Pub Date : 2022-02-28DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8713
Nausica Palazzo
Same-sex marriage is now a reality across Western countries. While this was a positive achievement for the LGBTQ community, some crucial questions remain unanswered. One of these questions concerns the future of nonmarital statuses, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. After the legalization of same-sex marriage, U.S. states are simply phasing them out. I wish to argue against this trend. Based on an original analysis of empirical data and case law, I argue that nonmarital statuses retain value for non-traditional families. In fact, states must introduce nonmarital statuses open to couples regardless of gender, including adult friends and relatives. To support this argument, I present two analyses. First, I survey empirical research showing that (1) opposite-sex couples are signing up for nonmarital statuses at increasingly high rates, where available; (2) interest in such laws is growing even among same-sex couples in countries where same-sex marriage has existed for a long time. Second, I outline the legal and theoretical justifications for extending same-sex nonmarital partnerships to all couples. To this end, I analyze recent strategic litigation in Europe initiated by heterosexual couples who sought access to nonmarital statuses reserved for same-sex couples. The analysis allows me to identify three approaches: a status recognition approach, a utilitarian approach, and a legal-pluralistic approach. Ultimately, I offer guidance to policymakers in crafting a status that would be suitable for modern couples. Families that do not tick the boxes of the traditional marital family model continue to slip under the radar of law. Resurrecting these laws can fix the problem of their legal invisibility.
{"title":"Marriage Apostates: Why Heterosexuals Seek Same-Sex Registered Partnerships","authors":"Nausica Palazzo","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8713","url":null,"abstract":"Same-sex marriage is now a reality across Western countries. While this was a positive achievement for the LGBTQ community, some crucial questions remain unanswered. One of these questions concerns the future of nonmarital statuses, such as domestic partnerships or civil unions. After the legalization of same-sex marriage, U.S. states are simply phasing them out. \u0000I wish to argue against this trend. Based on an original analysis of empirical data and case law, I argue that nonmarital statuses retain value for non-traditional families. In fact, states must introduce nonmarital statuses open to couples regardless of gender, including adult friends and relatives. To support this argument, I present two analyses. \u0000First, I survey empirical research showing that (1) opposite-sex couples are signing up for nonmarital statuses at increasingly high rates, where available; (2) interest in such laws is growing even among same-sex couples in countries where same-sex marriage has existed for a long time. \u0000Second, I outline the legal and theoretical justifications for extending same-sex nonmarital partnerships to all couples. To this end, I analyze recent strategic litigation in Europe initiated by heterosexual couples who sought access to nonmarital statuses reserved for same-sex couples. The analysis allows me to identify three approaches: a status recognition approach, a utilitarian approach, and a legal-pluralistic approach. \u0000Ultimately, I offer guidance to policymakers in crafting a status that would be suitable for modern couples. Families that do not tick the boxes of the traditional marital family model continue to slip under the radar of law. Resurrecting these laws can fix the problem of their legal invisibility.","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47120627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-28DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9373
Nina Jaffe-Geffner
“Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS), developed by Dr. Richard Gardner in 1985, posits that a frequent dynamic in child custody disputes involves vengeful mothers falsely convincing their children that they have been sexually abused by their fathers. Although PAS is widely discredited and courts have ruled it inadmissible, new formulations of the theory, such as Parental Alienation (PA), continue to play a dominant role in custody proceedings. Proponents of PA assign the label to a broad range of custody cases in which children favor one parent and reject the other. However, despite the seemingly more gender-neutral framing of PA, empirical research shows that courts use PA to discredit mothers’ allegations of domestic violence and abuse and justify custody switches away from the mother. This Note analyzes the gender bias in family courts’ handling of custody cases involving cross-allegations of domestic violence and PA, and then proposes four legislative provisions aimed at reducing the effects of such bias in custody proceedings.
