History 397WLH - ST-Women and the Law, Hons

Using legal history and legal theory, this course will examine the legal treatment of women in the United States, focusing specifically on the 20th and 21st centuries. We will explore the ways the law has used the categories of gender, sex, sexuality, and race to legally enforce inequality between women and men (and among women). We will also explore the potential for ?the law? to be a liberating force. Finally, we will look at ways women have used the law to advocate for social and legal equality and justice. Specific issues that may be explored include the civil and political participation of women, employment, intimate relationships, reproduction and contraception, violence against women, women as criminal defendants, and women as law students, lawyers, and judges. This course will require extensive reading of court decisions and law review articles, the completion of on-going reflection essays responding to course readings and class discussions, and the completion of a significant final research paper. Prior law-related coursework is helpful, but not required.

Open to Senior, Junior, and Sophomore Commonwealth College students only. Non-Honors students may enroll in this course with permission of the instructor. If you?re not an Honors students and would like to take this course, please email me (jlnye@history.umass.edu).