FEMINIST VERSIONS AND LAW

The law is wholly masculine; it is created and executed by our type or class of the man nature. The
framers of all legal compacts are thus restricted to the masculine stand-point of observation to the
thoughts, feelings, and biases of men. The law, then, could give us no representation as women,
and therefore, no impartial justice, even if the present law makers were honestly intent upon
this . . ..
Antoinette Brown (Blackwell) 1852

Feminism is a political, philosophical and cultural concept. It has been called a method - a
technique of objectivity in epistemological, psychological and social as well as legal terms. The legal
feminists claim that the modern jurisprudence is masculine. The values, the dangers, and the
fundamental contradiction that characterize womens lives are not reflected at any level whatsoever in
contracts, torts, constitutional law, or any other field of legal doctrine. Legal feminism owes to political
perspective of the term. The important streams of feminism have been highlighted in this work.
The word feminism owes its origin to a Latin word femina which means woman. In 1901 this
word got a place in Oxford dictionary and the meaning ascribed to it was womanly or feminine. The term
feminist seems to have first been used in 1871 in the French medical text to describe a cessation in
development of the sexual organs and characteristics in male patients, who were perceived as suffering
from feminization of their bodies. The term was then picked up by Alexandre Dumas fils, a French writer,
who used it in pamphlet published in 1872 entitled lhomme-femme, to describe women behaving in
supposedly masculine way. The medical terminology used feminism to signify a feminization of men, in
socio-political terms it was first used to describe a virilization of women.
Broadly, the essential idea of feminism is the equality of woman with man. Feminism rests mainly
on the belief that women are unjustly treated. However, the adequate formulation of the basic idea is that
women have equal worth with men in respect of their common nature as free persons. And this
fundamental equality of value is derived from a claim to equality of rights or positions in the society. The
idea is to eliminate the oppression in form of any sexual differentiation of roles in human society. The
basic feminist idea is that in respect of their fundamental worth there is no difference between men and
women and therefore there are not male being and female being. The nature and value of person is
independent of gender. By equality is not meant that human beings have same mental and physical
capacities. For the validity of the claim to equal worth, the mental and physical superiority over the other
is irrelevant. The claim of equal worth signifies two things. First, that as free being, individuals are capable
of directing themselves to ends of their own choosing and secondly, that in respect of this capacity of selfdirection individuals have some worth.
Feminism is not a unitary concept rather it constitutes diverse and multiple facets of ideas. Thus, a
few have preferred the word feminisms instead of feminism. The following versions of feminism can be
identified:
(i) Liberal Feminism
(ii) Socialist Feminism
(iii) Radical Feminism and

(iv) Post-modern Feminism

Liberal Feminism:
Individualist social-political theory got its prominence in John Lockes Second Treatise of
Government. Individualism views the basis of social and political order to lie in possession of rights by
individuals. Individuals possess rights independently of their social relations. In Lockes view the basic
right to freedom is a natural right residing in the individuals as such independently of his membership of
any political society. It is the right that individuals possess in the so called state of nature- a state in which
no political society or obligation exists. In a natural society natural law affirms the right of each man to do
what he wants with his life, liberty and possessions without being interfered with by others, so long as he
acts within the restraints imposed by the law of equal rights.
The law of nature is Gods law and men have rights because God bestows such rights on them.
Every mature man is capable of governing himself by his own rational apprehension of law of nature and
becomes independent and autonomous individual in a natural society of such individuals. For Locke, it is
men who can enjoy the full range of civil and political rights Yet he does not argue that women are less
qualified than men for the possession of those natural rights, which are the ground for the enjoyment of
civil and political rights. Women come in Lockes discussion only when he describes about the family. He
insists that the child is subject to the joint parental authority of husband and wife and not the authority of a
single patriarch. As Locke regards marriage as a contract between independent persons thus, according
to him, a woman has the same basic right of independent personality as the man. Because, if the
marriage is a contract, union which it constitutes, rests solely on the consent of the parties to it just as the
union of the political society rests on the consents of its members. The parties to marriage, that is, a man
and a woman, must in first instance be free and equal self -governing persons in relation to the union.
Otherwise, their consents could not create the union. As Locke has compared marriage with political
society, he has accepted equal claims of women with men in a marriage union.
The Lockeian conception of marriage brought an improvement in the position of the woman in the
family and the society. The contractual view of marriage was accepted, but still combined with a traditional
subordination of wives to their husbands by the treatment of the contract as one in which the wife
promised to be submissive, subject and obedient, in exchange for her husband undertaking of affection,
fidelity and care. Though it was a contract between unequal partners but involved a conception of
marriage, which Stone called the companionate marriage based on mutual affection and care of
husband and wife in which a greater equality than had ever existed characterized the relation between the
married couple. Describing about the family, Stone says:
It was a family organized around the principle of personal autonomy and bound together by
strong affective ties.