{"title":"Gender Bias in Cross-Allegation Domestic Violence-Parental Alienation Custody Cases: Can States Legislate the Fix?","authors":"Nina Jaffe-Geffner","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9373","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000“Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS), developed by Dr. Richard Gardner in 1985, posits that a frequent dynamic in child custody disputes involves vengeful mothers falsely convincing their children that they have been sexually abused by their fathers. Although PAS is widely discredited and courts have ruled it inadmissible, new formulations of the theory, such as Parental Alienation (PA), continue to play a dominant role in custody proceedings. Proponents of PA assign the label to a broad range of custody cases in which children favor one parent and reject the other. However, despite the seemingly more gender-neutral framing of PA, empirical research shows that courts use PA to discredit mothers’ allegations of domestic violence and abuse and justify custody switches away from the mother. This Note analyzes the gender bias in family courts’ handling of custody cases involving cross-allegations of domestic violence and PA, and then proposes four legislative provisions aimed at reducing the effects of such bias in custody proceedings. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43413025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-28DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9371
Rachel Anderson-Seller
Birthing people in the United States pay more than citizens of other high-income countries and receive lower quality care, most of which is provided by physicians in hospital settings. Legal restrictions on midwives—the result of two centuries of pervasive sexist, racist, and anti-immigrant campaigns—prevent birthing people from making meaningful choices about their preferred birthing location and attendant, even though hospital births carry risks of their own. Policymakers may be hesitant to amend legislation and regulations due to a misperception that community birth is unsafe and that those who choose it are irresponsible. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for change. In an effort to avoid hospitals, which are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and have enacted strict limits on support personnel during labor, birthing women are increasingly turning to community birth. Midwives and their clients can capitalize on this increased demand by advocating for an updated maternal care system.
{"title":"The Coronavirus as a Changemaker: Opportunities to Advance American Maternal Care in the Wake of the Pandemic","authors":"Rachel Anderson-Seller","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.9371","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000Birthing people in the United States pay more than citizens of other high-income countries and receive lower quality care, most of which is provided by physicians in hospital settings. Legal restrictions on midwives—the result of two centuries of pervasive sexist, racist, and anti-immigrant campaigns—prevent birthing people from making meaningful choices about their preferred birthing location and attendant, even though hospital births carry risks of their own. Policymakers may be hesitant to amend legislation and regulations due to a misperception that community birth is unsafe and that those who choose it are irresponsible. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for change. In an effort to avoid hospitals, which are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and have enacted strict limits on support personnel during labor, birthing women are increasingly turning to community birth. Midwives and their clients can capitalize on this increased demand by advocating for an updated maternal care system. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45936847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-28DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8714
Jessica Knouse
The lived experience of reproduction is infused with indeterminacy. Judicial rhetoric, in contrast, operates in absolutes. Litigants are perceived in binary terms as fertile or not, trying to procreate or not, pregnant or not, and parents or not – when the reality of their situations is far more complicated. Rights are similarly perceived in binary terms, such that a litigant seeking procreative autonomy may assert either the “right to procreate” or the “right to avoid procreation” – even if neither accurately describes what she wants. Disputes over frozen embryos provide unique insight into this problem, because they involve parties who have experienced months if not years of reproductive indeterminacy and who, at the point of litigation, make opposing rights claims. When a couple disagrees about the disposition of jointly-created frozen embryos and the disagreement is not resolved by contract, most courts apply a balancing test: The interests of the party asserting the “right to procreate” are weighed against the interests of the party asserting the “right to avoid procreation.” Ordinarily, the latter prevails, unless the party wishing to procreate lacks a “reasonable” path to parenthood without the embryos. Whether a “reasonable” path exists often turns on whether the party wishing to use the embryos is perceived as fertile, in which case her claim will likely be denied, or sterile, in which case it may succeed. This framework misses the complexity, contingency, and uncertainty intrinsic in all reproductive endeavors. The decision to procreate or avoid procreation is rarely singular or stable. People undergoing IVF are rarely either fertile (able to establish a pregnancy) or sterile (permanently unable to establish a pregnancy). They are, instead, infertile, and their infertility has led them to make many decisions over the course of many months and often years about how, when, and whether to proceed with treatment. And if they achieve pregnancy – not to mention parenthood – they will make many more. To describe these