Feminist Jurisprudence: A Women’s Experience

It comes to no surprise to the American people to speak of America as a patriarchal society where most if not every institution, from religious to educational, is ran by a male and/or were created under a male perspective. Legal processes and laws being no exception have been created and enforced to fit a male society where the woman has no say. The male vision legal scholarship is to law what law is to patriarchy: each legitimates by masking and by giving an appearance of neutrality to the maleness of the institution it serves. Throughout history male scholars have left out female experiences. The law is what we can refer to as gender specific and many parts of our culture demonstrate this. Excluding the female experience in law is an error that can still be corrected. The need for the change came during the women’s movement and feminist scholarship theory has given rise to feminist jurisprudence, a philosophy of law based on the political, economic and social equality of sexes. I will be discussing many of the laws that were passed not only with a male perspective but also as a form of oppression towards women. It is an inquiry that is methodologically and substantially an inquiry from the point of view of women’s experiences. It criticizes and subverts patriarchal assumptions about law including patriarchal attempts to present law as without a gendered point of view.

The male view of society can be summed up as competitive where the need for interdependence creates a sense of danger in which the need for separation and limits is necessary this being the creation of laws. Given the fact that these laws are made by men in a male vision women are restricted in many ways. Looking back in the history of the U.S many laws were p...

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...ional, passive, nurturing, domestic and subordinate leaders, have been incorporated into many aspects of institutions which have led to the enactment of many of the laws mentioned above. It has been argued that men and women biologically are different therefore equality in certain aspects is no possible therefore certain laws must be passed. Yet feminist studies argue that the error is within the way issues were initially formulated, because these demonstrate the male point of view.

An example of such instance is the so called “pregnancy leave,” that is referred to as a special benefit because men cannot get such leave, yet if it was seen in a female view they would not be considered special benefits but rather usual since they are so commonly needed. If the male norm or standard for such ideas is recognized, the presumption of difference can then be corrected.