Patriarchal attitude within the home declined and greater autonomy was granted to wives. In the
companionate marriage the conventional ideal of wifely status gradually became that of equality.
Rousseau does not accept that men have rights in a state of nature prior to the existence of
political society rather they acquire rights only in political society. The condition of a legitimate political
society is the recognition by individual contractants of each other as possessor of rights. Each recognizes
the other as a value in himself and consequently the possessor of political right to participate as an equal
in the legitimate decisions of the community and the civil rights to do what he likes within the limits of the
general legislation without interference by others. Rousseau affirms that each mans first law is to watch
over his own preservation, his first care he owes to himself and as soon as he reaches the age of reason,

he becomes only judge of the best means to preserve himself, he becomes his own master. 1 Thus no
man has natural authority over his fellows and since force alone bestows no right, all legitimate authority
among men must be based on covenants.
Rousseau also emphasized on equality and hated all forms of dependence of men on other men
through inequality of power or wealth. Equality was necessary for him for the sake of freedom or selfdetermination. Inequality meant dependence on another and dependence meant being determined by
others and hence loss of freedom. He thus opposes inequalities of wealth and power. To him only in small
community of homogeneous and economically independent producers could individually combine to
produce a general will which realized the individualist ideals of truly equal rights. In so far as men are
subject to nothing but the conditions of their own freedom. Hence in willing it, they are free.
However, Rousseau did not carry his theory of freedom and equality over into an account of the
relations between men and women. In his work on education he held that women are not to be brought up
to be free persons acquiring equality and independence in their relations. They are to be brought up to be
dependent on men. Men exist for themselves and are values as such but women have value in relation to
men. Their education must be therefore predominantly concerned with learning how to please men. The
inferiority of value, Rousseau accords, woman in no way resurrects belief in patriarchal conception of
family. He favours companionate marriage. He argues for such kind of education to woman, which could
make them to be a be- fitting companion for their husbands. To him, for husbands pleasure in being at
home, woman should have sufficiently cultivated minds so that they could enter into agreeable and
intelligent conversation with their husbands. But at the same time the wife should not be so well educated
as to have minds and opinions of her own. Her education will involve superficial cultivation so as to give
her acquaintance with culture and no independent command of it. Thus the purpose of education,
according to Rousseau, is to make woman a better and more agreeable wives for their husbands and
also more intelligent mothers for their children. He is of the view that woman cannot be educated for
freedom but for the dependence.
Rousseaus conception about woman is primarily a sexual being and need not a human being. In
every thing that does not concern sex, he says, men and women are identical but in respect of her sexual
nature woman is made to please man. She has the natural sexual instinct to please the man whereas it is
mans nature is to attain the objective by force. Man is a sexual being at certain times in his life and he is
otherwise a free being or person while the woman is a female throughout her childbearing life. Due to
dominance of sexual nature, woman cannot be a value in herself but only a value related to man.
Rousseau is criticized for not applying the idea of equality and freedom to the relation between men and
women and for denying the free personality of woman. However, Rousseau admits that woman has the
potentiality for freedom but this freedom is incompatible with womens life and function in the family.
For Mary Astell the core of liberal feminist belief is that men and women are equally capable of
reason. Since God has given to women as well as men intelligent souls why should they be forbidden to
use them. Condorcet, a French writer, insisted that women were capable of reason and should be
educated accordingly. Women have same rights as men and that to deny this was an unacceptable
tyranny. Von Hippel, a German, rejected the idea that womens exclusion from civil and political rights
could be justified in terms of a biologically given nature. It was men who had made women what they
were, and he demanded that men and women be given equal rights and education for citizenship rather
than their traditional sex roles. Catherine Macaulay, an English historian, insisted that the difference
between the sexes were a product of education and environment and not of nature. She attacked the way
in which womens mind and body had been distorted to please men.
Mary Wollstonecraft applied individualist theory to womans question. Though there were many
who claimed equality for women but Wollstonecrafts Vindication of the Rights of Women is the first
substantial treatise in the field. Some authors are, however, are of the view that the feminist theory did not
begin with Mary Wollstonecraft.
Mary Wollstonecraft has argued that women are first and foremost human beings and not sexual
being. Woman is not specially mans delight. Thus womans primary end must be fulfilled as human being

