charged on feminine hygiene products such as tampons.

The draft budget also included stimulus measures to help the euro-zone’s third largest economy keep recovering from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the full article here.

Posted in Sisters In Other Nations, Women and Economics | Comments Off

CFP: Journal of Feminist Scholarship Issue on “Global Tipping Points” 3/1/22 Deadline

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Call for Papers

2020-2021 and Feminism: Global Tipping Points

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

For Publication in Issue 21, Fall 2022

Issue Contact Email: Jeannette E. Riley (jen_riley@uri.edu) or Kathleen M. Torrens (kmtorrens@uri.edu)

Tipping point: “the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place.” Merriam Webster.

An argument could be made that 2020 itself was a tipping point for the world, and it also could be seen to have contained numerous tipping points. This issue considers the former, 2020-2021 as a major global tipping point that thrust populations and subpopulations into unfamiliar behaviors, procedures, and situations and forced immense, sometimes irreversible changes on their lives. In particular, the issue calls for feminist responses and considerations of these tipping points and discussions of how COVID-19 shaped and influenced feminisms and feminist movement.

From the pandemic to global climate crises, massive employment and economic hardship, new definitions of work and health and safety, and, according to McKinsey’s Global Institute 2020, COVID-19’s “regressive effects on gender equality,” the transformations and adjustment to daily life across the globe would have been unimaginable in December 2019. Newspaper and magazine articles suggest critiques of and opportunities for feminism during this year. For example, “Don’t Call the Pandemic a Setback for Feminism,” published in Time (December 2020), asserts that Covid-19 has revealed “key fissures in white-feminist ideology” (i.e. “the ways in which mainstream feminism has not evolved beyond an empowering anthem for white women and those aspiring to their privilege”) ways that open the possibility for “mainstream feminism” to evolve and take into consideration the views of those in more marginalized communities. “The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism,” in The Atlantic (March 2020) points out the detrimental impacts on women that the pandemic has had, but also argues that it has provided the opportunity to make visible women’s disproportionate performance of unpaid care work within the household. In a similar fashion, an opinion piece in The New York Times (December 2020), titled “Feminism Has Failed Women” argues that the changes brought to women’s lives by the pandemic “require a new feminism, one that understands that the politics of motherhood are inherently intersectional for the simple reason that while not all women have or want children, those who do come from every race, sexual orientation and socioeconomic background.” This new feminism, according to the author, would be “grounded in solidarity as opposed to ‘success.’” And, the African American Policy Forum has featured “Under the Blacklight: The Intersectional Vulnerabilities that COVID Lays Bare,” moderated by Kimberlé Crenshaw, examines the financial, social and political inequities that have impacted lives across the United States (https://www.aapf.org/ep1-utb).

For this special edition, we invite articles that contemplate the idea of “tipping points” and how feminisms, feminist theorizing, and feminist activism has responded – or not — to this period of time marked by the pandemic. Possible areas of investigation include but are not limited to:

How have feminisms, feminist theorizing, feminist activists responded to the Covid-19 pandemic?
What gender-related trends are scholars and practitioners recognizing; with what issues are they grappling?
How might feminist responses to labor, healthcare, policy, and education in a time of disruption lead to substantive change?
Recognizing that 2020-2021 is a watershed moment, there are legacies of the past that remain salient and there are those who wish to go back to the way things were. What might feminist movement want to continue and why?
What have been the feminist responses to the impact of the pandemic on employment, motherhood, childcare, gender dynamics, education, housing shortages, increasing violence?
How might feminism and feminist action address racial, socioeconomic, and geopolitical inequities in health that the pandemic highlighted?
What are the implications of the pandemic for feminisms globally? and for cross-border feminist solidarities during a time of “vaccine nationalism”?

