Academic

Baines on Feminist Judges

By Lawrence Solum

Beverley Baines (Queen's University - Faculty of Law) has posted Must Feminist Judges Self-Identify as Feminist? (GENDER AND JUDGING, Ulrike Schultz and Gisela Shaw, eds. Hart Publishing, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Feminist legal scholars want judges to self-identify as feminist. Rosemary Hunter offers a compelling argument about the significance of self-identification as the marker of a feminist judge. However, few judges are willing to self-identify as feminists. Feminist adjudication offers an alternative theory. It serves three functions not met by feminist self-identification. First, it distinguishes the professional culture of feminist judges from that of feminist legal scholars, a distinction borne out in a study comparing the use of the 'f' word on the bench and in the academy. Second, it positions feminist judges to intervene in the contemporary feminist legal theory debate between dominance feminists who self-identify and postmodern feminists who disavow their approach. Third, it invites feminist legal scholars to recognize the power dimension inherent in their relationship with the feminist judges whom they study. I conclude it is premature for feminist legal scholars to rely only on the theory of feminist self-identification to credential feminist judges.

Useful and concise.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on August 07, 2009 (boomark / email).