Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Volume 13 | Issue 1 Article 3

2005

Symposium: Feminist Legal Theory

Martha Albertson Fineman

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Fineman, Martha Albertson. " Feminist Legal Theory." American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. 13, no. 1
(2005): 13-23.

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 Fineman: Symposium: Feminist Legal Theory

FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY

MARTHA ALBERTSON FINEMAN

Introduction .......................................................................................... 13
I. Feminisms and Feminists.................................................................. 14
II. Deconstructing the Public/Private Engagement with Law
and Economics ................................................................................. 20

INTRODUCTION
Twenty years ago the first Feminism and Legal Theory (FLT)
workshop was held at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Begun
initially as a summer program, the FLT Project provided a supportive
forum for a variety of scholars from different disciplines who were
interested in gender and law. Papers from the early sessions of the
FLT workshops became a part of the very first feminist legal theory
anthology, At the Boundaries of Law: Feminism and Legal Theory.1
In the intervening years a lot has transpired. The FLT Project
continues to hold summer sessions, along with workshops and
uncomfortable conversations each semester. We have moved well
beyond, while not totally abandoning, the earlier preoccupation with
issues of primary concern to women, such as domestic violence and
reproductive freedom. Today, the FLT Project is as invested in its
Corporations and Capitalism working group as it is in working with
scholars who are engaging in path-breaking work on care and
dependency.
Of course, when we speak of feminism, it is necessary to clearly state
that there are many differences within feminism difference in
approach, emphasis, and objectives that make sweeping
generalizations difficult. Recognizing that there are many
divergences in feminist theory, it is nonetheless possible to make
some generalizations. Feminism is not anchored in any one

Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Director of Feminism & Legal Theory
Project, Emory University School of Law.
1. AT THE BOUNDARIES OF LAW: FEMINISM AND LEGAL THEORY (Martha Albertson
Fineman & Nancy Sweet Thomadsen eds., 1991) [hereinafter BOUNDARIES].

13

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14 JOURNAL OF GENDER, SOCIAL POLICY & THE LAW [Vol. 13:1

discipline. It presents a theory of gender and challenges the

assertions and assumptions of gender-neutrality and objectivity in
received disciplinary knowledge. Often credited with inserting the
woman question into disciplinary dialogue, feminism has broadened
and complicated the traditional framework of a variety of disciplines.2
Because gender is theoretically relevant to almost all human
endeavors, it is also relevant to almost all disciplines.3

I. FEMINISMS AND FEMINISTS

Because feminism as a discipline focuses on the significance of
gender and the societal inequality resulting from values and
assumptions based on gender, feminist scholars are found in all
disciplines. As a group, feminists are concerned with the implications
of historic and contemporary exploitation of women within society,
seeking the empowerment of women and the transformation of
institutions dominated by men. In addition, many feminists also use
distinctive feminist methods to bring womens experiences to the
foreground, such as consciousness raising or storytelling.4 Such
methods recognize the validity and importance of womens
experiences and ground feminist theory and research.
One important characteristic of feminism is that it represents the
integration of practice and theory. As noted by historian Linda
Gordon, feminism is an analysis of womens subordination for the
purpose of figuring out how to change it.5 The recognized
desirability of this practical aspect has made many feminists gravitate
toward law and legal reform as objects of study and action. They have
had many successes within law. In fact, it is fair to state that feminism,
along with economics and, to some extent, psychology, has had a
visible and immediate impact on law over the past several decades.
The effect is apparent not only in the academic and in legal

2. See, e.g., KEITH E. MELDER, BEGINNINGS OF SISTERHOOD: THE AMERICAN

WOMANS RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1800-1850, at 95-96 (1977) (discussing the emergence of
the woman question within the abolitionist movement, while raising questions
about the nature and function of gender).
3. See BOUNDARIES, supra note 1, at xv (Disagreements [within the feminist
community] aside, however, it seems clear to me that feminist legal theory has lessons
for all of society, not just for women or legal scholars. Ultimately, it is the members of
our audience that will judge the effectiveness of our individual and collective
voices.).
4. See MARTHA CHAMALLAS, INTRODUCTION TO FEMINIST LEGAL THEORY 10 (1999)
(noting that feminist legal theorists frequently use narratives of battered women in
researching domestic violence).
5. Linda Gordon, The Struggle for Reproductive Freedom: Three Stages of
Feminism, in CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY AND THE CASE FOR SOCIALIST FEMINISM 107 n.1
(Zillah R. Eisenstein ed., 1979).