and not as woman. In this respect women are exactly liken men, whose primary end no one claim to be
male but only to be human. The basis of the claim that women are human beings is that they are rational
creatures. They are capable of governing themselves by reason. Mans superiority consists in his reason
and due to his rational capacities natural rights are claimed for men. Hence, if women are denied of
natural right, it is to be proved that they have no rational capacity. She does not agree to the view that
women in general have inferior talent than men and if at all there is inferiority it is only due to age old
neglect which women have suffered. Womens real talent can be determined only when they have been
given their freedom and opportunity to develop their talents.
Those who deny primacy of common nature of men and women on the ground of the virtues of
men and women are not the same- the virtue of men, according to them, are primarily those of a rational
being and the virtues of women are primarily her sexual nature. Wollstonecraft argues that if we see a
woman as a rational and human, we have to accept that her virtues and duties are fundamentally the
same as a mans. Human virtue is one and the same for both men and women. To govern oneself by
reason is to achieve independence the grand blessing of life, which is the basis of every virtue.
Woman is a weak, dependent and emotional creature but it is due to artificial product of male
ideas and arrangements. The education and environment plays important role in the determination of the
character. The fundamental requirement for reform in society is equality. To her, equality means the
absence of dependence of one person on another either through existence of privileged ranks. The new
woman with an educated mind, independent character and capacity for self support will marry, according
to Wollstonecraft, for affection and with respect for her husband and instead of being idolized as a pure
angel while being despised as an inferior mind will be a better companion to her husband and mother to
her children. Wollstonecraft has thus argued for equality and independence of woman, in order to be a
free and equal person.
A notable public pronouncement of individualist feminism was ventilated in the Declaration of
Sentiments formulated by Womens Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls in America in 1848. It
declared that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights which include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Various rights, of which women
were deprived, were enumerated on the basis of equality and rationality.
In 1845 Margaret Fuller wrote a book named Woman in the Nineteenth Century. To her, the
fundamental need of woman is not to have power, but for her nature to grow, for her intellect to develop,
and for her soul to live free and unimpeded. To Fuller, woman like man is an infinite being, an end in her
self and therefore must not be treated with an exclusive view to any one relation, but always in relation to
herself as an end. If her power as such a free being is developed, she will be fit for any and every relation
to which she may be called. Woman has her own special genius which is electrical in movement, intuitive
in function and spiritual in tendency. Fuller stresses particularly the need for woman to be shaken out of
her traditional dependence on man in order to become self reliant, and so realize her free and
independent being. Individuals are the part of larger whole. This whole has only one soul, and one body
and an injury to a part is injury to the whole. The full development and accomplishment of the whole
requires the full development of its parts. The whole is differentiated into the basic dualism of masculine
and feminine to which corresponds further dualisms of energy/harmony: intellect/love, power/beauty.
Hitherto in the history of humanity the masculinity side of the whole has most developed, but now it is the
turn of the feminine principle to receive its full development. Then man and woman will be able to regard
each other as brother and sister, pillars of one porch, priests of one worship which is the whole that
humanity constitutes.

