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Using Feminist Theory to Advance Equal Justice Under Law
Get PDFThis essay provides an overview of the purposes, themes and scholarly methodologies evidenced at the October 2016 conference, The U.S. Feminist Judgments Project: Writing the Law, Rewriting the Future, a two-day conference hosted by the Center for Constitutional Law at the University of Akron School of Law. This essay provides some of the background to the development of the path-breaking book, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge University Press, 2016). It also focuses attention on the importance of diversity on the bench, with a particular need for judges who understand or experience the intersecting relationships among race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, physical abilities and many other factors. The authors argue that one theoretical foundation of Feminist Judgments Projects in the U.S. and globally is the belief that judges with feminist perspectives – broadly construed – will pay more attention to facts, context and a broad range of authorities, thus advancing equal justice under the law. The essay concludes by identifying further questions about the relationship between feminist perspectives and the judicial role, including how feminism can disrupt default judicial positions that otherwise make it more difficult to realize fully the law’s promise of equalit
Out: Exploring Space Through the Indefinability of Queerness
Get PDFHeteronormativity acts as the default. It works to systemically make itself something that is unquestionable and assumed, and standard, thus romantic and sexual relationships between men and women are the norm (Faderman). AS such, those who live on the opposite side of the spectrum from heterosexuality, LGBT/queer people, are often viewed as the obvious other. This creates an entrenched binary between those who are straight and those who are not. But this binary is much more complicated. There is not just heterosexuality and then the opposite of heterosexuality , which is presumed to be gayness, queerness, or anything that functions as non-heterosexual; thinking of sexuality and gender in terms of a binary is too simplistic to begin with (Sedgwick). Additionally, I would like to suggest that there is no opposite of heteronormativity, not just because that is quite clearly untrue, but because queerness functions as its own mode of being. Queerness does not sit simply on the opposite side of the assumed binary between heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality, but holds its own unique politics and social implications
Attachment Style, Rumination, and Romantic Relationship Conflict
No full textThis study examined the impact of attachment dimensions on romantic relationship conflict and the degree to which rumination mediated this relationship. In a longitudinal study over the course of a semester, participants’ ( N = 252) romantic relationship conflict, attachment style, distress, and rumination was examined via questionnaires. The results indicated that romantic conflict was moderately associated with distress at all three points in the semester. Additionally, in a multivariate model, romantic conflict predicted distress concurrently but not longitudinally. The results further demonstrated that anxious attachment predicted romantic relationship conflict. This effect was moderated by avoidant attachment, suggesting that “fearful” attachment (high anxious and high avoidant) increased risk of conflict to a greater extent. More important, a key finding was that the effect of anxious attachment on romantic relationship conflict was mediated by rumination, suggesting one mechanism of anxious attachment is persistent preoccupation with attachment-related concerns. However, consistent with theoretical models of attachment, no such meditational effect of avoidant attachment was observed. Contrary to my hypotheses, the mediational effect of anxious attachment was also not moderated by avoidant attachment. These findings can help to effectively treat anxiously attached clients and enable them to focus on working through their ruminative thoughts with evidence-based practices in order to help decrease the conflict that they are experiencing in their romantic relationships
Environmental Human Rights in New York’s Constitution
Get PDFThere is an environmental case to be made in favor of convening a Constitutional Convention. On the 200th anniversary birth of Henry David Thoreau, we can remember his admonition: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” What has this to do with the Constitution
Report and Recommendations Concerning Environmental Aspects of the New York State Constitution
Get PDFThe purpose of the Report is to inform and enrich understanding of environmental issues which may be considered at a Constitutional Convention (should one occur) or with respect to proposals to amend the Constitution through the legislative process
Developing Spatial Reasoning Skills: The Effects of Socialized Block Play
No full textSpatial reasoning ability underlies the development of important cognitive, academic, and social abilities. Developmental stage, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status have also been shown to influence how readily an individual can acquire and maintain their spatial reasoning ability. While many interventions have been developed to improve spatial visualization and mental rotation, these interventions have shown potential negative consequences and are not necessarily tailored specifically to young children. Block play interventions have traditionally helped children develop these spatial reasoning abilities. Likewise, socialized play has shown to improve a child\u27s functioning across social and cognitive domains but has been relatively understudied in relation to spatial development. The current study examined if children who engage in more socialized block play improved their spatial reasoning ability over time. Additionally, this study examined if gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status affected a child\u27s improvement in spatial reasoning over time. Preschool children were administered the Spatial Transformation Task before and after an 8 week block play intervention. Video data from each play session was coded for engagement in solitary, dyadic, group play as well as off-task behavior. It was determined that children who engage in more solitary play showed slight improvement in their spatial ability over time. Additionally, off-task behavior negatively predicated spatial skill outcomes. Neither dyadic nor group social block play significantly improved spatial reasoning. Gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status were not related to spatial skill outcomes. This indicates that solitary play is more predictive of improving spatial outcomes overall when compared to socialized block play
Emotional Activation in Bilingual Spanish-English Speakers
No full textEmotional activation refers to the phenomenon whereby words with emotional content produce emotional arousal in the individuals experiencing them. Studying emotional activation can assist us in better understanding the relationship between language and emotion and the mechanisms that cause emotional language to be processed differently by bilingual individuals than by monolingual individuals. Using an emotional and taboo Stroop task, this study sought to examine whether Spanish-English bilingual speakers react differently toward highly charged emotional words and taboo words in comparison to less emotionally charged words and whether such an effect is stronger in Spanish than in English. A total of 62 self-report Spanish-English bilinguals (49 females, 11 males, 2 unreported) participated in an online emotional Stroop Test in responding to positive, neutral, and negative emotion words, as well as taboo words, presented in both Spanish and English. Interference effects were found to be higher in Spanish (L1) than in English (L2) for all word type categories except English/taboo, which exhibited the highest interference effect overall. No significant interaction effects were found between language and word type. Results support previous findings that, for bilinguals who are not in a L1 dominant environment, emotional activation is heavily impacted by L2