030511 KU Gender, law and power (2018S)

Lecturers

• Elisabeth Holzleithner

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

In its first part, the course is an introduction to some essential currents of legal gender studies – against the background of the thesis that law is, in principle, a suitable instrument for furthering the emancipation of marginalized persons and groups, even if the outcome of legal reform is frequently ambivalent. One main task is to carve out fundamental questions of equality and inequality as well as equality and difference, respectively, in their everyday configuration, their theoretical framing and their expression in legal discourse. It is shown how law constitutes gender relations, also as relations of power. The focus is on the diversity of feminist jurisprudence, containing different approaches such as equality doctrine, theories of equality and difference or Catharine MacKinnon’s dominance theory of gender relations. The presentation leads to theories of the intersectional entanglement of diverse grounds of discrimination, as introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Having thus laid the foundations, the second part of the course deals with current challenges. One is the changing context of gender equality politics, with its new and well-nigh frenetic focus on the “oppressed migrant woman” and its tendency to substitute real equality measures with “symbol politics”. One of these policy areas is that of “veiling”, as epitomized in recent legal initiatives in Austria: It is now forbidden to cover one’s face in public, and debates on the prohibition of wearing the veil in pre-school and school are becoming more urgent. Another area this course will focus on is that of sexual autonomy. The following aspects will be covered: first, the concept of sexual autonomy as such, and the role of law in shaping it, using the example of pornography, and the issue of sexist advertising. The course will conclude by revisiting the concept of emancipatory law in the context of queer_intersectional challenges.

• Tuesday 13.03. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG (Kickoff Class)
• Tuesday 10.04. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 17.04. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 24.04. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 08.05. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 15.05. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 29.05. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 05.06. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 12.06. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG
• Tuesday 19.06. 15:00 - 17:30 Seminarraum SEM44 Schottenbastei 10-16, Juridicum 4.OG