Smith College's Moodle

This course explores the influence of gender on legal rights in the United States historically and today, focusing in the areas of constitutional rights, employment, education, reproduction, the family, gender-based violence, and immigration. We will study constitutional and statutory law as well as public policy. Some of the topics we will cover are sexual orientation and gender identity workplace discrimination, pregnancy/caregiver discrimination, pay equity, sexual harassment, school athletics, marriage, sterilization, contraception and abortion, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and gender-based asylum. We will learn about how feminists have attempted to reform the law and examine how inequalities based on gender, race, class, and sexuality shape the law. We will also discuss and debate contemporary policy and future directions. The core questions of this class are “what is equality?” and “is equality enough to achieve social justice?”