Women and the U.S. Constitution: History, Interpretation, and Practice

Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, Patricia Smith

Columbia University Press, 18/02/2004 - 448 páginas

Women and the U.S. Constitution is about much more than the nineteenth amendment. This provocative volume incorporates law, history, political theory, and philosophy to analyze the U.S. Constitution as a whole in relation to the rights and fate of women. Divided into three parts—History, Interpretation, and Practice—this book views the Constitution as a living document, struggling to free itself from the weight of a two-hundred-year-old past and capable of evolving to include women and their concerns.

Feminism lacks both a constitutional theory as well as a clearly defined theory of political legitimacy within the framework of democracy. The scholars included here take significant and crucial steps toward these theories. In addition to constitutional issues such as federalism, gender discrimination, basic rights, privacy, and abortion, Women and the U.S. Constitution explores other issues of central concern to contemporary women—areas that, strictly speaking, are not yet considered a part of constitutional law. Women's traditional labor and its unique character, and women and the welfare state, are two examples of topics treated here from the perspective of their potentially transformative role in the future development of constitutional law.

Índice

• The Forgotten Value of Civic Friendship: 1
• The Founding Period: 21
• 2 Representatoin of Women in the Constitution: 23
• Women and Divorce in the Early Republic: 34
• Gender and Its Connection to Economic Considerations: 45
• RECONSTRUCTION: 51
• 5 Women Bondage and the Reconstructed Constitution: 53
• A Call for Reparations: 70
• WOMEN AND THE WELFARE STATE: 91
• Race Gender and US Welfare Policy: 93
• Affirmative Obligation and the Feminization of Poverty: 108
• PART 2 Interpretation: 125
• 9 Federalisms Feminism Families and the Constitution: 127
• 10 Whats Privacy Got to Do With It? A Comparitive Approach to the Feminist Critique: 153
• Initiating a Dialogue: 176
• PRIVACY AND FAMILY LAW: 195
• 12 Battered Women Feminist Lawmaking Privacy and Equality: 197
• 13 Infringements of Womens Constitutional Rights in Religious Lawmaking on Abortion: 221
• 14 What Place for Family Privacy?: 236
• 15 The Right to Privacy and GayLesbian Sexuality: 255
• WOMEN AND WORK: 271
• Race Sex and Fair Employment: 273
• A Structural Approach: 292
• Women and Economics Revisited: 314
• PART 3 Practice Citizenship and the Equal Rights Amendment: 333
• The Virginia Military Institute Case: 335
• An Alternative Route to Constitutional Equality for US Women: 347
• 21 Whatever Happened to the ERA?: 365
• About the Contributors: 379
• Index: 385

Acerca do autor

Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach is associate professor of philosophy at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is the author of On Civic Friendship (forthcoming) as well as of numerous articles in social, political, and feminist theory. Patricia Smith is professor of philosophy at Baruch College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is the author of Liberalism and Affirmative Obligation and the editor of numerous volumes including Feminist Jurisprudence.

Informação bibliográfica

• Título: Women and the U.S. Constitution: History, Interpretation, and Practice
• Editores: Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach, Patricia Smith
• Editora: Columbia University Press, 2004
• ISBN: 0231502966, 9780231502962
• Número de páginas: 448 páginas