114 research outputs found
Panel I: Theory I -- Multidimensional Masculinities
No full textModerator: Sylvia R. Lazos
Athena D. Mutua: The Multidimensional Turn: Revisiting Progressive Black MasculinitiesJuliet Williams: The Theory and Practice of Multiple MasculinitiesFrank Rudy Cooper: The King Stay the King: Multidimensional Masculinities and Capitalism in The Wir
ClassCrits Time? Building Institutions, Building Frameworks
No full textThis essay chronicles the development of ClassCrits, an organization of US legal scholars that seeks to ground economic analyses in progressive legal jurisprudence. Today, ClassCrits ideas may resonate with a broader audience. I attribute this institutional success partly to ClassCrits’ commitment to: an interdisciplinary “big tent” openness, safe and responsive space, and praxis and collaboration. I then explore three key topics in a selection of ClassCrits writings on class and law: (1) neoliberal entrenchment and preservation; (2) class oppression; and (3) the intersecting oppression of class and race. I argue that ClassCrits scholarship on law and neoliberalism is productively viewed through and anticipates Wendy Brown’s recent work, and that Erik Olin Wright’s approach to class analysis may add more theoretical cohesion to ClassCrits work on law and class. Finally, I suggest that Cedric Robinson’s theory of racial capitalism holds promise for ClassCrits scholarship on the intersection of race and class
Why Retire the Feminization of Poverty Construct?
No full textThe feminization of poverty concept should be retired, if it has not already been so. It should be retired, even though the concept has been extremely powerful as a discursive construct. In a phrase, the idea captured a seemingly universal phenomenon, inspired theoretical research into the nexus between women and poverty, and summoned coalitions of women by marking an agenda for, and among, women across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and nationality. In short, it has been a war cry, demanding and framing analyses of women\u27s poverty, and justifying and inspiring women\u27s collective action. Nevertheless, the feminization of poverty construct should be retired because its definition is unclear and its meaning seems only partially accurate -- capturing the dynamics of poverty in some communities but not others.
Specifically, the concept fails to adequately capture the dynamics at work in the creation and the maintenance of people, both women and men, in poverty. This is so particularly where poverty is the norm for both women and men, as it is in many U.S. communities of color and other national and sub-altern communities. Further, the feminization of poverty construct, by inadequately reflecting the gender dynamics of poverty in these communities, may also unnecessarily strain the intra-community coalitions of men and women of multiple sexualities whose survival may be more intimately and immediately tied to and dependent on each other. Moreover, because the construct relies on essentialized understandings of men and women, it may erase the experiences of and hinder coalition building with those who transgress gender, moving through the categories of \u27woman\u27 and \u27man\u27.
Ultimately, the feminization of poverty concept should be retired because it may have served its purpose. This purpose is not to describe the existence of a recent but universal phenomenon but to spawn the research, debate, and investigation that has generated alternative notions and frameworks for understanding the lived experiences and conditions of all people in poverty. One of these notions or frameworks is simply the idea and reality of gendered poverty. The notion of gendered poverty recognizes that gender relations are deeply embedded in the operation of market systems and other economic structures and that poverty itself is deeply gendered. In other words, it summarizes research confirming that men and women often come to poverty through different processes, are maintained in poverty in different ways, and experience poverty differently. Additionally, these gendered processes reflect and reinscribe the notion that gender is intransitive, reproducing current gender and sex roles that limit individuals and groups.
Unlike the discursive feminization of poverty construct, the notion of gendered poverty lacks some of the flare, moral indignation, and outrage that propelled women into coalitions (based on a sense of common experience) and inspired substantial research into the lives of poor women. Further, and perhaps more importantly, the notion of gendered poverty fails to capture the fact that even where women are not poorer than men, they tend to be more vulnerable to poverty than men. In addition, the notion of gendered poverty does not, on its face, take into consideration the intersections of race, citizenship, and other conditions, which might deeply affect and be affected by various economic processes.
Nevertheless, the notion of gendered poverty informs research into the nature of poverty and market relations as they relate to women and men, respectively and specifically. It also appears much more amenable to attachments. So, for instance, one might talk about racialized gendered oppression, gendered racial poverty, racialized transgendered poverty, or racialized gendered imperialism. Further, it potentially facilitates a broader range of coalitions, including coalitions of women, men, and transgendered people. Ultimately, however, neither a feminization of poverty nor a gendered poverty approach captures the range of subordinating structures that shape poverty. Therefore, an approach that seeks to understand the multidimensional nature of poverty and promotes anti-essentialist, anti-subordination principles and practices might better unravel the ties that bind people in poverty and be more inclusive, permitting shared agendas for building coalitions
CRT2 S1 Ep4: Critical Race Theory, Columbia Law School and the Legacies of Slavery: The Black Male Initiative
No full textThis episode examines Columbia Law School’s history and legacy of slavery and the extent to which the remnants of that legacy reverberate throughout our campus today. With a specific lens on the experiences of Black men on campus and in the wider society, we draw parallels between the hyper surveillance and vilification experienced by Frederick Wells on the law school’s campus in 1924 and the experiences of Black male students on and off campus in recent years.
