Work

What does gender equality need? Revisiting the formal and informal in feminist legal politics

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: This article explores the political conflict over reforming how sex and gender categories are used in British law, focusing on the speculative legal proposal to ‘decertify’ sex and gender. Three interconnected arguments are advanced. First, diverging views on decertification are both about and seek to marshal competing perspectives on the value and risks of formalization and its undoing. Second, understanding these views, and decertification more generally, benefits from an account of the formal and informal as interconnected movements of (un)settling, (un)acknowledgement, system (un)intelligibility, and (non‐)deference which remains irreducible to the presence or absence of state and law. Third, while formalization can pin down responsibilities and entitlements, it can also fix unequal and exclusionary status relationships. Focusing on positive action in the final part of the article, I consider how movements of formalization and informalization interrelate and the choices available, in conditions of decertification, if positive action is to counter gender inequality.

Source: Journal of Law and Society

DOI: 10.1111/jols.12393

Author: DAVINA COOPER

Institution: King's College London

Language: English

Topic: Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Subfield: Gender Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Peace, justice, and strong institutions, Reduced inequalities, Gender equality

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,800