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scholarship, but in the doctrine employed by courts and developed by

legislative bodies.6 The very institutions of law have been assessed
and, occasionally, revised in the light of feminist insights and
arguments.
The fact that feminism has had an impact is not surprising given
the huge influx of women into law schools beginning in the 1970s.7
While there were women in law schools prior to this period, their
numbers have increased significantly during this time. Further,
women have been integrated into the profession at all levels.8 In the
first wave of women to attend law school, many were explicitly
interested in a feminist political agenda. They came to law schools
with the mantra that the personal is the political ringing resolutely
in their ears.9 They were interested in reform and the role that law
would play in the project of engineering a more gender-equal society.
These early feminists were optimistic about using law to attain gender
equality.
The strategies of early legal feminist reformers were varied and
their perspectives were not always compatible. One basic divide that
emerged early in the articulation of a legal approach to feminist
theory is still significant todaythe issue of gender difference. What
were the differences between women and men? How were they to be
addressed? The majority of early feminist legal theorists adopted a
discrimination model to the issue of gender. Their objective was to
outlaw biased treatment and provide laws that allowed women equal
opportunities with men.10
This group of feminist legal scholars and practitioners were uneasy
with too much attention to difference and instead wanted to
emphasize womens sameness with men. Less innovators than

6. See Susan J. Carroll, Gender Symposium, The Politics of Difference: Women

Public Officials as Agents of Change, 5 STAN. L. & POLY REV. 11, 12-13 (1994) (noting
the impact women in public office are having on public policies).
7. See AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, FACTS ABOUT WOMEN AND THE LAW 3 (1998)
(indicating that the percentage of women enrolled in law school increased from a
little over nine percent in 1971 to around thirty-four percent by 1981), available at
http://www.abanet.org/media/factbooks/womenlaw.pdf (last viewed on Nov. 3,
2004).
8. See id. at 4 (showing that women have participated in the legal profession in a
variety of positions, including as judges, practicing attorneys, and professors).
9. See CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE 95
(1989) (reasoning that since a womans problems are not hers individually but those
of women as a whole, they cannot be addressed except as a whole. In this analysis of
gender as a nonnatural characteristic of a division of power in society, the personal
becomes the political).
10. See, e.g., Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 76 (1971) (holding that the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids states to give mandatory
preference to a man over a woman as executor of an estate).

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entrepreneurs within traditional legal principles, these feminists

resorted to doctrinal arguments that women and men should be
treated the same.11 Employing and expanding upon existing equal
protection jurisprudence, the attack was on differences codified in law
as well as on the stereotypes that justified them.12 The belief was that
any recognition of difference or argument for special treatment
would operate to the disadvantage of women. These feminists
attacked discriminatory laws that denied women full participation in
public institutions such as the jury (successful) and the military
(unsuccessful).13 They challenged financial and market institutions
different treatment in areas like insurance and finance, and used Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make gains in equal treatment in
access to employment and pay.14 Consistent with the primary
commitment to equality and gender neutrality, many of the early
cases were actually brought on behalf of men excluded from womens
institutions or complaining about favored treatment for women.15
Other feminist scholars, however, wanted to develop and build
upon the concept of gender difference.16 Gender inequality was not
only produced and maintained through exclusion from or
discriminatory treatment within existing social structures. Facially
neutral rules could also generate inequalities, particularly since

