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Femininity, sexuality and identity in law.
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings › Chapter
Published
| Publication date | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Host publication | Women, Power and Resistance |
| Editors | Tess Cosslett, Alison Easton, Penny Summerfield |
| Place of publication | Buckingham |
| Publisher | Open University Press |
| Pages | 187-196 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| ISBN (Print) | 0 335 19390 0 |
| Original language | English |
Abstract
This chapter will introduce some of the legal issues affecting women as subjects of law and the legal process. It will explore how 'feminity', 'gender' and 'sexuality' are constructed by law. These concepts are both social and legal cobstructs. There are two consequences of this; the first is that as constructs, they are not fixed and immuntable. Social and legal concepts of what is feminine for example, are not static; they differ from generation to generation, from culture to culture, and within these confines they change and evolve. The second consequence is that, despite these rather obvious statements, English legal culture appears insistent in its belief that there is something fixed and immutable about these concepts. In this respect, legal culture is essentialist in its approach to women as legal subjects. In other words, law seeks the fundamental 'essence'of woman, the 'perfect' woman against whom all other women must be compared to and measured.