Submissions are due March 1, 2022 at https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/submit.cgi?context=jfs Further information on formatting requirements can be accessed on the Journal of Feminist Scholarship website at https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/styleguide.html Any queries can be sent to jen_riley@uri.edu

Posted in Call for Papers or Participation | Comments Off

Kalantry on Reason-Based Abortion Bans and Eugenics

Posted on October 17, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

In an essay just published by the Cornell Law Review Online, Professor Sital Kalantry explains how U.S. Supreme Court justices and U.S. Federal Court of Appeals judges misconstrue eugenics and make false analogies to foreign data to cast doubt on abortion decisions made by people in the United States.

This issue is important at this moment because the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether or not to hear a case about an Arkansas law prohibiting abortion on the basis of Down syndrome. Judges and advocates have argued that a state has a legitimate interest in enacting disability-selection, race-selection, and sex-selection bans because they are designed prevent eugenics.

In “Do Reason-Based Bans Prevent Eugenics?,” Kalantry argues that eugenics should not be conflated with personal and voluntary decisions of pregnant people and the argument that these individual decisions in the United States will eliminate groups of people is also empirically flawed.

Posted in Feminist Legal Scholarship, Reproductive Rights | Comments Off

Nancy Rapoport on “Being a ‘First’ – Over and Over Again”

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Nancy B. Rapoport (UNLV) has posted to SSRN her essay from Denver Law Review Forum, Being a “First” – Over and Over Again. Here is an excerpt:

Being a non–founder “first” also means that people will compare your leadership style to those who came before you—and not always in the way that you might think. Often, new academic leaders are chosen for their ability to take an institution in a certain, previously defined direction. Maybe it’s the same direction in which the last leader also chose to go, or maybe there’s a new leader in place because the institution wants to change course. But people watching a new “first” begin her job tend to think, “oh, she does X or Y because she’s a woman,” not “oh, she does X or Y in a way different from her predecessor because they are different people (or because the institution needs to take a different tack).”

Part of being a “first,” then, is recognizing that people are learning who you are based only in part on you. In part, they’re learning who you are by learning who and what you’re not. You’re basically “not the guy who came before you.” You might not be that guy because that guy was good at certain tasks, and you’re good at different ones. You might not be that guy because the institution’s needs have changed. * * * *[B]eing a “first” as a dean or a provost involved meshing some stereotypically feminine approaches with some stereotypically masculine ones.

The full essay is available here.

Posted in Feminist Legal Scholarship, Firsts, Law Schools | Comments Off

Australia Capital Territory Criminalizes Stealthing

Posted on October 11, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Stealthing, the non-consensual removal of a condom, is a crime in several jurisdictions, including California. See here.

Last week, the Australia Capital Territory became the first jurisdiction in Australia to criminalize stealthing. Here is an excerpt of relevant press coverage:

The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has become the first Australian jurisdiction to criminalise the act of stealthing – the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex.

The bill, introduced by Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee in April as an amendment to the Crimes Act, passed in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday with unanimous support.

The full story is here. More press coverage is here.

The bill was introduced by Elizabeth Lee, a leader of the Canberra Liberals. Ms. Lee said (here) that “We need to act proactively and send a clear message to the community that this behaviour is unacceptable, and a crime.”

A Monash University study conducted in 2018 found (here) that approximately 1/3 of all women who have sex with men and 1/5 of all men who have sex with men have been the victim of stealthing.

Posted in Acts of Violence, Criminal Law, LGBT Rights, Sisters In Other Nations | Comments Off

Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender and Society CFP – “Sex as Crime: Addressing the Intersection of the Legal World and the Sex Industry”

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society
March 26th, 2022

We are pleased to announce the 2022 Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society symposium on “Sex as Crime: Addressing the Intersection of the Legal World and the Sex Industry.” Sex work is one of the most divisive professions in the United States. Traditionally, the United States has used a criminalization model for sex work, making the consensual buying and selling of sexual services illegal. While the sex work industry is diverse in practice and experience, this approach to the industry endangers all sex workers with higher rates of sexual, physical, and economic violence. Violence towards sex workers recently came to the public’s attention on March 16, 2021, after the Atlanta spa shooting, when a racially and sexually motivated man shot and killed massage parlor workers and customers. This tragedy, along with changing social attitudes towards sex work, has reinvigorated the conversation about the legal implications of criminalization and the proper regulation of sex work in the United States.

