Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

In this Essay, written as part of a symposium honoring the work of Professor Ann Scales, Professor Katherine Franke explores how Professor Scales may have approached the cutting edge problem of same-sex couples divorcing. Professor Scales's work evidenced a deep commitment to the twin projects of recognizing structural gender disadvantage suffered by women and the tyranny of gender stereotypes. This Essay speculates that Professor Scales's feminist commitments would be unsettled by the application to divorcing same-sex couples of rules and norms of divorce forged in the heterosexual context where gender inequality set the parameters of justice. Indeed, Franke speculates that Scales would share her concern about the potential for divorce law to heterosexualize same-sex couples by slotting them into familiar social roles of husbands and wives. The problem of gendering lesbian husbands and gay wives ought to be a serious subject of feminist critique and is amenable to the feminist analysis Professor Scales left us in her written work.

Disciplines

Law | Law and Gender | Law and Society | Sexuality and the Law

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