The liberal feminists therefore argue for equal treatment of women in all walks of life which are
available to men. Denial of equality is against reason because the basis of both the man and the woman
is the same.
Socialist feminism:
The socialists argue that the social system must be changed by a system of production and
exchange which would eliminate poverty and exploitation through redistribution of resources on the basis
of equality. They believe in the right of labourer to the full product of his labour and deny one person to
own the means of labour. This view was applied by feminist like Charles Fourier and William Thompson.
Thompson was of the opinion that women in individualist and competitive society would, because of their
inferior strength and their periodic withdrawal from competition for the purposes of child bearing and
rearing, has been in disadvantageous position. However, it is the fact that women contribute as much as
men in direct labour market but they can contribute equally when their child bearing and rearing functions
are taken into account. Thompson holds the view that human beings are more or less equal in their
capacity for happiness and this leads to a presumption that resources should, if utility is to be maximized,
be redistributed equally. Thompson argues that women have to liberate themselves from their present
domestic slavery and demand equality of civil and political rights in competitive society.
Charles Fourier propounded the theory of passionate attraction and argued that everything in the
universe is moved by passionate attraction. Men and women are passionate beings. To him, there are
twelve radical passions. These passions may be classified into three categories luxurious passions,
affective passions and distributive or mechanizing passions. To Fourier, there is no barrier to womens full
participation in the work and the administration. He holds the view that there had been seven historical
societies and in all the societies women have been ill- treated. The present civilized fifth period still
constitutes oppression of women. Women are formed by education to become mother and wives.
Womens historical inferiority has been due to her oppression by male who has used her superior strength
to impose a restrictive and repressive education to her. The only means of subsistence for impoverished
women are their charms which ultimately lead to the conjugal slavery. Marx said nothing about the
position of women. He thought that socialism would bring about liberation of women as well as of men.
August Bebel argues that the bourgeois individualist conception of womans liberation, that is,
equal legal rights within the existing society, is unsatisfactory. The removal of all real dependence on men
is required. In every class and situation marriage and birth is controlled by economic conditions. The root
cause of womens vices lies in the fact that for man woman is first of all an object of enjoyment. She is not
economically and socially free and she has to look for marriage as a means to her support and
consequently, she depends on man and becomes a piece of property. Bebel argues that there can be no
emancipation of humanity unless there is social independence and equality of the sexes. Woman has the
same right as man to the unfolding of her faculties. The differences that are natural can only be justified.
But these differences do not cancel their common humanity and rights based on it.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman visualizes an individual as a creature of his environment, which includes
social and economic environment as well. She holds the opinion that in the organic society is glorification
of human race and woman has been excluded from this process. Thus, only man is human and woman is
stunted in her human growth. She notes that dependence of female on male for her food is a unique and
unparallel phenomenon in animal species. The economic status of woman is relative to the sex relation.
Despite of the fact that the woman is producer she remains a dependent. Where a woman works to
produce food her labour is the property of a man. Moreover, woman does not convert her sexual energy
into other activity but to reproduce. The man, on the other hand, converts his sexual energy for sexual

and nonsexual purposes. Women have no sphere of work where their sex energies can be given a
human expression. Gilman also subscribe to the view that woman is like man primarily a human being
and a person.
Alexandra Kollontai, a Marxist feminist, argued that the society has to take the responsibility for
the needs of the mother and for the care of young children. There would be special maternity homes
where woman will deliver child and she will resume her work when she becomes fit. The children shall be
taken care of by experienced nurses. The house- hold works of the family will be integrated into the
national economy.
Owen was of the opinion that private property, religion and marriage formed a kind of unholy and
inseparable trinity. Each was an evil in it-self. Each upheld the others and none could be eradicated in
isolation. Thus to stop the married woman being treated as the property of her husband, it was necessary
to abolish not only marriage but also private property.
The socialist feminist, on the basis of equality, argue for economic independence of women and
computation of their income in the national economy. They also argue that the institutions obstructing the
realization of equal treatment must be demolished.
Radical Feminism:
The radical feminism is feminism in the real sense of the term. The socialist feminism amounts to
Marxism applied to women and liberal feminism is liberalism applied to women. However, radical
feminism is methodologically post Marxist. The radical feminists deny the sexual nature of human beings.
To radicals, sexually differentiated behaviour pattern is wholly attributable to the different social formation
of men and women and the essential function of which is to support the institution of male dominance. In
radical thought a deep -rooted antagonism between men and women can be visualized. Simone de
Beauvoir says that as man is not masculine and is defined independent of his relation to woman, similarly,
woman cannot be understood by her biological function of her feminine nature. Though biological
consideration that woman maintains life and man creates it, are important but they do not determine the
destiny of woman.
Some of the central ideas of modern radical feminism can be found in the work of Mary Astell.
She argued that the man is natural enemy of woman, the idea that women must be liberated from the
need to please the men, the belief that the men have controlled and defined the knowledge. Histories are
written by them, they recount each others great exploits and have always done so.
The radical feminists differ from others on the conception of the nature of woman. The classical
individualist and socialist feminist hold the view that womans fundamental nature is, like that of mans, to
be a free, self-forming being and also accept that woman, like man, has a sexual nature, expressed in
specifically feminine traits and behaviour. This feminine nature justifies womans continued existence in
the family as wife and mother. According to socialist belief that the transformation of traditional womens
job from private sphere to public will not affect their sexual nature. The radical feminists deny such a view.
According to radical feminists, there is nothing like sexual nature of human beings. In their view sexually
differentiated behaviour is wholly attributable to the different social formations of men and women. The
radical feminism creates antagonism between man and woman. The distinction in behaviour pattern is
essentially to support the institution of male dominance, that is, patriarchy. In patriarchy, half of the
population, i.e., female is controlled by the half, that is, male. The principle of patriarchy is two-fold:
1

