Sherluck Jun C.

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Gender and the Law

May 19, 2015

Nicola Lacey: Feminist Legal Theory and the Rights of Women

The article talks about the relationship between feminists analyses of the law and
contemporary campaigns to obtain equality and fairness for women.

The history of

feminist thought about law started centuries ago. Now, it already includes the equality
and rights of women.
One of the first approaches of feminists is distinguishing sex from gender, with
sex understood as a biological category and gender as the socially constructed meaning
of sex. In relation to this, the article discussed about contemporary feminist legal theory
which is a combination of analytic and political-ethical claims. Analytic claims are
those that influence the shape of the law while the political-ethical claims discuss that
legal sex differentiation is a disadvantage to women.
According to Nicola Lacey, there are four varieties of feminist legal theory. The
first axis of differentiation was the dissimilarity between the writers approach on the
mixture of methodology and written style. The second axis of differentiation is the
difference between the feminists theories of sexual difference.

The third is the

difference of the feminists approach to methodological continuities with other legal and
social theories. The fourth differentiation is the variation of political orientation among
them.
Nicola Lacey discussed about liberal feminism. Liberal feminism is about the
equality and rights or liberties that apply to women. Liberalism has been associated
with the birth of feminism. However, individualism is a key limitation to this from the
view point of feminists. According to feminists, there are different kinds of feminist
objection to unmodified liberal individualism. First is that liberalism focuses to operate
with a pre-social conception of the individual, which shape individual preference and
attitude. Secondly, liberalism focuses on liberal conceptions of freedom. Several liberal
political frameworks operate with a negative conception of freedom which underplays
the ones capacity to exercise freedom or rights. Another objection is that liberalism

relies on the distinction between public and private spheres which are subjects of
individual autonomy and negative freedom. Lastly, liberalism is not committed to
gender neutrality in law and legal analysis.
According to Nicolas Lacey, radical feminism is an exclusive feminist theory. It
is a philosophy emphasizing the inequality between men and women.

Radical

feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights and privileges primarily by gender which
oppresses women.

Radical feminism seeks to abolish patriarchy by challenging

traditional gender roles and raising public awareness about violence against women.
There are many legal theories but this article only discussed four theories of legal
rights discussed. First is Hohfels classification of appeals to rights in terms of four
distinct relations. This theory presents an analytical scheme which splits rights into
four different categories of jural relationships. It also exemplifies a number of analytical
distinctions between various legal positions.
The second theory is the will or choice theory by H.L.A. Hart which discussed
the use of conditional language; the difference between a right, and the right thing to
do. According to Hart, rights serve to protect a certain measure of freedom.
Another theory is Neil MacCormicks interest conception. According to this
theory, rights exist wherever someone benefits or stands to benefit from the
performance of a duty. However this theory is does not have very clear view of the
distinctive institutional consequences of having a legal right.
The fourth theory is Ronald Dworkins conceptualization of rights as trumps.
This theory has argued that rights are best understood as "trumps" against utilitarian
and other collective justifications for laws.
Nicola Lacey also talked about the existing rights and reconstructing the rights of
women Women's rights are the rights and entitlements that are supported by law, local
custom, and behavior, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed. The social
and cultural conduct of men and women must be modified to eliminate practices which
are based on the idea of the inferiority and superiority of either sexes.

Although there are many laws that support feminist views for the equality of
treatment of women and the efforts made by the international womens rights
movement, women and girls around the world are still being discriminated.
Discrimination of women in the world is still a real problem. We must reconsider the
circumstances which are present today and apply these legal theories to further enhance
the laws which already exist to advance the regulations that protect and secure the
equality between men and women and to eradicate women discrimination.