2013 marks 10 years since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was passed. That Act made significant changes to the law of rape which appear now to have made very little difference to reporting, prosecution or conviction rates. This article argues that the Act has failed against its own measures because it remains enmeshed within a conceptual framework of sexual indifference in which woman continues to be constructed as man’s other. This construction both constricts the frame in which women’s sexuality can (...) be thought and distorts the harm of rape for women. It also continues woman’s historic alienation from her own nature and denies her entitlement to a becoming in line with her own sexuate identity. Using Luce Irigaray’s critical and constructive frameworks, the article seeks to imagine how law might ‘cognise’ sexual difference and thus take the preliminary steps to a juridical environment in which women can more adequately understand and articulate the harm of rape. (shrink)

The contributors to this issue focus on legal internationalism, including hybrid mixes with nationalist forms. They have provoked us as editors to think more about these sites and forms of engagement. Sankey shows how civic participation in the ECCC has played a key role in surfacing the gendered harms of separation and starvation. Turan highlights the problems with ICC exclusion of the experience of men and boys from sexual violence. Peroni expresses her hesitations over the Istanbul Convention given an association (...) between assumed vulnerability and migrant women, while admiring its uncoupling of violence and culture. Cruz’s interview with Wendy Brown contextualizes and expands on these themes as they consider, with other participants, the future of feminist theory in the context of neo-liberal capturing of rights and legal space. Thinking more about internationalism and commitment in this context also helps us hold a mirror up to ourselves as we reflect more critically on our own naming of FLS as an ‘international’ journal. Together these contributions, and the reviews of new work, play a role in fleshing out an editorial commitment to enacting the journal as a living thing that ‘hangs together somehow’ even as it is known differently in different places. (shrink)

It has been quite a year so far(!) and as the wenches we are, we have been taking our time to collect our thoughts and reflections before sharing them at the start of this issue of the journal. In this editorial we think through the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects on the world, on our lives and on our editorial processes. We renew our commitment to improving our operations as a journal and its health along with our own as (...) we deploy wench tactics to restore, sustain and slow down to negotiate this new reality, this new world. We conclude with an introduction to the fascinating contents of this issue along with a collaborative statement of values on open access as part of a collective of intersectional feminist and social justice editors. Through all of the pain and suffering we focus our gaze on hope: hope that we can come through this global crisis together engaging in critical conversations about how we can be better and do better as editors, academics and individuals for ourselves, our colleagues and our journal. (shrink)

Since the last issue of Feminist Legal Studies, we editorial board members have had lots of conversations about comfort, displacement and alienation. As we developed the programme for #FLaK2016 we thought about it as a kind of pulling ourselves out of our comfort zone, if academic events and journals ever have a comfort zone. Drawing on a mix of feminist live performance methods and a science and technology studies-type curiosity for objects of experimentation, we tried out a kitchen table method (...) of hosting a live research conversation with activists, artists and academics over two days. But we had not fully anticipated the way that the Brexit result would contribute to and complicate discomfort. A fuller analysis of FLaK awaits a later moment, but here we pick out this one aspect of our gathering—feelings of discomfort – as they animate the contributions to this issue in interesting ways. (shrink)

On November 20, 2014, Professor Joanne Conaghan and Dr. Yvette Russell met at the University of Bristol Law School to discuss Conaghan’s most recent book Law and Gender. This paper is an edited transcript of their discussion, the question and answer session with the audience that followed, and includes Conaghan’s reflections on her long and varied career as a feminist legal scholar. The discussion was chaired by Dr. Devyani Prabhat and organised as part of Bristol Law School’s Women (...) in Law seminar series. (shrink)

In an article recently published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the legal scholar Helen Reece argues that the prevalence and effects of rape myths have been overstated and the designation of certain beliefs and attitudes as myths is simply wrong. Feminist researchers, she argues, are engaged ‘in a process of creating myths about myths’ in a way that serves to close down and limit productive debate in this ‘vexed’ area. In this article we argue that Reece’s analysis is (...) methodologically flawed, crudely reductionist and rhetorically unyielding. We locate Reece’s analysis within the wider theoretical field to show how her failure to engage with feminist literature on rape other than in the narrowest, most exclusionary terms, yields an approach which impedes rather than advances public understanding and panders to a kind of simplistic thinking which cannot begin to grapple with the complexity of the phenomenon that is rape. We conclude by emphasizing the continuing commitment of feminist researchers carefully to theorize and map the fraught field of progressive legal strategizing in order to identify and counter the kinds of risks and shortcomings of political activism with which Reece is rightly concerned. (shrink)

