Fall/Winter Timetable

POL2024H1F L0101

Undergraduate Course Code: POL432H1F L0101

Feminist Theory: Challenges to Legal and Political Thought

Themes

Feminist Theory offers challenges to the foundations of modern political and legal thought. This course focuses on the underlying conception of the self and its implications for core concepts such as autonomy, freedom, equality and power. Many different critics have charged that the liberal tradition is based on an unrealistically individualistic vision of human beings. Feminist theory offers one of the most promising avenues for moving beyond that critique to the construction of a theory based on a conception of human beings as socially constituted and inherently independent. The model of individual integrity in these theories is premised on, rather than set in opposition to, social interdependence. Such a conception then poses the challenge of reconceptualizing autonomy, individual responsibility and other core concepts. The legal system is one of the primary means by which our society articulates and enforces central values such as equality, justice, and freedom. The course will thus also look at the ways in which feminist theory suggests a transformation of the ways in which these values are given concrete application in law.

Texts

Packet of materials available at Faculty of Law Bookstore.

Format and Requirements

Participation, one page written "comments" on the reading every other week, "responses" to comments every other week (20%). A five-page paper on the assigned readings (20%). 20-25 page paper due last day of classes (60%).