11. See CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN 117

(1979) (noting that the approach of treating men and women equally focuses on the
unfairness of disparate treatment based solely on sex, which can give meaning to the
social context of one sex dominating the other).
12. See, e.g., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 690-91 (1973) (invalidating a
rule that treated male and female military personnel differently for purposes of
determining dependent benefits). To receive the benefits under the statute, female
personnel were required to prove that their spouses were actually dependents, while
spouses of male officers were presumed to be dependents. Id.
13. See Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57, 83 (1981) (holding that the federal law
requiring selective service registration by men, but not women, was constitutional).
14. See, e.g., Weeks v. S. Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 408 F.2d 228, 236 (5th Cir. 1969)
(finding that Southern Bell violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by
refusing to consider a womans application for the position of switchman based on
gender because the company did not prove that all or substantially all women would
be unable to perform the duties involved, thereby placing the job within the bona
fide occupational qualification exception); Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U.S.
542, 543 (1971) (holding that a corporation violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 because of a job requirement that female applicants not have preschool age
children).
15. See, e.g., Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 204-05 (1976) (striking down
legislation that prohibited the sale of 3.2 percent beer to men under the age of
twenty-one and to women under the age of eighteen because the gender-based
classification did not bare a fair and substantial relation to the objective of the
legislation).
16. See MACKINNON, supra note 11, at 101 (stating that the differences
approach does not prohibit all differentiations between the sexes, but only those that
are . . . inaccurate or overgeneralized distinctions between the sexes).

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womens and mens societal circumstances were so different. Such

differences demand different treatment mere formal equal
treatment could not sufficiently address existing structural and
ideological inequalities. This strand of feminism sought to question
the legitimacy of existing gender norms and their implications for
societys institutions and legal structures. The objective was not
necessarily to eradicate these norms (a monumental task that has only
begun), but to address the implications of gendered institutions.
Institutions, including law were not perceived as neutral and
potentially helpful in this regard. They were part of the problem as
currently constructed.
This group of scholars and activists, labeled difference feminists,
can be further divided according to how they understood the
implications of difference. Some, labeled cultural feminists, argued
that women were different from men and had a unique way of
knowing or feeling.17 For example, cultural feminist arguments
were particularly significant in developing the movement to replace
adversariness with mediation and other, gentler, forms of alternative
dispute resolution.
By contrast, other arguments that focused on gender differences
waged broader critiques of certain substantive areas of law.18 These
attacks were directed at a variety of laws and legal institutions,
challenging them as illegitimate because they failed to reflect the
differences between women and men.19
Recognition that differences between women and men existed
(whether developed socially or biologically) led some feminists to call
for law reforms addressing the position of women and the gendered
nature of their lives. The argument was that women occupy a
different and inferior or subordinate position in this society and this
necessitated special concern and responsiveness.20 Existing laws

17. See, e.g., CAROL GILLIGAN, IN A DIFFERENT CHOICE: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY

AND WOMENS DEVELOPMENT 6-9 (1982) (noting that based on the varied psychological
development and experience of individuation and relationship, women possess
different values and ways of interacting with others).
18. See, e.g., Cal. Fed. Savings & Loan Assn v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272, 291-92
(1987) (upholding a California law that required employers to provide women
unpaid pregnancy leave and reinstatement after childbirth as a statute that allows
women, as well as men, to have families without losing their jobs). Justice Marshalls
opinion utilized a feminist argument that pregnancy should not be compared to or
treated as a temporary disability, but instead the Equal Protection issue should be
decided on the basis of equal treatment of mothers and fathers. Id.
19. See, e.g., Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 330-31 (1977) (invalidating a
statute that set minimum height and weight requirements for prison guards because
it had a discriminatory effect of excluding women).
20. See, e.g., MACKINNON, supra note 11, at 25, 193-213 (asserting that sexual
harassment denies women the opportunity to choose where to study or work without

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were attacked as reflective of male bias.21 Some commentators went

so far as to assert that the law itself was male.22
Such arguments, delegitimizing existing law and structures,
eventually led to reforms that displaced the traditional (male)
perspective and effectively transformed the way we think about things
such as sexual assault and domestic violence.23 Family law was
another area in which critiques based on the inequity of gender
differences were effective. Property division rules at divorce were
altered in response to the argument that women as homemakers and
mothers made valuable, even if non-monetary, contributions to the
family.24 A focus on gender differences also ushered in new legal
concepts such as sexual harassment and the battered womens
syndrome.25 Courts began to recognize that a typical womans
reaction to an experience of flirtation in the workplace or repeated
threats and actions of violence at home might not be the same as
those of the laws constructthe reasonable man.26 These changes
in the law show the success that feminists have achieved in working
towards challenging the existing nature and structure of the law. As
noted over ten years ago in At the Boundaries of the Law, the task of

