FEMINIST JURISPRUDENCE
A philosophy of law based on the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.
Overview
Feminist jurisprudence is a burgeoning
school of legal thought that encompasses many
theories and approaches to law and legal issues.
Each strain of feminist jurisprudence evaluates
and critiques the law by examining the relation-
ship between gender, sexuality, power, individ-
ual rights, and the judicial system as a whole. As
a field of legal scholarship and theory, feminist
JURISPRUDENCE had its beginnings in the 1960s.
By the 1990s it had become an important and
vital part of the law, informing many debates on
sexual and DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, inequality in
the workplace, and gender-based discrimination
at all levels of U.S. society.
Feminist jurisprudence intersects with a
number of other forms of critical theories, most
notably critical race theory and the study of GAY
AND LESBIAN RIGHTS. Moreover, the form of
feminist thought that focuses on legal theory
draws from feminism in other disciplines,
including sociology, political science, history,
and literature. Leaders in the feminist jurispru-
dence camps thus do not focus exclusively upon
purely legal aspects of feminism.
A Brief History of Feminism
The feminist political movement began in
the nineteenth century with a call for female suf-
frage. At a convention in Seneca Falls, New York,
in 1848, a group of women and men drafted and
approved the Declaration of Rights and Senti-
ments. This document,modeled on the language
and structure of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, was a bill of rights for women, including
the right to vote. Throughout the late 1800s,
feminist leaders SUSAN B. ANTHONY and ELIZA-
BETH CADY STANTON were persistent critics of
male society’s refusal to grant women politi-
