A funny thing happens when feminists are confronted with the task of tracing the origins of “Feminist Legal Theory.” Suddenly, the same boundaries which were crossed, challenged and transgressed, need to be dealt with all over again. In Unity and Diversity in Feminist Legal Theory (2007) , Margaret Davies notes:
“To begin with, what is meant by the term ‘feminist legal theory’? Clearly feminist interest in law has existed for far longer than thirty years. So why limit the term to the past thirty years, when feminist critique of law-governed areas of social life has been prevalent for well over a century, and even longer in relation to some issues and jurisdictions? The reason is perhaps arbitrary,a consequence not of substance but of disciplinary boundaries combined with male dominance of the legal academy.”
Indeed the resistance to the idea of scholarly work focused on studying gender inequality (more popularly articulated as ”women’s subordination”) does not exist exclusively within the legal discipline. Like the law, science used to be (and still is in many places around the world), male-dominated. I have been teaching an elective on “Gender & Law” for the last seven years in law school but to this date, I get the occasional expression of resistance (usually masked as something else). The most recent one went this way: “We have so many pro-women laws already. Women are equal to men before the law in the Philippines. In many places they even dominate legal practice. What more do you women want?” Of course, my answer (in my mind) was: “I doubt you can handle it.” But since the one asking the question seemed sincere, I was more patient.
