CFL214 | Feminist Legal Theories And Praxis

Recognizing that there is not one, but many ‘feminisms’, this course offers an introduction to diverse feminist theories as distinct approaches to change, their contestations with each other, and their relationship with Law. The spread of constitutional cultures over the past two centuries paved the way for feminists to lay claim to ‘universal’ rights of liberty, equality and fraternity to challenge particular experiences of sex- and gender-based inequalities. Prolifically, legal strategies of litigation, law reform advocacy and critique of masculinist judicial cultures enabled feminists to invite rights-based scrutiny into the so-called private realms of the body, family, religion and workplace.

Yet, uneven impacts of these strategies have also invited reflections on the Law as a contested space, and challenged the role of the State as a ‘neutral’ arbiter of rights. Indeed the experience of a large majority of ‘women’ marginalized by work, caste, religion, ethnicity, sexuality etc. have likewise testified to the State as not a source of emancipation but of marginalization itself. Equally, debates have problematized the existence of a stable subject of ‘feminist’ politics for whom the State is supposed to act- is it a woman? Which women? Or is it gender itself?

The course attempts to equip those interested in the study and praxis of feminist struggles with theoretical tools for engaging with contemporary issues of sex and gender based inequalities, and to critically reflect on feminist methods of change-making. This will include a survey of the articulations, goals and methods of few major strands of feminist thought- liberal, radical, socialist, postcolonial, and strategies for challenging multiple marginalizations popularly captured in the amorphous term of ‘intersectionality’.

The final phase of the course will seek to apply these methodological tools to a select tectonic debates within feminist struggles relating to law in India, in the domain of the family.

To do so, the course will follow an inter-disciplinary approach to look at the Law both from the ‘outside’ and ‘inside’. It will draw from a wide range of sources spanning key judgments and academic texts, films, advocacy and campaign materials, position papers and parchas, investigative reports by journalists, blogs, articles and social media debates. While classroom discussions will be rooted in theory, modes of evaluation will seek to develop praxis-based skills of studentsthrough campaign-building, simulations, case briefs etc.