The Constitutional and Legal Rights of Women Cases in Law and Social Change

by Baer, Judith A.; Goldstein, Leslie Friedman

• ISBN13: 9780195330748
• ISBN10: 0195330749
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Constitutional and Legal Rights of Women: Cases in Law and Social Change is designed to provide undergraduate students with a comprehensive, sophisticated treatment of the legal status of all American women. Authors Baer and Goldstein skillfully blend doctrinal and political developments to document and explain the evolution of women's rights and the law--as well as the dynamics and dissension within the feminist movement. Building on Goldstein's previous editions, this book combines updated material on constitutional law, gender discrimination, and women's rights with new cases and readings on family law, gay rights, and criminal law. This edition takes a more socio-political and institutional approach than other books on women and the law. The authors consider issues such as institutional questions of constitutional interpretation, the scope of judicial power, the balance of federal-state power, the interaction between law and other social and political institutions, and the capacity of law to effect societal change. The inclusion of state and lower federal court decisions greatly strengthens the book's focus on the law's relationship to gendered inequality. Topics also include constitutional history, job discrimination, gender equality, advances in reproductive technology law, divorce, child custody, education, same-sex marriage, pornography, and domestic violence.

Table of Contents

Women Seek Constitutional Equality

Women and U.S. Law Before the Fourteenth Amendment

The Privileges or Immunities Clause

The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)Access to the Bar

Myra Bradwell v. State of Illinois (1873)

Women's Suffrage and the Fourteenth Amendment Debates

Women and Modern Citizenship

The Vote by Constitutional Amendment

Liberty of Contract

Lochner v. New York (1905)

Protecting Women by Limiting Their Freedom

Radice v. New York (1924)

Capitulation on Minimum Wages for Women

West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937) and U.S. v. Darby (1941)

Equal Protection Clause

Women Attain (?) Constitutional Equality

Almost Strict Scrutiny

Court Bides Its Time

Officially Intermediate Scrutiny

Craig v. Boren (1976)

Sex Discrimination Post-Craig Statutory Rape

Michael M. v. Sonoma County (1981)

Women and Modern Citizenship

Jury ServiceInterlude

Doctrinal Development on the Clinton Court

Conferring Citizenship

Female Versus Male Parents

When Is Discrimination Not Discrimination?

Rights in Conflict

Women and Employment

Equal Pay and Comparable Worth

Comparable Worth

Washington County v. Gunther (1981)

Title VII and Women's Labor Legislation'Sex Plus' Discrimination

Sexual Harassment as Sex Discrimination

Gender Stereotyping

Price-Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989)

Affirmative Action

Johnson v. Transportation Agency (1987)

Gender and Family LawSame-Sex Marriage

Kowalski Cases

Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage

Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions

Baker v. State (1999)

Legal History of Marriage

The Traditional Family

Divorce

Rights of Unmarried Fathers

Parents versus Grandparents

Parents' Rights Versus Community Rights

Native Americans and Family Law

Women and ReproductionLegal Contexts

Implied Constitutional Rights

Sterilization

Contraception and the Right to Privacy

Legalizing Abortion

Securing Access to Abortion

Pregnant Women's Privacy

Reproductive Technology and the Law

Whose Property Are Frozen Embryos?

Posthumous Procreation

Woodward v. Commissioner of Social Security (2002)

Women and Education

Single-Sex Public Schools

Separate but Equal?

Higher Education

Title IX and Educational Equality

Title IX and Sexual Harassment

Title IX and Retaliation

Women and Crime

Spouse Abuse

Rape

Feminists Divide Over Pornography

The Violence Against Women Act

Prostitution

ConclusionsNotes

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.