review article

Gender and the Analytical Jurisprudential Mind

Leslie Green

Abstract

Review of J. Conaghan, Law and Gender, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013,
272 pp, hb £81.00.

What can feminism contribute to the study of law? A lot. Feminist theories take a special interest in the role of gender in society and, as far as we know, every society that has a legal system also has a gender hierarchy in which women are dominated by men. What can feminism contribute to the study of jurisprudence? This is trickier. In her well-regarded book about law and gender, Joanne Conaghan writes, ‘the concept of law (to invoke the title of Hart’s famous work) has been endlessly interrogated in terms which do not admit the relevance of gender.’ This is no casual remark: Conaghan labours to show that gender has pervasive relevance, not only to law but also to jurisprudence, including (as this quotation affirms) general jurisprudence.

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Published July 2020
Frequency Bi-Monthly
Volume 83
Issue 4
Print ISSN 0026-7961
Online ISSN 1468-2230