Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > 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 relationship between gender, sexuality, power, individual 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...