male shall dominate female;

the older male dominates younger.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a radical feminist, takes the stand to eliminate the dichotomy of husband
as breadwinner and wife as homemaker. She says that the world is divided into two classes
independent men, whose primary responsibility is to win bread for a family, and dependent women,
whose primary responsibility is to care for children and house hold. This concept must be eliminated from
the code if it is to reflect the equality principle. To her, a scheme built upon the breadwinning husband and
dependent homemaking wife concept inevitably treats the womans efforts and aspirations in the
economic sector as less important than the man. She recommends that all legislations based on the
breadwinning husband and dependent homemaking wife pattern should be re-casted.
Catherine MacKinnon is a known writer in radical feminism. She got her feedback from Roe v.
Wade. In this case, the Supreme Court recognized the qualified right of a woman to terminate her
pregnancy. She argues that pregnancy must be viewed in the context of social structure of society while
the cultural feminist argues that pregnancy is a unique female experience and the right to terminate the
pregnancy should be unqualified. It is relevant to mention that Roe was decided in the context of liberal
feminism. MacKinnon insists on the totality of male domination throughout the social order. In place of
work she places sexuality in the traditional Marxist scheme. She says:
Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism: that which is most ones own, yet most taken
away.

The first sight of domination lies in the male appropriation of womens pre-social natural sexuality,
an appropriation which constitutes woman as the object of male desire. The womens sexuality is thus
structured into objectification of male gaze rather than a consequence of natural form. The feminists do
not trust state and its agencies; they look upon the principle of equality with suspicion and feel that the
real harm of various assaults on women is the depiction of subordination and objectification.
State is male in the feminist sense. The law sees and treats women the way the men see and
treat women. The liberal state coercively and authoritatively constitutes the social order in the interest of
men as a gender. State ensures male control over women sexuality at every level. The way the male
point of view frames an experience is the way it is it is framed by the state policy. Thus maleness is the
measure of equality in sex discrimination law. State is male because objectivity is its norm. it visualizes
the society as a practical rationality.
Post - modern Feminism:
Post modernism is an idea or a form of critique. It emerged in 1980s and picked up in 1990s by
various disciplines. It refers to exhaustion of modernity. It holds the view that grand principles of modernity
like, equality, reasonableness and universality have failed to establish an order. It is a valuable
problematic that alerts to key questions concerning contemporary social changes. The society cannot be
separated from its culture rather they go together. Postmodernism insists to reconsider modernity as a
social and cultural phenomenon and to pass judgment analytical and philosophical on modernity.
There are three ways of understanding post modernism, according to Mary Joe Frug. First, it is a
certain style characterized by word play. Secondly, it is a way of seeing language as an agent of social
construction and thirdly, it is the way of seeing the human subject as de-centered, polymorphous and
indeterminate. The promise of postmodern legal feminism lies in the juncture of feminist politics and the
genealogy of the female body in law. The commonalities among real women and the conventional
meaning of woman that sustains the subordinating conditions of womens lives can be challenged.
Few feminists have expressed their views that there is a division among women themselves.
These divisions are of race, class, ability and sexual orientation etc. These differences have been ignored