being subject to sexual exactions, thereby limiting women in a way that men are not
limited); see also CHAMALLAS, supra note 4, at 55 (stating that MacKinnons
argument was straightforward and powerful: Because sexual harassment was a central
mechanism for perpetuating womens inferior status in the workplace, it ought to be
regarded as sex discrimination).
21. See, e.g., Corne v. Bausch & Lomb, 390 F. Supp. 161, 163 (D. Ariz. 1975)
(holding that even if, as alleged, female employees were subjected to verbal and
physical sexual advances from their supervisor, there was no right to relief under the
Civil Rights Act, where there was no employer policy served by the supervisors
alleged conduct, no benefit to the employer was involved, and no relationship
between the alleged conduct and the nature of employment). But see MACKINNON,
supra note 11, at 38-39 (asserting that men typically engage in sexual harassment
against women, and because men usually hold superior positions, they have the
power to affect womens careers).
22. See GILLIGAN, supra note 17, at 6 (noting that presumed neutrality gave way
to the fact that categories of knowledge are human constructions and we have
become accustomed to seeing life though mens eyes).
23. See generally CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, FEMINISM UNMODIFIED: DISCOURSES
ON LIFE AND LAW (1987).
24. See UNIFORM MARRIAGE & DIVORCE ACT 307 (amended 1973), 9A Part I
U.L.A. 288 (1998) (including the contribution of a spouse as a homemaker in its
criteria for dividing marital property upon divorce).
25. See MACKINNON, supra note 11, at 27-28 (noting that the term sexual
harassment came into existence in 1976, but that the previous lack of a social
definition and silence on the issue did not mean an absence of harassment); Martha
R. Mahoney, Legal Images of Battered Women: Redefining the Issue of Separation,
90 MICH. L. REV. 1, 36 (1991) (relating how litigators and psychologists developed
testimony on battered woman syndrome to explain how abuse affects victims).
26. See, e.g., Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 879 (9th Cir. 1991) (ruling that a
sex-blind reasonable person standard tends to be male-biased and ignores the
experiences of women).

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feminists concerned with the law and legal institutions must be to

create and explicate feminist methods and theories that explicitly
challenge and compete with the existing totalizing nature of grand
legal theory.27
There is a tension between the idea of feminism as a method of
analysis and gender neutrality or equality as its aspiration. How can
the major feminist insight that women live gendered lives, lives
shaped by experiences within a society whose institutions and
ideologies are founded upon and incorporate gendered assumptions
be reconciled with the equality paradigm as it is played out in law as
sameness or equality of treatment? By and large, there is no
reconciliation.28 Equality norms and gender neutrality prevail;
although, there is some minor concession to the realization that
womens unequal material circumstances might require some small,
preferably temporary, concessions. For example, advocates of
affirmative action begin with the premise that equality is not only
desirable, but also attainable. The point of affirmative action is
remedialto ensure equal access and equal opportunity for equally
distributed meritocracy and ability.30
In fact, if we look at the areas which take the idea of gender most
seriously and in which it has had the greatest impact, what emerges is
an interesting picture. Sexuality, domestic violence, and family law
are areas that have historically and stereotypically been conceded to
women or considered to be of special concern to women.31 While
rape and sexual harassment are public events that are sanctioned by
law and the focus of regulation and policy, unease with both actions is
the result of the fact that we view them as related to private activities
such as consensual sex and flirtatious seduction. The idea of gender
is less visible in situations where we do not view women as victims, as

27. BOUNDARIES, supra note 1, at xiii.

28. Id.
Feminist legal theory can demonstrate that what is is not neutral. What is is
as biased as that which challenges it . . . and there can be no refuge in the
status quo. Law has developed over time in the context of theories and
institutions which are controlled by men and reflect their concerns.
Historically, law has been a public arena and its focus has been on public
concerns. Traditionally, women belonged to the private recesses of society,
in families, in relationships controlled and defined by men, in silence.
Id.
30. See Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313, 317 (1977) (upholding a provision in
the Social Security Act that calculated benefits in a more advantageous way for
women than men, based on the permissible goal of redressing our societys
longstanding disparate treatment of women).
31. See MACKINNON, supra note 23, at 73 (noting that womens poverty,
financial dependency, motherhood, and sexual accessibility . . . substantively make up
womens status as women).