individuals, in the context of a frozen embryo dispute, as choosing “to procreate” or “to avoid procreation” trivializes the complexity of their circumstances. Similarly, to assume that a party experiencing infertility has a “reasonable” path to parenthood without the embryos is to ignore the reality that, even if she has the resources (physical, emotional, and financial) to undergo further treatment, there is no guarantee that it will produce gametes, that the gametes will create embryos, that the embryos will lead to pregnancy, or that the pregnancy will result in childbirth. Existing judicial rhetoric, by erasing inherent indeterminacy, offers a disappointingly limited vision of reproductive potential and reproductive rights. This article draws on multiple lines of work, from postmodern feminism to reproductive justice, to argue for a new doctrine in which reproductive rights exist not within a binary system but rather along
{"title":"Reproductive Indeterminacy and Rights Discourse in Frozen Embryo Disputes","authors":"Jessica Knouse","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v42i1.8714","url":null,"abstract":"The lived experience of reproduction is infused with indeterminacy. Judicial rhetoric, in contrast, operates in absolutes. Litigants are perceived in binary terms as fertile or not, trying to procreate or not, pregnant or not, and parents or not – when the reality of their situations is far more complicated. Rights are similarly perceived in binary terms, such that a litigant seeking procreative autonomy may assert either the “right to procreate” or the “right to avoid procreation” – even if neither accurately describes what she wants. Disputes over frozen embryos provide unique insight into this problem, because they involve parties who have experienced months if not years of reproductive indeterminacy and who, at the point of litigation, make opposing rights claims. When a couple disagrees about the disposition of jointly-created frozen embryos and the disagreement is not resolved by contract, most courts apply a balancing test: The interests of the party asserting the “right to procreate” are weighed against the interests of the party asserting the “right to avoid procreation.” Ordinarily, the latter prevails, unless the party wishing to procreate lacks a “reasonable” path to parenthood without the embryos. Whether a “reasonable” path exists often turns on whether the party wishing to use the embryos is perceived as fertile, in which case her claim will likely be denied, or sterile, in which case it may succeed. \u0000This framework misses the complexity, contingency, and uncertainty intrinsic in all reproductive endeavors. The decision to procreate or avoid procreation is rarely singular or stable. People undergoing IVF are rarely either fertile (able to establish a pregnancy) or sterile (permanently unable to establish a pregnancy). They are, instead, infertile, and their infertility has led them to make many decisions over the course of many months and often years about how, when, and whether to proceed with treatment. And if they achieve pregnancy – not to mention parenthood – they will make many more. To describe these individuals, in the context of a frozen embryo dispute, as choosing “to procreate” or “to avoid procreation” trivializes the complexity of their circumstances. Similarly, to assume that a party experiencing infertility has a “reasonable” path to parenthood without the embryos is to ignore the reality that, even if she has the resources (physical, emotional, and financial) to undergo further treatment, there is no guarantee that it will produce gametes, that the gametes will create embryos, that the embryos will lead to pregnancy, or that the pregnancy will result in childbirth. Existing judicial rhetoric, by erasing inherent indeterminacy, offers a disappointingly limited vision of reproductive potential and reproductive rights. This article draws on multiple lines of work, from postmodern feminism to reproductive justice, to argue for a new doctrine in which reproductive rights exist not within a binary system but rather along ","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42474214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8831
Pamela Laufer-Ukeles
Menstruation has many faces. This Essay will discuss competing narratives relating to menstruation as portrayed in Jewish law and culture, and assess the implications of such narratives for modern legal systems. These narratives depict menstruation in all its contradictions — as taboo and power, as health and imperfection, and as reflecting biological difference but not inequality. Each narrative will be discussed from a textual, legal, communal and, occasionally, personal perspective, conveying different meanings that have different cultural impacts, modern applications and reflect different aspects of the quest for equality. Together, these narratives provide a holistic vision of womanhood that resists simplification. Acknowledging that not only women menstruate, in this Essay I refer to women as those who menstruate because this is the category associated with menstruation used in Jewish law and it is the complexity of womanhood revealed by Jewish law and culture that I address. These four faces of menstruation are not characterized as positive or negative in and of themselves; rather, I analyze them each on their own terms, discussing how they may impact women in both negative and positive ways. The variability of these narratives demonstrates the need for women to shape their own narratives around their bodies in order to empower themselves within their communities. Moreover, the multiplicity of faces that menstruation involves, and the different ways that femininity can therefore impact womanhood, counsels promoting menstrual justice in a variety of ways, and from a variety of perspectives, creatively empowering women by recognizing their individual complexity. In Jewish law, menstruation engenders impurity, authority, fertility, and biological difference, and each of these faces of womanhood will be discussed in turn.
