Volume 10, Number 1, 1991
This issue was based on the theme of “Critical Perspectives on Family Law: Race, Gender, Class.”
Articles
- Home/Land – Mary Ellen Turpel
Because Canadian law is part of an alien colonial structure imposed upon them, aboriginal peoples do not share in the discursive framework of the law that regulates them. Aboriginal peoples, their experiences and their visions, are excluded from the legal discourse and their reality denied. In this article, the colonial character of Canadian law and its capacity to silence aboriginal peoples are explored through an analysis of two Supreme Court of Canada decisions, Derrickson and Paul. Both considered the legal interests of aboriginal women in matrimonial property on an Indian reserve. These two cases exemplify the law's incapacity to situate aboriginal disputes in a social, political or cultural context and the price aboriginal people (in this case, women) pay as a consequence of their subjugation to a colonial regime.
- Getting “The Family Right”: Legislating Heterosexuality in Britain, 1986-1991 – Davina Cooper & Didi Herman
Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Act, 1990 is the first statutory legislation to govern both human embryo research and the provision of infertility services. As such, it will undoubtedly be considered by future legislative drafters in Canada. The Act contains sections which affect the provision of anonymous donor insemintiona services to lesbian and gay families. Discussion in the British House of Lords and the House of Commons surrounding the passage of the Act, and these provisions in particular, reveal a conservative and a liberal approach to sexuality and the family. While the liberal approach is more empathic to homosexuality than the conservative approach, neither approach provides a satisfactory discourse for discussion of the statutory provisions (and other legislation affecting lesbian and gay families), because both approaches privilege heterosexuality, albeit in different ways.
- Some Postmodernist Challenges to Feminist Analyses of Law, Family and State: Ideology and Discourse in Child Custody Law – Susan Boyd
The author raises questions about how postmodernist work relates to her analysis of child custody law, which has been informed by socialisy feminist theories of law, state and family. She has explored how ideologies such as the ideology of motherhood and the liberal ideology of equality have, at different historical moments, operated separately and in combinatio to reinforce women's oppression. In particular, insight has been gained concerning the ways in which women's primary caregiving labour continues to be undervalued. Postmodernist work questions the explanatory power of concepts such as "capitalism" and "the family" and displaces the concept of "ideology" by "discourse." The author argues that feminist work on the family can still benefit from an analysis drawing on theories of ideology which have responded to criticisms of marxist theory. Some insights of postmodernism are of crucial importance, and may assist in overcoming some limitations of theories of ideology. Researchers should not, however, dismiss entirely the utility of more universalistic concepts such as gender, class or race. An appreciation of the ways in which dominant ideological frameworks can diminish the effectiveness of discourses of resistance requres an understanding of the place of law in the liberal state.
- Du patriarcat individuel au patriarcat d’Etat. Critique de la juridicisation des relations parents-enfants à l’intérieur de la famille canadienne – Donald Poirier
Depuis les années 1970, le législateur et les tribunaux interviennent davantage dans les relations entre parents et enfants à l'intérieru de la famille, comme en font foi les débats entourant la protection des enfants et le droit de la femme de contrôler sa fonction de reproduction. Le pluralisme juridique couplé à l'analyse foucaultienne du pouvoir permet de jeter un éclairage nouveau sur ce phénomène de juridicisation. Selon cette analyse appliquée par Donzelot à la Police des familles, les professionnels des sciences sociales ont tendance, depuis le milieu du 19e siècle, à se déclarer les possesseurs du discours vrai en ce qui touche les relations que les parents doivent avoir avec leurs enfants et à faire adopter des lois qui les autorisent à substituer leur jugement à celui des parents. Les dispositions relatives au droit des parents de décider librement d'avoir des enfants sont prises comme premier indice. D'autres indices sont recherchés dans les constraintes imposées aux parents en matière de chatiments corporels comme moyen d'élever leurs enfants. L'analyse révèle que les normes étatiques édictées par l'effort de juridicisation enlèvent à l'homme les avantages que lui procuraient les normes patriarcales. La femme n'acquiert toutefois pas par le fait même une plus grande autonomie puisque l'Etat reprend à son compte les normes patriarcales pour devnir Etat patriarcal autant qu'Etat providence et Etat thérapeutique.
- Servant Girls and Masters: The Tort of Seduction and the Support of Bastards – Martha J. Bailey
This paper discusses the two parts of Upper Canada's Seduction Act of 1837. The first part of the Act imposed liability on fathers for the support of bastards. The second part modified the common law tort of seduction by making masaters liabile for the seduction of their servants. Both parts of the Act, though criticsed by feminist commentators for undermining the autonomy of females, diminished the inequality of girls and women by reallocating the risks of sexual contact and the burden of illegitimate children.
Review of Periodical Literature
- Nicholas Bala, “Double Victims: Child Sexual Abuse and the Canadian Criminal Justice System” (1990) Queen’s Law Journal, Volume 15, Number 1, 3. – Bill Timoshyk
- Didi Herman, “Are We Family?: Lesbian Rights and Women’s Liberation” (1990) Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Volume 28, Number 4, 479. – Dan Redekopp
- Martha Minow, “Words and the Door to the Land of Change: Law, Language, and Family Violence” (1990) Vanderbilt Law Review, Volume 43, Number 6, 1665. – Marieke Dajko
- Rebecca Melton, “Legal Rights of Unmarried Heterosexual and Homosexual Couples and Evolving Definitions of Family” (1990-1) Journal of Family Law 29 (2). – Stuart Kovinsky
- Joan C. Williams, “Sameness Feminism and the Work/Family Conflict” (1990) New York Law School Law Review, Volume 35, Number 2, 347. – David Hunter
- John Eekelaar, “What is ‘Critical’ Family Law?” (1989) The Law Quarterly Review, Volume 105, 244. – Elena Miller
- Deborah J. Krauss, “Regulating Women’s Bodies: The Adverse Effect of Fetal Rights Theory on Childbirth Decisions and Women of Color” (1991) Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Volume 26, 523. – Bonnie Elster
Book Reviews
- Patricia J. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991). – Barbara Findlay
- Gillian A. Walker, Family Violence and the Women’s Movement: The Conceptual Politics of Struggle (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990). – Seema Ahluwalia