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we do in some cases of rape or domestic violence, or where issues do

not implicate the domestic sphere of home and family.32 The
dilemma for a feminist is how to bring a gender-focused analysis to
bear in the more public and powerful institutional contexts. How can
we argue that gender is relevant beyond the sexual, the violent, and
the familial?

II. DECONSTRUCTING THE PUBLIC/PRIVATE ENGAGEMENT WITH LAW

AND ECONOMICS
To some extent feminisms second significant critique the
deconstruction of the traditional public/private divide in law does
engage the institutions of power. This attack on the dichotomous
view of the world resonates with the issue of difference. This view
actually can incorporate the major insights of the feminist difference
dialogue to focus on the gender implications of societal structures.
This critique is even more important today given the rush to privatize
so many activities previously considered as public or collective
responsibility.33
In fact, it is surprising that some of todays extreme rhetoric
extolling private rather than public responsibility for dependency has
come from self-identified feminist legal scholars and others identified
with progressive positions. Some are led to a privatizing position
through the logic of economic analysis with its emphasis on efficiency
and utility.34 Of course, feminist theorists come in all ideological
preferences, but most are at least skeptical about privatization as a
route of first resort for serious social policy issues.35 In fact, one of
the few common threads in feminist theory has been woven by
expanding on the fundamental insight that the personal is the
political.36 Feminists have risen to breach the historic maintenance

32. See id. at 101 (noting that the law of privacy restricts intrusions into the
private sphere, but it is within this sphere that women are often deprived of identity
and autonomy).
33. See Martha Albertson Fineman, What Place for Family Privacy?, 67 GEO.
WASH. L. REV. 1207, 1209 (1999) (arguing that a more equitable scheme would
distribute the burdens of dependency, with the market and the state assuming more
of the economic and social costs inherent in the reproduction of society).
34. This opinion was expressed by several participants at the Uncomfortable
Conversation on Children: Public Good and Personal Responsibility?, sponsored by
the Feminism and Legal Theory Project and held on November 19-20, 1999 at
Cornell Law School.
35. See Fineman, supra note 33, at 1211 (discussing the debate about the wisdom
and effectiveness of using privacy to secure individual rights).
36. See, e.g., Catharine A. MacKinnon, Feminism, Marxism, Method and the
State: An Agenda for Theory, 7 SIGNS: J. OF WOMEN IN CULTURE & SOCY 515, 535
(1982) ([The personal is political] means that womens distinctive experience as
women occurs within that sphere that has been socially lived as the personal - private,

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of a distinction between the public and the private, by writing

volumes to show the interdependence and relationship between these
spheres, demonstrating, for example, the treacherousness of the
protection of family privacy from a wife or childs perspective.37
Of particular relevance to the debates about dependency are
feminist attempts to show the ways in which the dichotomous
concepts of public and private have significant political implications.38
These concepts represent more than mere labels. They interact as
ideological channels for the allocation of societal resources, including
the resources of power and authority. The concepts have tremendous
political and practical implications. Designation of some institutions
in legal discourse as public, while others are considered private,
has implications for the manner and method of state regulation and
perceived legitimacy of collective subsidy. This dichotomous
classification also shapes contrasting norms of interaction and
expectation within and between the designated societal spheres.39
The idea that the private is generally preferable under our system of
government is more and more firmly enmeshed with our sense of
social justice enforcing the unwritten social contract that guides
and gauges the relationship among individuals, societal institutions,
and the state. As it evolves, our social contract seems to be expanding
along the private axis. Privatization is increasingly seen as the solution
to complicated social problems reflecting persistent inequality and
poverty.40
This is the contemporary challenge for feminist legal scholars.
Many reformers lobby to remove these persistent problems from

emotional, interiorized, particular, individuated, intimate - so that what it is to know