{"title":"The Power of Blood: The Many Faces of Women's Monthly Menses in Jewish Law and Beyond","authors":"Pamela Laufer-Ukeles","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8831","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8831","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000Menstruation has many faces. This Essay will discuss competing narratives relating to menstruation as portrayed in Jewish law and culture, and assess the implications of such narratives for modern legal systems. These narratives depict menstruation in all its contradictions — as taboo and power, as health and imperfection, and as reflecting biological difference but not inequality. Each narrative will be discussed from a textual, legal, communal and, occasionally, personal perspective, conveying different meanings that have different cultural impacts, modern applications and reflect different aspects of the quest for equality. \u0000Together, these narratives provide a holistic vision of womanhood that resists simplification. Acknowledging that not only women menstruate, in this Essay I refer to women as those who menstruate because this is the category associated with menstruation used in Jewish law and it is the complexity of womanhood revealed by Jewish law and culture that I address. These four faces of menstruation are not characterized as positive or negative in and of themselves; rather, I analyze them each on their own terms, discussing how they may impact women in both negative and positive ways. The variability of these narratives demonstrates the need for women to shape their own narratives around their bodies in order to empower themselves within their communities. Moreover, the multiplicity of faces that menstruation involves, and the different ways that femininity can therefore impact womanhood, counsels promoting menstrual justice in a variety of ways, and from a variety of perspectives, creatively empowering women by recognizing their individual complexity. In Jewish law, menstruation engenders impurity, authority, fertility, and biological difference, and each of these faces of womanhood will be discussed in turn. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48565056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8821
C. Cotropia
The current menstrual movement calls for overcoming the cultural stigma associated with menstruation, achieving “menstrual equity,” and ending “period poverty.” The stigma the movement seeks to address is that menstruation is seen as taboo, unclean, and impure. The movement’s aims are twofold: First, it wants to increase awareness of menstruation and remove discrimination against those who menstruate, thus achieving menstrual equity. Second, it intends to provide greater access to menstrual hygiene products (“MHPs”), particularly for homeless and lower income people, thus eliminating period poverty. To achieve these goals, the movement is advocating to legislatively eliminate the “tampon tax” and increase access to MHPs in prisons, homeless shelters, and schools. It also supports lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the tampon tax. Advocates view these legal changes as instrumental in furthering the goals of equity and access to MHPs that underlie the movement. This Essay discusses whether the two major legislative changes the movement advocates—repeal of the tampon tax and providing MHPs in schools for free—will actually achieve the movement’s goals. The Essay begins by explaining how these legal changes, in theory, are meant to address menstrual equity and period poverty. It then explores the operational limits to, and expressive benefits of, these legal proposals. The Essay concludes that the expressive function of demanding these legal changes, and sometimes achieving them, plays a more significant role than the laws’ actual operation in reaching the movement’s goals.
