Government 5903.02/Women’s Studies 5663.01; Monday 6:00-8:50 PM
Taught by Dr. Mark Kessler, professor and chair of the Department of History and Government

This course examines several topics at different levels of generality related to issues of law, gender, and sexuality. On one level, we examine concrete legal cases to learn about the history of constitutional interpretation and the current status of rights for women and sexual minorities, such as gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and transsexuals. We examine the impact of law in such areas as workplace discrimination, single sex education, military service, rape, pornography, marriage, reproductive freedom, same-sex relationships, and harassment. We also consider important theoretical issues emerging from concrete legal cases in the writings of diverse feminist legal scholars and scholars addressing other issues of sexual difference. Among the theoretical issues addressed are debates over conventional equality approaches in legal doctrine, equality versus difference perspectives, ways in which legal language constructs gender and sexuality, the incorporation of sexuality and gender in ideologies of law, and the intersecting roles of gender, sexuality, and race in legal doctrine and legal theory. Finally, we examine the methodologies of feminist and other critical strands of legal analysis.

The readings include the following:

Judith A. Baer and Leslie Friedman Goldstein, THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN: CASES IN LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE, 3^rd edition.
D. Kelly Weisberg, ed., FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY: FOUNDATIONS.
Adrien Katherine Wing, ed., CRITICAL RACE FEMINISM: A READER
Martha Chamalles, INTRODUCTION TO FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY, 2nd edition

Articles by a variety of legal scholars, including Katherine Bartlett, Patricia Cain, Ruth Colker, Kimberle Crenshaw, Catherine MacKinnon, Martha Minow, Vasuki Nesiah, Richard Posner, Joan Scott, Carol Smart, Patricia Williams, Wendy Williams, Lucy White, among others.

The instructor for this course, Dr. Mark Kessler, comes to TWU from Bates College in Maine, where he taught political science and legal studies for 25 years. He has studied poverty lawyers and written extensively on constitutional rights and legal discourse.

If you have questions about this course please contact Mark Kessler at mkessler@twu.edu