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Feminism and the Siren Call of Law

Drakopoulou, Maria (2007) Feminism and the Siren Call of Law. Law and Critique, 18 (3). pp. 331-360. ISSN 0957-8536. (doi:10.1007/s10978-007-9019-1) (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:1878)

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Abstract

Feminists have so often declared and celebrated the fecundity of the relationship between feminism and legal reform that critique of legal doctrines and norms, together with proposals for their reconstruction, have become the hallmarks of the modern feminist engagement with law. Yet today the long-cherished 'truth' about law's potentially beneficial impact on women's lives has started to fade and the quest for legal change has become fraught with problems. In responding to the aporetic state in which feminist legal scholarship now finds itself, this paper offers a recounting of the relationship between feminism and the politics of legal reform. However, in so doing, it seeks to neither support nor oppose these politics. Instead, it explores the historical contingencies that made this discourse possible. Utilizing Foucault's concept of eposteme, it demarcates the nineteenth century as the historical moment in which this discourse arose, and tracing the epistemic shifts underpinning the production of knowledge, locates it's positivities ad the interface of the time's episteme and the discourse of transcendental subjectivity that it endangered.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s10978-007-9019-1
Uncontrolled keywords: Feminist epistemology, Feminist history, feminist theory, foucault, legal reform, subjectivity
Subjects: K Law
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Depositing User: A. Davies
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 19:17 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/1878 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Drakopoulou, Maria.

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