{"title":"Law's Ability to Further the \"Menstrual Movement\"","authors":"C. Cotropia","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8821","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000The current menstrual movement calls for overcoming the cultural stigma associated with menstruation, achieving “menstrual equity,” and ending “period poverty.” The stigma the movement seeks to address is that menstruation is seen as taboo, unclean, and impure. The movement’s aims are twofold: First, it wants to increase awareness of menstruation and remove discrimination against those who menstruate, thus achieving menstrual equity. Second, it intends to provide greater access to menstrual hygiene products (“MHPs”), particularly for homeless and lower income people, thus eliminating period poverty. To achieve these goals, the movement is advocating to legislatively eliminate the “tampon tax” and increase access to MHPs in prisons, homeless shelters, and schools. It also supports lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the tampon tax. Advocates view these legal changes as instrumental in furthering the goals of equity and access to MHPs that underlie the movement. This Essay discusses whether the two major legislative changes the movement advocates—repeal of the tampon tax and providing MHPs in schools for free—will actually achieve the movement’s goals. The Essay begins by explaining how these legal changes, in theory, are meant to address menstrual equity and period poverty. It then explores the operational limits to, and expressive benefits of, these legal proposals. The Essay concludes that the expressive function of demanding these legal changes, and sometimes achieving them, plays a more significant role than the laws’ actual operation in reaching the movement’s goals. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44813624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8833
Prianka Nair
This essay outlines how the focus on able-bodied menstruators in the development of social narratives about menstruation erases the experiences and the discrimination experienced by menstruators with disabilities. Many menstruators with disabilities experience shame around menstruation, embarrassed about the “burden” of their menstrual experiences on their caregivers and concerned about breaching menstrual etiquette around hygiene. Narratives about menstruation are incomplete without considering these experiences. Introducing a disability perspective also permits us to interrogate why popular depictions of the menstruating body are inadequate, how they continue to reinforce and romanticize values like independence and productivity, and validate structures that grant power and privilege to those values. Finally, the essay introduces ideas like supported decision-making and dismodernism that center the experiences of individuals with disabilities. This shift in focus has the potential to transform menstrual activism by introducing into the conversation more nuanced values of reciprocity, interdependence, and empathy.
{"title":"Menstruation: An Ableist Narrative","authors":"Prianka Nair","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8833","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000This essay outlines how the focus on able-bodied menstruators in the development of social narratives about menstruation erases the experiences and the discrimination experienced by menstruators with disabilities. Many menstruators with disabilities experience shame around menstruation, embarrassed about the “burden” of their menstrual experiences on their caregivers and concerned about breaching menstrual etiquette around hygiene. Narratives about menstruation are incomplete without considering these experiences. Introducing a disability perspective also permits us to interrogate why popular depictions of the menstruating body are inadequate, how they continue to reinforce and romanticize values like independence and productivity, and validate structures that grant power and privilege to those values. Finally, the essay introduces ideas like supported decision-making and dismodernism that center the experiences of individuals with disabilities. This shift in focus has the potential to transform menstrual activism by introducing into the conversation more nuanced values of reciprocity, interdependence, and empathy. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49592132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8827
Victoria J. Haneman
This Essay considers the profit to be made in virtue signaling solely for the purpose of attracting customers and driving sales: Pro-female, woke menstruation messaging that may merely be an exploitative and empty co-optation. Feminists should expect more of menstrual capitalists, including a commitment that firms operating within this space address the diapositive issue of period poverty and meaningfully assist those unable to meet basic hygiene needs who may never be direct consumers. This Essay serves as a thought piece that first presents, in Section I, the B Corporation as a relatively new direction in corporate law that redefines the corporation as a potential agent of social change. Section II considers the way in which B Corporation certification may serve as an implicit sorting device to distinguish companies performing hollow virtue signaling from those menstrual capitalists committed to socially responsible pro-female business practices.
