Feminist analyses of law provide some of the most significant and challenging explanatory frameworks for understanding the practice and organisation of laws and legal institutions. This course examines the development of feminist legal thought, including a critical examination of feminist theorising about equality, power, the public/private divide, intersections between categories such as race, gender, disability, class and sexuality, and the representation of gendered identities within legal and popular culture.

This course explores the ways theory enhances our understanding of the potential of law to create and perpetuate inequalities, and the potential of theory to effect social transformation by creating new knowledge and understandings. It will also consider the usefulness and limits of feminist legal theory as an explanatory and transformative tool, with a focus on a range of substantive issues of particular relevance to Australian society. The course will encourage students to take a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of law, drawing on feminist work from disciplines such as sociology, criminology, philosophy, and cultural studies.