Legal Discourse and Feminism

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at the ways the law defines women's rights and sex equality. The paper explains that despite the growing numbers of female lawyers, current legal discourse remains sexist in its continued reference to "man" as the standard. It also shows how the courts consistently refer to women by their biological disposition, which affects the social perception of females as a whole.

From the Paper:

"A feminist oriented theory of discourse must explain how social identities are constructed, how power is contested by the marginalized and how to formulate strategies for social change (McDorman, 1998, p. 27). A feminist perspective of legal discourse challenges our history of gender construction and destruction, which can only be examined for the benefit of society as a whole. One of the greatest goals of feminist jurisprudence is to overcome the "separation between women's socially constructed identities and their unrecognized and undervalued potentials" (McDorman, 1998, p. 27). Because despite the significant advancements made by women since the rejuvenation of the women's movement in the 1970s,the law continues to limit women's rights when compared to those accorded to men based on women's perceived limited physical capabilities (McDorman, 1998, p. 27)."

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