Feminist Legal Theory

Nicola Lacey

This article by Lacey, states the relationship between what feminist thoughts
about the law and up to date campaigns looking to use codes of human rights for
the security of the rights of women on an international ladder, and views on
whether theories of legal and political rights be unsuccessful to accommodate the
dynamics of gender.
The essays in the article engage at a number of levels with the query of
whether there are things of a general nature to be said about what might be called
the sex or gender of law. Ranging athwart fields including criminal law, public law
and anti-discrimination law, the essays observe the conceptual framework of
modern legal practices, the legal outset of the subject as an individual, the
perception of equality, freedom, justice and rights and the legal structure of public
and private dominion and of the relations between person, state and community. It
also replicate upon the operation of law as a means of supplementing feminist
ethical and political values. At a more broad point, the essays consider the
relationship between feminist and other critical approaches to legal theory, the
relationship between the ideas underlying feminist legal theory and those
enlightening contemporary developments in social and political theory, and the
nature of the relationship between feminist legal theories and feminist legal politics.
The statements in this article provide the narrative of an intellectual journey
which has led Lacey to criticize some of the central assumptions of traditional legal
education and scholarship. They also set out a distinctive idea of jurisprudence as a
form of critical social theory. She also reveals how critique exposes the
shortcomings of the legal system which in my opinion a failure in our governing
bodies. An impetus for change is a very important statement made by the critiques
in this article. Lacey also believes the practical problems and negative figurative
effects of regulation of pornography and concerns that we should avoid falling into
the lure of imagining that as feminist lawyers, we have to be lawyers first.