Robin West: Jurisprudence and Gender

Prepared by Joshua Lee

I. Unifying Themes Within Feminism

a. Connection Thesis: Women are actually or potentially materially connected to
other human life; Men aren’t
b. This potential defines women’s subjective, phenomenological, and existential
state
II. Cultural Feminism - “Women raise children and men don’t”
a. The dominant feminist dogma
b. Women develop nurturance and an ethic of care for the “other” and dread
separation
c. Women view the morality of actions against a standard of responsibility to
others.
d. Differences that women have are celebrated
e. Women’s potential for a material connection to life entails an experiential and
psychological sense of connection with other human life which affects
women’s concept of value and concept of harm
f. Concepts of Value: intimacy, nurturance, community, responsibility, and care
g. Concepts of Harm: A fear of separation and isolation from human community
III. Radical Feminism
a. Women’s connection to others is the source of misery
b. The potential for connection is the source of women’s “debasement,
powerlessness, subjugation, and misery.”
c. Connection is invasive, oppressive, and destructive
d. Disconnect between what women Officially and Unofficially want
i. While women may “officially” value intimacy, what they truly crave is
privacy, physical integrity, and celibacy
ii.Morally, women “officially” desire contextual, relational, caring, moral
thinking, but “unofficially” desire total autonomy
iii.While women say they value community, they privately crave solitude,
self-regard, self-esteem, linear thinking, legal rights, and principled
thought.
IV. The Masculinity of Modern Jurisprudence
a. Women’s values of are not reflected in legal doctrine
i. Rule of law does not recognize intimacy, it values autonomy.
ii.For example, nurturing intimate labor (household tasks and
childrearing), are not valued by liberal legalism or the market economy
b. Women are absent from jurisprudence because they are neither the intended
beneficiary or the authors
V. The Feminist Legal Project
a. Two Discrete Projects
i. Critique of Patriarchal Jurisprudence
1. Show that jurisprudence and legal doctrine protect and define
men, not women
2. Show how women have fared under a legal system which fails
to value intimacy
ii.Reconstructive jurisprudence – feminist law reform
1. Reforming the law in areas like rape, sexual harassment,
reproductive freedom, and pregnancy rights in the workplace
b. West’s Approach
i. Narrative Critique – show through stories the value of intimacy
1. Community level – share a vision of a community that relies of
women’s values and the damage done when the system does
not reflect those values
2. Law Schools – Show how women’s values have enriched lives
and how it will enrich the law school
ii.Interpretive Critique
1. Under the current system, women are constructed, defined, and
limited
2. They are not human under the system, but as valueless objects,
children, or invisible.
3. Interpretive critique should aim to articulate how women have
been portrayed and its negative effects.