Vulnerability acts as a touchstone in this issue as we find our contributors reflecting on its intersection with gender and sexuality in different ways. Saeidzadeh draws out the significance of misrecognition in her consideration of responses to transsexuality in Iran, while Doonan highlights the potential pitfalls of relying on situational vulnerability in her critique of anti-trafficking legal discourse in the US. Lindsey considers the legal potential of situational vulnerability as a tool to address the ‘persistent failure to take action against (...) abuse’ in the UK. Durojaye and Oluduro contribute to the recent revitalisation in asking ‘the woman question’ by drawing on African law and literature to flesh out the development of a gender-sensitive, substantive equality approach from the jurisprudence of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights as it addresses vulnerability to violence. The reviewers continue this international conversation as they address recent contributions on sexuality, family formation and social security. (shrink)

Picking up the question of what FLaK might be, this editorial considers the relationship between openness and closure in feminist legal studies. How do we draw on feminist struggles for openness in common resources, from security to knowledge, as we inhabit a compromised space in commercial publishing? We think about this first in relation to the content of this issue: on image-based abuse continuums, asylum struggles, trials of protestors, customary justice, and not-so-timely reparations. Our thoughts take us through the different (...) ways that openness and closure work in struggles against violence, cruel welcomes, and re-arrangements of code and custom. Secondly, we share some reflections on methodological openness and closure as the roundtable conversation on asylum, and the interview with Riles, remind us of #FLaK2016 and its method of scattering sources as we think about how best to mix knowledges. Thirdly, prompted by the FLaK kitchen table conversations on openness, publishing and ‘getting the word out’, we respond to Kember’s call to ‘open up open access’. We explain the different current arrangements for opening up FLS content and how green open access, the sharedit initiative, author request and publisher discretion present alternatives to gold open access. Finally drawing on Franklin and Spade, we show how there are a range of ‘wench tactics’—adapting gifts, stalling and resting—which we deploy as academic editors who are trying to have an impact on the access, use and circulation of our journal, even though we do not own the journal we edit. These wench tactics are alternatives to the more obvious or reported tactic of resignation, or withdrawing academic labour from editing and reviewing altogether. They help us think about brewing editorial time, what ambivalence over our 25th birthday might mean, and how to inhabit painful places. In this, we respond in our own impure, compromised way to da Silva’s call not to forget the native and slave as we do FLaK, and repurpose shrapnel, in our common commitments. (shrink)

It has been three years since we held the Feminism, Legality and Knowledge seminar to respond to our developing frustrations and excitement around feminist legal studies and academic publishing. In the wake of our 25th anniversary in 2018, we critically reflect further on our original intention to stock up on decolonising techniques to mix feminism, legality and knowledge whilst building on previous consideration of our self-proclaimed ‘international’ status. These reflections are prompted by editorial board members’ experiences as participants in the (...) Cardiff Law and Global Justice Centre’s British Academy-funded Global South Socio-Legal Writing Workshops in Accra, Nairobi and Recife in 2018. Following an explanation of the concerns with academic publishing that have prompted this reflection, we provide a narrative of our experiences in each of the three workshops exploring the lessons learned and their impact on our practice as editors and scholars in feminist legal studies. We finish with a renewal of our commitment to decolonise our minds and practices by continuing to struggle to earn the label ‘international’ for the journal now and in future. A brief introduction to the contents of this issue of FLS follows the reflection. (shrink)

El autor intenta mostrar que el concepto de ley es totalmente innecesario y que solo sirve para crear confusiones y generar falacias. Para ello muestra que la supuesta “ley de la causalidad” es inconsistente y que la ciencia no requiere de ella más que en una primera fase. Las ciencias maduras usan relaciones, en concreto, relaciones mediante ecuaciones diferenciales para desempe\ nar el papel que se le quiere otorgar a la ley de la causalidad. Despues de hacer esto, el autor (...) presenta varias confusiones relacionadas con el concepto de causa, y su solución si se asume lo anteriormente dicho. (shrink)