{"title":"Menstrual Capitalism, Period Poverty, and the Role of the B Corporation","authors":"Victoria J. Haneman","doi":"10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8827","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000This Essay considers the profit to be made in virtue signaling solely for the purpose of attracting customers and driving sales: Pro-female, woke menstruation messaging that may merely be an exploitative and empty co-optation. Feminists should expect more of menstrual capitalists, including a commitment that firms operating within this space address the diapositive issue of period poverty and meaningfully assist those unable to meet basic hygiene needs who may never be direct consumers. This Essay serves as a thought piece that first presents, in Section I, the B Corporation as a relatively new direction in corporate law that redefines the corporation as a potential agent of social change. Section II considers the way in which B Corporation certification may serve as an implicit sorting device to distinguish companies performing hollow virtue signaling from those menstrual capitalists committed to socially responsible pro-female business practices. \u0000 \u0000 \u0000","PeriodicalId":84468,"journal":{"name":"Columbia journal of gender and law","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45805318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8838
Hawi Teizazu, M. Sommer, Caitlin Gruer, David Giffen, Lindsey Davis, Rachel Frumin, K. Hopper
Although access to adequate sanitation is formally recognized as a basic human right, public toilets have long been flagged as absent necessities by groups marginalized by class, gender, race, and ability in the United States. Navigating public spaces without the guarantee of reliable restrooms is more than a passing inconvenience for anyone needing immediate relief. This includes workers outside of traditional offices, people with medical conditions, caretakers of young children, or anyone without access to restroom amenities provided to customers. This absence is also gendered in ways that constrain the freedom of those who menstruate to participate in the public sphere. Managing menstrual hygiene requires twenty-four-hour access to safe, clean facilities, equipped for washing blood off hands and clothing and mechanisms for discreet disposal of used menstrual products. Public provision of such amenities is woefully inadequate in New York City (NYC), and homeless women especially bear the brunt of that neglect. Public health concerns about open defecation, coupled with feminist complaints that their absence restricted women’s ability to be out in public, catalyzed state investment to construct public toilets in the late 1800s. By 1907, eight had been built in NYC near public markets, and by the 1930s, the city built and renovated 145 comfort stations. However, changing public perceptions, vandalism, maintenance costs, and the City’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s all combined to reduce their numbers and degrade their quality. Public pay toilets provided a brief respite before falling victim to protest by feminists, who were rightly dismayed by policies that required payments for public usage of toilets but not for urinals. Supply deteriorated, and by 2019, NYC ranked ninety-third among large U.S. cities in per capita provision of public toilets. The remaining facilities are inadequately maintained and poorly monitored. The absence of public toilets poses an everyday challenge, but public health emergencies bring the need for public toilets into clear focus––as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, which eliminated publicly accessible bathrooms in both private and public settings. That said, the effects of COVID on bathroom availability disproportionately affected those who were unable to heed the public health message to shelter at home––mobile “essential workers” and individuals experiencing homelessness. Homelessness advocates have long complained that civic toilet scarcity amounts to de facto entrapment, turning biological necessities into “public nuisances” for want of appropriate facilities. Criminalizing public urination and defecation in the absence of public facilities punishes the existence of individuals experiencing homelessness and challenges outreach workers’ efforts to gain their trust. With women increasingly prominent among those living on the streets or in shelters, this scarcity also impedes managing menstruation. Default
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Pub Date : 2021-11-08DOI: 10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8823
A. Fettig
This Essay takes a look at the movement for social change around menstruation, especially through the lens of the criminal legal system and prisons and jails in particular. Part I reviews the issues of period poverty and justice that are driving a larger social movement to recognize that safe and ready access to menstrual hygiene products should be framed through a lens of full civic participation in order to understand its full implications for the lives of people who menstruate. Part II dives into the particular needs and problems of abuse and control that incarcerated and detained people face related to menstruation. Part III examines the growing movement to transform menstruation in America along equity lines that focuses both on the rights of all menstruators while bringing social pressure to bear on behalf of the most vulnerable—incarcerated people, the unhoused, students, and those living in poverty—to demand greater governmental and cultural support for the needs, inclusion, and dignity of all people who menstruate. This Part particularly takes note of the fact that the menstrual equity movement gains strength and force when it centers the leadership and voices of people who menstruate as key players demanding social change and evolution of the culture as a whole. Part IV examines the importance of the momentum and success this social movement represents for potential litigation strategies to develop constitutional jurisprudence regarding incarcerated people and menstrual equity. It observes that the pertinent “evolving standards of decency” that inform Eighth Amendment jurisprudence must and will be influenced by the prevailing movement for menstrual equity as a deliberate strategy to ensure that incarcerated people who menstruate are not left out of the social development and rights framework that menstrual equity demands. At the same time this evolution in jurisprudence represent the opportunity for Eighth Amendment jurisprudence—and constitutional framework generally—to place a greater focus on the need for human dignity as a cornerstone of the law.
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