by Euro -centric and white middle class experiences of women. The white middle class feminists in their
endeavour to describe an experience shared by all women and to identify common oppressions and
common strategies to fight with these oppressions have universalized from their own personal experience
and have created essential model of woman. Consequently, the experience of many working women
and black women has been overlooked. It was labeled as Euro centric because it canvassed the idea of
white women in Europe and North America and either ignored or undervalued the lives and experiences
of women in the Third World.
Some feminists are arguing that the rape and brutal assaults on black women during the period of
slavery in the United States led to a devaluation of black womanhood and shaped the social status of all
black women once slavery ended. Even today the American society perceives black women as fallen
women. According to bell hooks the white middle class feminists have failed to visualize the racist
discrimination. To hooks the continuing exploitation and oppression of black women in United States is
the part of calculated method of social control designed to support white supremacy. The white middle
class feminists have ignored this socio- historical fact. Bell hooks says:
If the white women who organized the contemporary movement towards feminism were at all
remotely aware of racial politics in American history, they would have known overcoming barriers
that separate women from another would entail confronting the reality of racism, and not just
racism as a general evil in the society but the race hatred they might harbour in their own
psyches. Despite the predominance of patriarchal rule in American society, America was
colonized on a racially imperialistic base and not on sexually imperialist base. No degree of
patriarchal bonding between white male colonizers and Native American men overshadowed
white racial imperialism. Racism took precedence over sexual alliances.

This approach of bell hooks suggests that the problem of women is not wholly global rather it is
located in the race, ethnicity and region. The vision of sisterhood evoked by women liberationists was
based on the idea of common oppression a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true
nature of womens varied and complex social reality.
Audre Lorde is of the view that by and large, within the womens today, white women focus upon
their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class and age. The
feminists like Kate Millet, however, do not agree with the proposition that that racism is most fundamental
oppression than sexism. Kate Millet in her book suggests that sexism is more primary and more
fundamental oppression than racism, as sexism is harder to fight against, more pervasive and the most
fundamental concept of power in our societies. Similarly, Kumari Jayawardena and Uma Narayan have
stressed upon the problems which are specific to Third World in general and India in particular.
Cynthia Enloe argues that there is relationship between colonizers and colonized involving a
particular form of gender relations and gendered domination. The colonized women were represented in
ways that both eroticised and exoticised them, making them sex objects for western men. Enloe
observes:
Colonized women have served as sex objects for foreign men. Some have married foreign men
and thus facilitated alliances between foreign governments and companies and conquered
peoples. Others have worked as cooks and nannies for the wives of those foreign men. They have
bolstered white womens sense of moral superiority by accepting their religion and social
instruction.

The criticism of essentialism in feminist thoughts has started a debate whether it is possible to
use woman as an analytical category. Some sought the answer of these challenges in post modern and
post- structural theories which provide an alternative way of addressing the problem of difference. These

post modernist and post- structural feminism considers not only difference between men and women, or
difference between women themselves but also difference within and constitutive of the female subject or
a difference within woman.
Though post structuralism and post modernism are used interchangeably but the concept has
different meaning and connotations. While Evans, regards post modernism and post structuralism as one,
the others have regarded post structuralism as a subset of post modernism. The Post modern and poststructuralist feminism presuppose that femininity and masculinity have no fixed or knowable meanings
and therefore they argue to deconstruct the processes whereby certain qualities come to be defined as
feminine.
Jane Flax and Patricia Waugh argue that feminism is postmodern. Jane argues that feminist
theory is necessarily post modern in that it challenges the natural, fixed and universal definition of gender
relations. Similarly, Patricia Waugh points out that if one takes postmodernism to entail a critique of ideas
emanating from enlightenment arguing for the notion of universal, rational subject as masculine as one
grand narrative of progress, then feminism rejects the idea that knowledge is an objective reflection of
outside world.
Linda Alcoff criticizes that the feminists have adopted a cultural feminism a feminism that
reappropriates the ideology of female nature or female essence in an effort to revalidate undervalued
female attributes. Similarly, Chris Weedon, a post- structural feminist, is also critical of this type of
appropriation. She says:
Some feminist discourse has sought to offer alternative modes of femininity by creating alternative
discourses In each case an alternative version of truth of femininity is proposed, guaranteed by
an alternative source of meaning. The fixing of meaning is necessary for social life but in allying
meaning the true essential non-patriarchal femininity, such discourse inevitably attempts to fix
femininity once and for all. A post-structuralist feminism, on the other hand, committed as it is to the
principle of difference and deferral, never fixes meaning once and for all. For post- structuralism
femininity and masculinity are constantly in process and subjectivity, which most discourse seek to
fix, is constantly subject to dispersal.

