Course Description
Substantive legal principles and political context surrounding issues of gender in the United States, including those involving men and women in the workplace, education, domestic relations, and reproduction.
Athena Title
GENDER LAW POLITICS
Pre or Corequisite
POLS 1101
Semester Course Offered
Offered every even-numbered year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will examine the ways in which law shapes the status and role of men and women over time. Readings include scholarship from several disciplines and employ different methods, including those associated with social science and traditional doctrinal analyses of case law. Students will analyze cases and materials with particular emphasis given to more recent issues that range from contractual obligations by surrogate mothers to allegations of unequal athletic facilities in colleges and universities. Through readings, class discussion, and a U.S. Supreme Court simulation, students will examine the important role played by courts and judges who define the legal parameters for marriage and divorce, equal employment opportunity, domestic violence, reproductive freedom, child custody, economic and educational equity. Students also will analyze social science scholarship that addresses the underlying causes of gender-based legal policy shifts as well as the policy consequences of specific reforms.
Topical Outline
1. The Historical and Political Context Early Feminist legal challenges 2. Constitutional protection for gender equality 3. Contrasting theoretical perspectives advocating gender equality ("sameness"/difference debate) 4. Issues in the Workplace: Title VII and employment discrimination 5. Issues in the Workplsce: Sexual harassment, pay equity, and comparable worth 6. Issues in Education--School Sports: Title 1X 7. Issues in Education-Admissions 8. Affirmative Action 9. Marriage: the Divorce Revolution 10. Child Custody, Parental Rights, and Adoption 11. Issues in Reproductive Freedom: Contraception, Abortion 12. Issues in Reproductive Freedom: Sterilization, Criminalization of maternal conduct, Surrogacy 13. Domestic violence
Syllabus