Developing countries are faced with the mutually perpetuating obstacles of poverty and inadequate development. Their needs are often so vast that their scarce resources prove too meager even to begin to address the problems.It is estimated that close to 2.2 billion people live in a state of severe poverty. The precarious housing and health of these people, 60 percent of the population of developing countries, are compounded by hunger and dangerous environmental conditions. Generally, they have large families and their incomes (...) are extremely low. Malnutrition is widespread despite the fact that 80 percent of their earnings are spent on food. (shrink)

Developing countries are faced with the mutually perpetuating obstacles of poverty and inadequate development. Their needs are often so vast that their scarce resources prove too meager even to begin to address the problems.It is estimated that close to 2.2 billion people live in a state of severe poverty. The precarious housing and health of these people, 60 percent of the population of developing countries, are compounded by hunger and dangerous environmental conditions. Generally, they have large families and their incomes (...) are extremely low. Malnutrition is widespread despite the fact that 80 percent of their earnings are spent on food. (shrink)

Recent events at Enron, K-Mart, Adelphia, and Tyson would seem to suggest that managers are still experiencing ethical lapses. These lapses are somewhat surprising and disappointing given the heightened focus on ethical considerations within business contexts during the past decade. This study is designed, therefore, to increase our understanding of the forces that shape ethical perceptions by considering the effects of business school education as well as a number of other individual-level factors (such as intra-national culture, area of specialization within (...) business, and gender) that may exert an influence on ethical perceptions. We found significant effects for business education, self-reported intra-national culture, area of specialization within business, and gender for some and/or all areas of ethics examined (i.e., deceit, fraud, self-interest, influence dealing, and coercion). One of our most encouraging findings is that tolerance for unethical behavior appears to decrease with formal business education. Despite the prevalent stereotype that business students are only interested in the bottom line or that business schools transform idealistic freshman into self-serving business graduates, our results suggest otherwise. Given the heightened criticism of the ethicality of contemporary managerial behavior, it is heartening to note that, even as adults, individuals can be positively affected by integration of ethics training. (shrink)

This study examined the potential for a new area of corporate social responsibility washing: gender equality. Companies are increasingly recognized for advertisements promoting gender equality, termed “femvertisements.” However, it is unclear whether companies that win femvertising awards actually support women with an institutionalized approach to gender equality. A quantitative content analysis was performed assessing company leadership team listings, annual reports, CSR reports, and CSR websites of 61 US-based companies to compare the prevalence of internal and external gender-equality CSR activities of (...) companies that have won femvertising awards. When controlling for number of employees and annual revenue, award-winning companies committed to more internal efforts that support women than non-award-winning companies. However, no significant differences were found in the number of external efforts or representation in female leadership between companies with and without award-winning femvertisements. Overall, a majority of award-winning companies engaged in less than ten of the possible 23 gender-equality CSR activities, suggesting these companies’ female empowerment commercials were often not in line with their broader CSR activities. While more research is needed in this area, we propose the term “fempower-washing” to describe CSR-washing in the context of gender equality. (shrink)

Competition plays a substantial and structural role in philosophy today. It is therefore remarkable that it has received little systematic ethical scrutiny in the literature until now. This paper aims to contribute to establishing a discussion about competition in the discipline of philosophy by arguing (i) that philosophy is not inherently competitive and (ii) that competition tends to corrupt the practice of philosophy. Regarding (i), I argue that philosophy can best be understood as a cooperative endeavour. The idea that philosophy (...) is a matter of competitive adversarial argumentation impedes philosophers from achieving what philosophy is all about, that is, realising what Alasdair MacIntyre calls ‘internal goods’: acquiring greater wisdom and knowledge and getting closer to the truth. I then show that a lot of the competition that characterises today’s practice of philosophy revolves around obtaining external goods, such as money, status, prizes and academic positions. While external goods are needed to sustain and regulate the practice of philosophy, competition for such goods also tends to corrupt the practice (ii), by which I mean that internal goods are seriously compromised. This, in turn, excludes prospective philosophers who are not ‘competitive’ enough, which is also a loss for philosophy generally. (shrink)