Such legal feminists contend that law is gendered. But it is the third stage. There are two other stages of
this statement. First, the law is sexist and second, law is male. The law is sexist approach argues that in
differentiating between men and women, law puts women in disadvantageous position and provide them
fewer material resources, e.g., in marriage and on divorce; or by judging them by different and
inappropriate standards, e.g., as sexually promiscuous or by denying them equal opportunities; or by
failing to recognise the harms done to the women because these very harms advantaged men, e.g.,
prostitution and rape laws. Thus by giving the label of sexist, they challenge the normative order in law
and interpret such practices as undesirable and unacceptable. The idea that law is male comes from the
fact that most of the lawmakers are male. MacKinnon argues that the ideas of objectivity and neutrality
which are celebrated in law are actually masculine values which has been come to be taken as universal
values. This suggests that when man and woman stand before the law, it is not that law fails to apply
objective criteria when faced with the feminine subject, rather it does apply objective criteria and these
objective criteria are essentially masculine. To insist on equality, neutrality and objectivity is to insist on
being judged by the masculine value. The law is gendered is an assumption that law serves men and
exploits women.
To MacKinnon feminism systematically converges upon a central explanation of sex inequality
and it is applicable to whole of social life. Under feminism, womans situation has been explained as a
consequence of biology, or reproduction and mothering, social organisations of biology as caused by the

marriage law making the society as a patriarchal leading to artificial gender role. Feminism fundamentally
identifies sexuality as the primary social sphere of male power. The centrality of sexuality arises from
feminism. The feminist inquiry is to unmask the attitudes that hides and legitimizes womens status; the
notion that the women desire and provoke rape and the career girls plot and advance sexual behaviour.
The discovery that the female archetype is the feminine stereotype exposed woman as a social
construction. Industrial society describes attributes of a woman as docile, soft, passive, nurturant,
vulnerable, weak, incompetent, masochistic and domestic made for child bearing, child caring, home care
and husband care. The women who fail to satisfy above attributes are considered less woman and those
who comply with the qualities attributed to women are valorized and get protection of the system legal
and social.
Feminism has a theory of power. Sexuality is gendered as gender is sexualized. Male and female
are created through the eroticisation of dominance and submission. The man/woman difference and the
dominance/ submission dynamics define each other. This is the social meaning of sex and the feminist
account of gender inequality. The project of feminist is to uncover and claim as valid the experience of
woman.
Socially, femaleness means femininity, which means attractiveness to men, which means sexual
attractiveness, which means sexual availability on male terms. Sex as gender and sex as sexuality are
defined in terms of each other, but it is sexuality that determines gender and not the other way round.
Sexuality is a form of power. Gender as socially constructed embodies it, not the reverse. Women and
men are divided by gender, made into sexes which institutionalizes male sexual dominance and female
sexual submission. Sexuality is the lynchpin of gender equality. To feminists, jurisprudence requires
change and not reflection. Feminist jurisprudence is a new jurisprudence which seeks to create new
relation between life and law.
Liberal feminism essentially claims that because women are rational beings like men, they are
entitled to same legal rights. They concentrate on rights in the public sphere and does not analyse power
relationship that may exist within the homes or the private life. The Marxist feminists argue that in class
society such rights can benefit only a few middle class women; and most women will remain oppressed
until the capitalist economic system is replaced by communism. According to them key to women
liberation is their entry into the paid labour market and their participation in class struggle. However, the
sexual equality cannot be achieved at will, but only in historical circumstances. According to radical
feminists mens patriarchal power over women is the primary power relationship in human society.
Sandra Harding however refers to three types of feminism, namely, feminist empiricism, stand
point feminism and post- modern feminism. According to Carol Smart, all three types of feminist
knowledge exist at once even if there is conflictual co-existence. The feminist empiricism embarks upon
work on women and always intended to be for women. It subscribes to the notion of an objective, directly
knowable social world, committed to a political agenda and to the production of change. The stand- point
feminism emphasizes the need for knowledge to be for women. To stand point feminist, politics, though
important, does not reside in the ultimate impact of knowledge upon the world but politics produces
knowledge which will inevitably forward the interests of women because it is generated from the
perspective of women. The innocent knowledge correctly generated will do good to women as well as to
the whole of the man kind. The stand- point feminist subscribes to the view that the knowledge and
politics are related but this relationship is at the point of production of knowledge and not at the point of
dissemination. The effect is presumed. The effect, taken for granted, rests on the assumption that there is
a body upon whom the knowledge will mark its impression and impact. This body is state or an arm of