The virtual symposium will feature research and papers comparing a variety of legal issues and pitfalls and the implications of different legal models as possible solutions. The symposium seeks scholarship on sex workers and sex trafficking victims within the criminal justice system and broader legal context. The journal will prioritize articles that discuss the intersections of sex work with race and ethnicity, gender or gender identity, sexuality, social class, disability, and citizenship status, as well as any other diverse aspect of our society. This symposium seeks to foster a broad discussion about effective solutions for legal issues within the sex work industry.

Proposals should be submitted to Sarah Jones at spjones@wisc.edu and Tanja Skiljevic at skiljevic@wisc.edu no later than October 17, 2021. Submissions may be sent after that deadline but are not guaranteed review or consideration. Submissions may be a finished work or a proposed outline. The Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society will likely publish accepted unpublished submissions. The organizers will communicate their decisions no later than November 14, 2021. If chosen, authors of accepted submissions must commit to submitting a final rough draft of their work no later than February 1, 2022. Authors of accepted submissions must virtually attend and present their work at the symposium on March 26, 2022.

Additionally, the Journal is seeking individuals who are interested in speaking at the symposium about their legal or scholastic work without a publication agreement. The above deadlines apply similarly to speakers’ proposals. The Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender, & Society welcomes individuals from all backgrounds to submit their research or scholastic work to be fairly and equitably considered. Please direct any inquiries to Sarah Jones, Symposium Editor (spjones@wisc.edu).

Posted in Call for Papers or Participation | Comments Off

University of San Francisco School of Law Faculty Hiring Announcement

Posted on September 30, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

The University of San Francisco School of Law is located in one of the world’s most dynamic and progressive cities, which affords our community a global perspective and access to premier arts, culture, and centers of innovation. Part of a historic Jesuit institution, the Law School has a proud 109-year history of preparing its diverse graduates to be excellent and ethical attorneys who serve their clients and communities with integrity and in a socially responsible manner.

We are a diverse, socially responsible learning community centered on high-quality scholarship and academic rigor while sustained by a faith that works for justice. We are committed to recruiting and retaining BIPOC faculty to reflect our mission and practice.

The Law school is seeking entry-level and lateral applicants for one or more positions on our full-time faculty to begin in the fall of 2022. USF Law welcomes outstanding candidates in all fields and is particularly interested in candidates who expand the school’s expertise in the fields of critical race theory, intersectionality, race and the law. Other areas of particular interest include criminal procedure, criminal law, contracts, property, international law, tax, intellectual property, and commercial law. Applicants should demonstrate a record of professional excellence, strong classroom teaching skills, a commitment to service, and potential for success as a scholar and contributing member of a dynamic and diverse community.

Applications from traditionally underrepresented groups in the legal field and individuals whose background or interests will enhance our diversity are highly encouraged. Contact: Julia Dunbar, Sr. Director of Faculty & Academic Services, USF School of Law, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117. Email: jtdunbar@usfca.edu.

Posted in Law Teaching | Comments Off

Congratulations to @UDCLaw Legislation Clinic on its Award as an @DV_LEAP Community Champion

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Bridget Crawford

The Legislation Clinic at the University of District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law has been named as a “DV Leap Community Champion” for its research work on behalf of that organization, which is national leader in appellate advocacy on behalf of survivors.

Congratulations to Professor Marcy Karin and Professor Chris Hill and the students participants in the Legislation Clinic for their excellent work!

The Clinic will be honored at the organization’s “Tip the Scales of Justice” 2021 Tree Planting on October 10. More info here.

Posted in Chutes and Ladders, Domestic Violence | Comments Off

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Call for Papers

2020-2021 and Feminism: Global Tipping Points

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