The story of change and growth, i.e., evolution, in the traditional manner, involves an epistemology of indigenous knowledge systems that admits both evolution and the divine—and therefore the human capacity for free choice—that tells us that fossil fuels are a bad choice. Steven Biko’s message of “Black Consciousness” responds to the dilemma of how we belong to the species that is damaging the planetary ecosystem, amd yet how we can deny complicity by saying that reclaiming our culture enables us to (...) see what we have done, so we can refuse complicity with the system that has divided us and take responsibility for giving birth to new life. The uncertainties of climate change can be thought through using race, class, gender, sexual orientation, indigeneity, and disability as categories of analysis. The result is an understanding that through both climate science and lived experience, we can know enough to know we ought to act on climate change. We do not need more research; we need instead an acceptance of our ignorance amid a sense of ethical responsibility. This story speaks of liberation from oppression and of climate action as deeply entangled in. (shrink)

PurposeThe relation between fear of childbirth and gestational age is inconclusive, and self-reported need for help regarding this fear has never been investigated. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and course of FoC according to gestational age, to identify risk factors for the development of FoC, the influence of this fear on preferred mode of delivery, and self-reported need for help.MethodsNulliparous pregnant women of all gestational ages completed an online survey. The study consisted of a cross-sectional and a longitudinal (...) analysis. Women who completed the survey in the first or second trimester were approached again in their third trimester. The Wijma Delivery Expectancy Questionnaire Version A was used with a cut-off score ≥ 85 to define presence of fear of childbirth. Questionnaires indexing social support, anxiety, symptoms of depression, preferred mode of delivery, and self-reported need for help were included.ResultsIn total, 364 women were enrolled at T0, and 118 out of 184 eligible women were included in the longitudinal analysis. Point prevalence of FoC at T0 was 18.4% with no significant difference between trimesters. In the longitudinal sample, the prevalence of FoC decreased from 18.6% to 11.0%, p = 0.004. Although mean scores for FoC decreased significantly, p < 0.001, scores increased in 41 women. The presence of FoC was associated with elevated anxiety, less family support, prenatal care of the obstetrician by choice, preference for a cesarean section, and for pain relief. Women with FoC were more likely to actively seek for help compared to women without FoC.ConclusionWhile FoC is common in each trimester, prevalence decreases over the course of pregnancy. Women with FoC are often actively seeking for help, suggesting that this fear should be addressed better, and help should be offered accordingly. (shrink)

At the beginning of the 1890s, Schwarz and Peano (independently of each other) showed that Serret’s definition of the area of a surface was flawed. This paper first aims at describing the various methods that the mathematicians have used for correcting Serret’s reasoning; its second goal is to compare and to present more in detail two solutions: Lebesgue’s notorious construction and Peano’s definition.

This paper takes issue with the widespread claim that positional competitions are zero-sum games. It shows how the notions of ‘positional good’ and ‘positional competition’ have changed in meaning and how this has resulted in conceptual confusion in discussions amongst economists and philosophers. I argue that the Zero-Sum Claim is hardly ever true when it comes to the novel understanding of positionality that currently dominates the philosophical literature. I propose dropping the Zero-Sum Claim and construing positional competitions as win-lose. This (...) is conceptually clearer and deepens our understanding and ethical evaluation of these important competitions in contemporary societies. (shrink)

Immensely intelligible, thought-provoking guide by Nobel prize-winner considers such topics as the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence and nature of matter, idealism, inductive logic, intuitive knowledge, many other subjects. For students and general readers, there is no finer introduction to philosophy than this informative, affordable and highly readable edition that is "concise, free from technical terms, and perfectly clear to the general reader with no prior knowledge of the subject."—The Booklist of the American Library Association.

When Australian economist Ross Garnaut proposed to increase the commercial kangaroo industry in 2008, it started a national debate on the supposed edibility of kangaroos. Campaigns against the commercial kangaroo industry and hesitance amongst many consumers to eat kangaroo reflect concerns about viewing kangaroos as food. This article explores the reactions and challenges that originate from the kangaroo’s changing role in society by using Judith Butler’s concept of grievable lives. Using this framework shows that what animals we eat goes beyond (...) nutritional value; it symbolizes deeper values regarding human–animal relations and illustrates why and how not all animals are seen and treated as the same. (shrink)

Offrir une exploration épistémologique des diverses étapes de la recherche scientifique et de la réflexion philosophique sur la matière, tel est le propos qui a régi la composition des neuf études ici réunies. Les différentes conceptions « matérialistes » dans les sciences physiques et biologiques y sont mises en rapport avec les savoirs de chaque période, depuis le temps d'Averroès jusqu'au XIXe siècle.