state or some bloc of interest which can be influenced instrumentally. The stand- point feminism views
law, civil or criminal, as a bloc of male interest or an arm of the patriarchal state.
Feminism though attempted to improve the relation between man and woman but on the other
hand it has invoked considerable opposition. It is not always correct to say that man exercise power over
woman universally. The power is variable sometimes men have little power over anyone, sometimes
women have power over men. In societies which are divided on the lines of race and caste and where
relationship of employer and employee exists, the power relationship changes. Biologically black, white
poor and low caste woman may be same but as a social construct they are different. There may be a
situation where women and men may form the same category of being exploited; while other women and
men who do not experience exploitation may be quite distinct from the former. In a society, which is based
on kinship, older women have much power over young women. Such old women may give priority to their
sons over daughters and daughter in laws. Thus it is not safe to conclude that women are always
exploited by men. Rather, on some occasion, the women are exploited by other class of women.
All the versions of feminism exhibit common characteristics. All feminists assert that in existing
system women are subordinate to men which is not satisfactory and it ought to be changed. The feminists
also challenge the principles of enlightenment like natural, normal and desirable. It challenges the human
history. Feminism talks about the transformation of relation between women and men so that whole
human potential may be realized. Feminism implies a radical critique of reason, science and social theory.
They insist that women must have control over their bodies and lives.
There are three claims about the relationship between legal rules and legal discourse and the
meaning of the female body. They are as follows:
1

Legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the terrorization of female body. This occurs by combination of
provisions that inadequately protect women against physical abuse and encourage women to seek refuge
against insecurity. Thus, female body means a body in terror. Female body has learned to scurry, to cringe,
and to submit. Law supports this meaning.

Legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the maternalization of female body. This occurs with the use of
provisions that women for singularly assuming responsibilities after child birth and with those that penalize
conduct such as sexuality or labour market work that conflicts with mothering. Maternalization also
occurs through rules such as abortion restrictions that compels women to become mothers and by domestic
relations rules that favours mother over fathers as parents. Thus, another meaning of female body is a body
for maternity.

Legal rules permit and sometimes mandate the sexualization of female body. This occurs through provisions
that criminalize individual sexual conduct such as rules against commercial sex, i.e., prostitution or same
sex practice, i.e. homosexuality. It also occurs in the application of rules of rape and sexual harassment laws
that are designed to protect sex related injuries. These rules grant or deny women protection by
interrogating their sexual promiscuity. A woman sexually available is entitled to less legal protection than the
one who according to social norm is chaste. Female body therefore means a body that is for sex with men, a
body that is desirable and rapable.

While early feminists demanded emancipation, equality and liberation, the later emphasized the
need for social transformation of law and cultural pattern. The feminists, irrespective of their inclination to
one form or the other, concentrate on the women issue and regard the problems and situations relating to
women as central to every discourse. The eclectic summing up of various discourses in feminism holds
the view that the existing order is not conducive to protection of women interest because system has
been under the control of a dominant group which protected as own interest and would protect in future
also. Thus there is a need to visualize the problems of women from their perspective.