PANEL SESSIONS VI WEDNESDAY JUNE 27 2018 10.45 AM – 12.15 PM

Room: CYTT 3.19

  • DEMOCRACY AND THE GENDERED FAMILY
    This panel will address the interest of democratic constitutional orders in the family, and particularly in enforcing and disrupting gender roles. Marriage and the family have been given constitutional status either explicitly or through judicial interpretation in many jurisdictions throughout the world, largely premised on the interest of the state in social reproduction and the raising of the next generation of citizens. Whereas the traditional model of social reproduction depended on gender-differentiated roles within the family, commitments to equality, dignity, and autonomy are de-gendering these roles. Addressing a range of issues, from the regulation of media representations of same-sex marriage to the legal recognition of multiple parents to antidiscrimination challenges to maternity leave, this panel addresses the legal puzzles surrounding the destabilization of gender expectations in the family.
  • Feminism and Family Leave
    This Essay explores the dynamics between parental leave policies and the enforcement of legal equality in the United States and other jurisdictions. In so doing, it clarifies and redefines a feminist jurisprudence of family leave. A feminist approach to family leave should advance a substantive vision of gender equality, ‘a more egalitarian relationship at home and at work,‘ in Justice Ginsburg‘s words. Recent antidiscrimination challenges to parental leave policies in the United States and Europe advance the understanding that the law should always paternity and maternity leave should be equal in time and pay. This paper considers and critiques this proposition in light of the dynamics of leveling down maternity leave, which in turn may undermine women‘s full participation in economic citizenship.
  • Gay Visibility and the Family
    The question of family formation has emerged as the core of the struggle for gay rights, as evidenced by recent cases on same-sex marriage around the world. Long before the marriage debate, however, courts were already engaging with the relationship between homosexuality and family. This paper draws on theories of gay visibility to re-examine the Hong Kong case of Cho Man Kit v. Broadcasting Authority, and probes the ways in which the court’s conceptualization of the family impacts upon its reasoning.
  • Poly-parenting
    A handful of jurisdictions (California and Canada) have recently passed laws that allow a child to have three or four legal parents; other jurisdiction have reached similar results through judicial decisions. This paper considers legal and philosophical arguments for and against “poly-parenting“ and suggests that these recent laws make good public policy sense for various reasons.