Competition plays a substantial and structural role in philosophy today. It is therefore remarkable that it has received little systematic ethical scrutiny in the literature until now. This paper aims to contribute to establishing a discussion about competition in the discipline of philosophy by arguing that philosophy is not inherently competitive and that competition tends to corrupt the practice of philosophy. Regarding, I argue that philosophy can best be understood as a cooperative endeavour. The idea that philosophy is a matter (...) of competitive adversarial argumentation impedes philosophers from achieving what philosophy is all about, that is, realising what Alasdair MacIntyre calls ‘internal goods’: acquiring greater wisdom and knowledge and getting closer to the truth. I then show that a lot of the competition that characterises today’s practice of philosophy revolves around obtaining external goods, such as money, status, prizes and academic positions. While external goods are needed to sustain and regulate the practice of philosophy, competition for such goods also tends to 'corrupt' the practice, by which I mean that internal goods are seriously compromised. This, in turn, excludes prospective philosophers who are not ‘competitive’ enough, which is also a loss for philosophy generally. (shrink)

Le hiéron Σ7 mis au jour en 1990 à Messène est susceptible d'être identifié avec celui de l'héroïne éponyme Messéné ; les vestiges correspondent d'une manière satisfaisante aux données de Pausanias, dont le témoignage se trouve éclairé, et aux indications des inscriptions. Parmi les trouvailles, un fragment de figurine pourrait représenter Messéné. La portée de l'identification est seulement évoquée. Il semble que l'attribution du temple central de l'Asklépieion à Asklépios, contestée au profit de Messéné, puisse être admise ; en outre, (...) l'Asklépieion apparaissant plus «normal», un des obstacles qui empêchent certains de lui reconnaître une activité thérapeutique s'efface, peu après que des signes positifs de celle-ci aient été fournis par la découverte d'un bain. Parmi les questions qui restent à éclaircir à propos du hiéron de Messéné figure celle de ses rapports avec l'Artémision Κ installé à l'arrière du portique Ouest de l'Asklépieion. (shrink)

One of the criticisms of standard teaching practices is that they support merely ‘ritual’ as opposed to ‘principled’ knowledge, that is, knowledge which is procedural rather than being founded on principled explanation. This paper addresses issues and assumptions in current debate concerning the nature of mathematical knowledge, focusing on the ritual/principle distinction. Taking a discussion of centralism in logic and mathematics as its start-point, it seeks to resolve these issues through an examination of mathematics as a community of practice and (...) the teacher's role as epistemological authority in inducting pupils into such practices. (shrink)

One of the criticisms of standard teaching practices is that they support merely ‘ritual’ as opposed to ‘principled’ knowledge, that is, knowledge which is procedural rather than being founded on principled explanation. This paper addresses issues and assumptions in current debate concerning the nature of mathematical knowledge, focusing on the ritual/principle distinction. Taking a discussion of centralism in logic and mathematics as its start-point, it seeks to resolve these issues through an examination of mathematics as a community of practice and (...) the teacher's role as epistemological authority in inducting pupils into such practices. (shrink)

Ten brilliant essays on logic appear in this collection, the work of one of the world’s best-known authorities on logic. In these thought-provoking arguments and meditations, Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell challenges the romantic mysticism of the 19th century, positing instead his theory of logical atomism. These essays are categorized by Russell as "entirely popular" and "somewhat more technical." The former include the well-known title essay plus "A Free Man’s Worship" and "The Place of Science in a Liberal (...) Education"; the latter comprise "On the Notion of Cause" and "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description," along with other essays written in the cogent and witty style for which their author is justly renowned. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between university mission statements and sustainability practices by institutions of higher education. We examine mission statement constructs and the degree to which higher educational institutions meet specific sustainability criteria in line with the College Sustainability Report Card. Our sample consists of 347 universities from the Sustainable Endowment Institute's (2011) Green Report Card. Previous research suggests that mission statements are essential for superior organizational performance outcomes. We examine the relationship between university mission statement content and sustainability (...) practices. Findings indicate that the greater the number of specific terms used in the university mission statements, the higher the statistical likelihood that those universities had higher sustainability ratings. Findings also indicate that private institutions and nonreligious‐affiliated institutions are more likely to include sustainability constructs in their mission statements than colleges and universities with religious affiliation and public institutions. Several propositions to guide future research are discussed. (shrink)