Gender, 

Law &

Politics

Professor Susan E. Gallagher

Coordinator of Gender Studies

Political Science Dept.

UMASS Lowell

Susan_Gallagher@uml.edu

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This course explores legal constructions of gender by examining Supreme Court cases, federal legislation, historical documents, news stories, and scholarly essays on sexual inequality in the United States. Topics include the evolution of the family as a legal (and illegal) reality; political regulation of reproduction and sexual activity; feminist critiques of economic inequality; the rise and fall of affirmative action; the changing role of gender in class consolidation; and ongoing debates about the relationships between public and private life.

You can find extracts from all of the Supreme Court Cases listed below, as well as links to the full texts of opinions and background information on The Supreme Court Page .

 

Note:  You must bring all of the readings marked "print" with you to class.  You must also print out and bring in the study questions for each section of the course.

 

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The Public/Private Dichotomy in American Society

• Muller v. Oregon (1908) Permitted sex discrimination in employment (print)

• The Gender of Privacy & the Embodied Self by Caroline Danielson

Required Readings:

• The Bill of Rights (print out all amendments)

• A History of the Bill of Rights

• Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) Upheld exclusion of women from legal practice (print)

• An Overview of Prohibition

• Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, "The Right to Privacy," Harvard Law Review, Volume IV, No. 5, December 1890. (print)

• Lochner v. New York (1905) Ruled that the regulation of labor violates individual freedom to enter into voluntary contracts. (print syllabus)

Movie: 12 Angry Men

Questions for reading and discussion:

1. How has the Bill of Rights shaped the development of American democracy?

2. When we talk about equality in American society, what do we usually mean?

3. Why would the term "gender" be more useful than the term "sex" in describing the different roles and rights assigned to men and women in the history of American law? 

4. Why was Myra Bradwell forbidden from practicing law?

5. Specify reasons why concerns about privacy first developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

6. Whose right to be left alone did Louis Brandeis defend?

7. Describe the role of gender in the making of the Eighteenth Amendment (1919).

8. Describe the inconsistency between Lochner v. New York and Muller v. Oregon.

9. Describe the consistency between Muller v. Oregon and Bradwell v. Illinois.

10. How did ideas about gender shape the historical development of claims to rights to privacy in the U.S.?

11. Describe some of the assumptions made about class, gender, and ethnicity in Twelve Angry Men.

First-Wave Feminism:

A Struggle for

Admission to the

Public Sphere

Visit the National Women's

History Museum

• The History of the Suffrage Movement by Marjorie Spruill Wheeler

• The Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Convention (1848) 

• Woman Suffrage and the Temperance Movement

• The Nineteenth Amendment (1920) (print)

• Historical Summary of Women's Participation in the Paid Work Force (print)

• The Social, Economic, and Military Roles of Women During & After World War Two

Patriot Radio, Norman Bel Geddes, 1940

Second-Wave Feminism:

A Struggle for Personal Liberation

Required Readings:

• Timeline of the Women's Rights Movement 

• Excerpt from Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

• Equal Pay Act (1963)

• Nat'l Organization for Women (NOW), Statement of Purpose (1966) (print) (link repaired-8/9/01)

• Gloria Steinem, "Women's Liberation Aims to Free Men Too," The Washington Post, June 7, 1970 (print)

• An Overview of Birth Control and Abortion Law in the United States

• Roe v. Wade (1973) Permitted abortion on the basis of the right to privacy (print)

• Frontiero v. Richardson - Abstract (1973) Held that sex-based statutes violate due process clause

The Globalization of Intimacy

BBC: Diana On The Net

  

Required Readings

• History of Privacy

• Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren, "The Right to Privacy," Harvard Law Review, Volume IV, No. 5, December 1890.

• The Hill/Thomas Case

• Bill Clinton, Testimony Before the Starr Grand Jury (9/17/98)

• Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell (1988)

• After Monica, What Next?

• Wendy Kaminer, "I Spy, " The American Prospect (August 14, 2000)

• Anita Allen, "Lying to Protect Privacy"

• Juliet Williams, "The Personal is Political: Thinking Through the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr Affair

Questions for Reading and Discussion

1. Why have men historically tended to defend privacy rights while women generally have not?

2. Describe the balance of power between Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.

3. If Anita Hill's testimony had been shown to be absolutely true, would the outcome of the Senate hearings have been different?

4. Describe Bill Clinton's views on sexual privacy.

5. What evidence did Bill Clinton cite to show that he had never encouraged anyone to lie about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky?

6. Describe Bill Clinton's characterizations of Monica Lewinsky in his Starr Grand Jury testimony.

7. If everyone adopted Bill Clinton's conception of sexuality, what would happen to sexual harassment law?

8. Describe the parallels between Bill Clinton's views on rights to privacy and the perspective adopted by Brandeis and Warren in 1890.

9. If you were a '70's feminist, how would you respond to Bill Clinton's testimony?

10. Describe the balance of power between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

11. Would you mind if your boss were carrying on a relationship such as that between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? 

12. Why do you think that Bill Clinton's popularity increased during the revelations concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky?

13. Do you perceive a new sense of intimacy in the tone of American journalism?

14. Specify ways in which pop psychology has invaded American politics and law.