Abstract

What is distinctive about a feminist analysis of law? Conversely, what does it mean to characterize the law (or a law) as distinctively “male” as a way of criticizing its injustice? It is widely assumed by both feminist scholars and nonfeminists or curious onlookers that a feminist analysis of law must have distinctive features that set it off from mainstream/“malestream” theories of law. Feminist scholars often try to “sell” feminist analysis to interested newcomers and try to break down the recalcitrance of those who seem to want to marginalize and dismiss it precisely by claiming a difference of perspective for feminist analysis of which no well-educated lawyer or legal commentator can afford to be ignorant. Meanwhile, feminist claims are also challenged by those who think they can reach the same conclusion on independent grounds for therefore not beingdistinctivelyfeminist; “What makes that particularly feminist?” the communitarian, for example, will ask, faced with an argument that feminism is critical of the individualistic bias of the legal system.