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Law and Economics Against Feminism

Law and Economics Against Feminism

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Description

Published as Chapter 17 in The Oxford Handbook of Feminism and Law in the United States, Deborah Brake, Martha Chamallas & Verna Williams, eds.

This article analyzes feminism in legal theory in relation to the rise of “law and economics” during the late twentieth century as a methodology that generated academic credibility for anti-egalitarian ideology and policy. Law and economics fundamentally undermines feminism in law by constructing the economy as a sphere best governed by efficiency insulated from contested morality and politics. This division naturalizes a gendered baseline that generally makes feminist reforms appear costly and unfair. Finally, the article explores how this core division of law and economics constructs an idea of liberty that makes feminist efforts to remedy gender-based harms appear illegitimate and oppressive. Law and economics cuts against legal feminism not because gender justice is a non-economic goal, but because law and economics promotes a misleading economic ideology steeped in gender and tilted toward those most willing and able to disregard and discount others’ well-being.

Publication Date

6-9-2021

Publisher

Oxford University Press

ISBN

9780197519998

First Page

294

Last Page

312

Keywords

law and economics, feminist economics, neoliberalism, efficiency, redistribution, social reproduction, welfare state, anti-feminism, political economy

Disciplines

Jurisprudence | Law | Law and Society

Comments

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Law and Economics Against Feminism

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