the politics of womans situation is to know womens personal lives.).
37. See Fineman, supra note 33, at 1217-20 (discussing the critique of privacy by
feminists and child advocates including Catharine MacKinnon, Anita L. Allen, and
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse).
38. See id. at 1223 (arguing that autonomy, an updated version of privacy, if
extended to caretaker-dependant units would be beneficial to the unit and society);
see also Martha Albertson Fineman, Intimacy Outside of the Natural Family: The
Limits of Privacy, 23 CONN. L. REV. 955, 972 (1991) (concluding that the privacy
doctrine, as presently conceived, will not extend to protect the decision making
autonomy and dignity of poor and single mothers).
39. This is manifest in the historic designation of the separate spheres in
common law. The family and other institutions of care and altruism occupied the
private (female) sphere, while the market and state were in the public (male)
domain. See Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. 130, 132 (1872) (Bradley, J., concurring)
(God designed the sexes to occupy separate spheres of action and . . . it belonged to
men to make, apply, and execute the laws . . . .).
40. See Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996, 42 U.S.C. 608 (2004) (seeking to solve teenage parenting concerns by
requiring denial of public assistance to teenage parents unless they live with their own
parents).

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public control and relegate them to the sphere of private industry.

From welfare reform to the construction of ideal educational or
prison systems, the assertion is that the private market can better
address historic public issues than can the public government.41
We must point out that the classification of the world into public
and private contains some significant paradoxes. For example, while
the state is designated the quintessential public and the family as the
quintessential private institution, the market and its apparatus are
distinctively chameleon-like. Markets are constructed as public (and
therefore under a different, competitive set of norms) when
contrasted with the family, but as private (and therefore not easily
susceptible to public regulation) when paired with the state. The
market reaps the best of both spheres.
In addition, while the family may be viewed as private, it is highly
regulated and controlled by the state. Law defines who may marry
whom and what formalities must be observed.42 Only some
relationships are legitimate or legal ones, which carry the weight
of the state behind them. Law defines the consequences of marriage
and parenthood during on-going relationships and imposes
significant policy directives in the context of divorce.43 Law also
defines the responsibilities of a family and the role of the family
within the larger society.44
So too, the public nature of the state spills over to affect the very
workings of private life. The state always acts in ways that affect
individuals. By shaping and regulating institutions such as the family,
the state contributes to the way individuals construct their identities
within society. The state establishes norms of citizenship and
community. By scooping out what is public, it also defines what
remains private. It is on this terrain that feminism can confront the
politics and policies stingily constructed in the discourse of the Law

41. Martha Albertson Fineman, Symposium on the Structures of Care Work,

Contract and Care, 76 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 1403, 1405 (2001) (arguing for the assertion
of collective or public responsibility for dependency, a status that historically has been
assigned to the private sphere).
42. See, e.g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 7 (1967) (noting that marriage is a
social relation subject to the states police power (citing Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190
(1888))).
43. See Williams v. N.C., 325 U.S. 226, 230 (1945) (stating that divorce and
marriage affect personal rights of the deepest significance. It also touches basic
interests of society. Since divorce, like marriage, creates a new status, every
consideration of policy makes it desirable that the effect should be the same wherever
the question arises).
44. See Martha Albertson Fineman, Our Sacred Institution: The Ideal of the
Family in American Law and Society, 1993 UTAH L. REV. 387, 400 (1993) (discussing the
construction of family function in society and the distribution of roles within the family to
meet those assigned functions).

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and Economics movement.

Feminism is linked to the real world, therefore feminism changes
and evolves. In the introduction to one of the first anthologies of
feminist legal theory, I noted this evolutionary nature of feminist legal
theory:
Feminist methodology at its best represents a contribution to a
series of ongoing debates and discussion which take as a given that
truth changes over time as circumstances change and that gains
and losses, along with wisdom recorded, are not immutable but part
of an evolving story. Feminist legal theory referencing womens
lives, then, must define and undertake the tasks of the moment.
As the tasks of the future cannot yet be defined, any particular piece
of feminist legal scholarship is only a step in the long journey
feminist legal scholars have begun.45

45. BOUNDARIES, supra note 1, at xv.

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