About the Book
While masculinities theory has had much to say on relationships of subordination, few feminist legal scholars have examined the implications of masculinities theory for feminist legal theory. This volume investigates the ways in which emerging masculinities theory in law could inform feminist legal theory in particular and law in general. As many of the chapters in this collection illustrate, law is constantly in a dynamic interaction with masculinities: it has both influenced existing masculinities and has been influenced by those masculinities. The contributions focus feminist and critical theoretical attention on masculinities and consider the implications of masculinities theory for law and legal theory. The book sets out the theoretical trajectory of masculinities studies as a field and its application in law and uses insights from a masculinities approach to study socio-political construction of gender identities in specific settings. It also explores how understanding historical construction of gender identities can inform more effective public policy and activism.
Written by leading experts in the area, the book poses important questions about the development of the relationship between feminisms and masculinities theory and will be essential reading for those working in law and gender and related areas.
Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction, Martha Albertson Fineman and Michael Thomson; Part I Feminist Legal Theory and Masculinities and Law: Asking the man question: masculinities analysis and feminist theory, Nancy E. Dowd; Feminisms and masculinities: questioning the lure of multiple identities, Martha Albertson Fineman. Part II Deconstructing Masculinity in Location: Martyred women and humiliated men, Roja Fazaeli; Colonial optics; dancehall and legal imperatives against the `unnatural’, Camille A. Nelson; Toward multidimensional masculinities theory: policing Henry Louis Gates, Frank Rudy Cooper. Part III Confronting Law: HIV/AIDS and male circumcision: discourses of race and masculinity, Marie Fox and Michael Thomson; The challenge of pleasure: let’s talk about sex in feminist and masculinity studies theorizing, Chris Beasley; Gender, masculinities and transition in conflicted societies, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Naomi Cahn and Dina Haynes; Migrating and mutating masculinities in institutional law reforms, Jamie R. Abrams. Part IV Education: Thinking through the `boy crisis’: from multiple masculinities to intersectionality, Juliet A. Williams; No boy left behind? Single-sex education and the essentialist myth of masculinity, David S. Cohen. Part V Work: Masculinities and disparate impacts, Ann C. McGinley; Masculinities narratives and Latino immigrant workers: a case study of the Las Vegas residential construction trades, Leticia M. Saucedo and Maria Cristina Morales. Part VI Family: On masculinities, law, and family practices: a case study of fathers’ rights and gender, Richard Collier; Taking custody of motherhood: fathers’ rights activists and the politics of parenting, Jocelyn Elise Crowley; To be male: homophobia, sexism, and the production of `masculine’ boys, Clifford J. Rosky; Bibliography; Index.
About the Author :
Martha Albertson Fineman is a Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University and an internationally recognized law and society scholar and a leading authority on family law and feminist jurisprudence. Fineman is founder and director of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, which was inaugurated in 1984 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and also directs Emory's Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative. She is the author of numerous books and dozens of book chapters and scholarly papers focusing on gender equality, the legal regulation of intimacy and the law's response to dependency and vulnerability. Fineman is also editor and contributor to a dozen collections arising from the FLT Project, including At the Boundaries of Law: Feminism and Legal Theory (Routledge 1991, reissued 2013), which was the first anthology of feminist legal theory. Michael Thomson is Professor of Law at the University of Leeds, UK. His research interests include Health Law, Law and Gender, and Legal Humanities. Much of his work has focused on the regulation of reproductive and sexed bodies and what this can tell us of the relationship between law and gender. He is the author of Reproducing Narrative: Gender, Reproduction and Law (Dartmouth, 1998) and Endowed: Regulating the Male Sexed Body (Routledge, 2008), He also edited, with Sally Sheldon, Feminist Perspectives on Healthcare Law (Cavendish, 1998). Martha Albertson Fineman, Michael Thomson, Nancy E. Dowd, Roja Fazaeli, Camille A. Nelson, Frank Rudy Cooper, Marie Fox, Chris Beasley, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Naomi Cahn, Dina Haynes, Jamie R. Abrams, Juliet A. Williams, David S. Cohen, Leticia M. Saucedo, Maria Cristina Morales, Richard Collier, Jocelyn Elise Crowley, Clifford J. Rosky.
Review :
'Whether discussing specific institutions, or geographic locations, or exploring thorny theoretical problems, the authors in this volume range widely and probe deeply to situate masculinity in current legal conversations. Exploring Masculinities is more than "useful"; it's necessary.' Michael Kimmel, Stony Brook University and Director, Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, USA This volume of essays provides a rich diet of research and scholarship exploring the complex interweaving of masculinities and law. Through both a wide variety of substantive case studies and critical perspectives, the essays collected here offer an invaluable snapshot of current debates and perspectives. The interdisciplinary perspectives and multijurisdictional inquiries make this volume of interest to a wide range of scholars, researchers and activists. Leslie J. Moran, University of London, UK
