Feminist Theory

• Author: Christine A. Littleton
• Pages: 1032-1033

Page 1032

Feminist theory encompasses such a large and diverse body of work that it can no longer be described succinctly. A partial definition might stress the relationships among and between, on the one hand, women, women's experience, perceptions and treatment of women, gender as a social category, masculinity and femininity, and sexuality, and, on the other, social and personal identity, language, religion, economic and social structures, law, philosophy, and knowledge. The multifaceted nature of current feminist theory has even led many feminists to use the term "feminist theories." This diversity also marks the use of feminist theory with respect to law.

Feminists trained in law tend to describe their theoretical work as "feminist legal theory" or "feminist jurisprudence." The early development of the field, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was closely tied to traditional legal categories and analysis, even while it posed a significant challenge to the traditional use of such categories and methods. Its existence was made possible by the movement of significant numbers of women into the legal profession, and especially onto law school faculties, and by changes in interpretation of constitutional doctrine wrought by the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. The extent of these changes began to manifest itself in Reed v. Reed (1971), in which the Supreme Court first interpreted the EQUAL PROTECTION clause as demanding significant justification for laws that formally discriminated against women. At first, then, feminist jurisprudence concerned itself primarily with elaboration of what equality might mean for women; a large proportion of the scholarship in the field remains focused on this question. However, in the 1990s the directions of feminist legal theory are likely to respond more to developments in feminist theory than to developments in legal theory or doctrine.

In some way all feminist theory concerns itself with describing, explaining, criticizing, and changing the social condition of women as a class from the perspective of, and on behalf of, all women. This project is pursued, however, in radically different ways, posing several kinds of challenges to traditional constitutional JURISPRUDENCE and practice: doctrinal, culture, textural, and structural.

Feminist theory criticizes constitutional doctrine primarily for its failure to center, or often even to consider, women's experience in fashioning, elaborating, and...