With the assistance of our esteemed panelists, Professor Katherine Franke, Professor Darren Hutchinson, and Professor Athena Mutua, we explore a number of critical race theories in an attempt to grapple with the unique experiences and perspectives of Black men and our responsibilities to the past.https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/crt2/1005/thumbnail.jp
Disparity in Judicial Misconduct Cases: Color-Blind Diversity?
No full textThis article presents and analyzes preliminary data on racial and gender disparities in state judicial disciplinary actions. Studies of demographic disparities in the context of judicial discipline do not exist. This paper presents a first past and preliminary look at the data collected on the issue and assembled into a database. The article is also motivated by the resistance encountered to inquiries into the demographic profile of the state bench and its judges. As such, it also tells the story of the journey undertaken to secure this information and critiques what the author terms a practice of colorblind diversity. Initially prepared as part of a larger project, the preliminary data suggests that there are gender and racial disparities in the incidence of state judicial misconduct cases but also that women judges of color - those who sit at the subordinated intersections of race and gender - are more often subject to harsher judicial discipline than others.
The first part of this paper briefly chronicles the difficulty encountered in trying to access this data. Part II provides a brief overview of state judicial selection and disciplinary systems, which in varying measures are meant to promote judicial independence, accountability, quality and diversity. Part III of the paper provides the findings on the demographic composition of the state bench and describes the method my researchers and I used in assembling the data. It also details a number of data and other limitations. Part IV turns to the data on disciplinary cases broken down by race and gender as they relate to the overall composition of the bench. Here particular attention is paid to the incidence of judicial removals by race and gender, the harshest sanction a judge may face for misconduct. Part V digs deeper into the distribution of sanctions parsed out by subgroups and makes some observations about the number of charges and types of conduct that impact the determination of sanctions and thus might aid in explaining the disparities. Part VI summarizes the study’s findings and observations and Part VII concludes the paper with some personal thoughts on the project
Science in the Third Dimension of R&D
No full textWe study a Schumpeterian model of long-run growth with endogenous fertility and with three interacting dimensions of innovation. Scientific research is the fundamental dimension of innovation that creates new technological knowledge. This is allocated over new working prototypes in the horizontal dimension. New firms finance scientific research by obtaining the property rights of new working prototypes, and existing firms invest in developing the blueprint mode of working prototypes into the more productive modes of production in the vertical dimension. Balanced growth in the standards of living is fully endogenous without scale effects, and a new parameter, i.e., the elasticity of scientific knowledge with respect to existing collective scientific knowledge, nonlinearly accelerates long-run growth. With exogenous population growth, the model generates a semi-endogenous result due to the endogenously determined bound on technological opportunity.Science; Technology; Blueprints; R&D; Endogenous Fertility
Multidimensionality Is to Masculinities What Intersectionality Is to Feminism
No full textCommitted to intersectionality theory in her feminist work, the scholar Juliet Williams expressed the sentiment that “multidimensionality is to masculinities theory, what intersectionality is to feminism.” She did so in the context of a debate about whether intersectionality theory might capture the complexity of men’s lives, particularly men of color’s lives, as well as does multidimensionality theory, given that the latter is based in large part on the former. This paper, briefly explores the intellectual history of multidimensionality theory, concedes that intersectionality, a powerful analytical tool that has matured and gone global, could easily be used and is in part used to explore the lives of men as gendered beings. However, it argues that early interpretations and applications of intersectionality theory limited, for some, its initial intuitive power in analyzing men and masculinities. With the emergence of masculinities studies in the legal academy, these perceived limitations propelled the further development of multidimensional theory, which has informed and been informed by masculinities theory, such that, multidimensionality theory may well be to masculinities studies what intersectionality is to feminism
Restoring Justice to Civil Rights Movement Activists?: New Historiography and the “Long Civil Rights Era”
No full textThis paper seeks to engage ongoing discussions and conceptualizations about the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project and its meanings, boundaries, and goals. It tells two different but overlapping stories of the civil rights era and argues that the dominant abbreviated story of the movement, focusing on the ten-year period centered on the King-led nonviolent movement in the South, should be rejected as a framework for the Project. This ten-year story truncates, decontextualizes, and tames the movement while rendering it legalistic, episodic, triumphant and nostalgic. The effect is that it obscures the movement\u27s relevance to today\u27s circumstances; it distorts the nature, objectives and activities of the masses of ordinary black people who fought its battles, including their broad egalitarian democratic agenda; and it allows forces hostile to the movement\u27s objectives to easily appropriate and misappropriate its ideas. As such it undermines the goals of the Project, justice for civil rights activists. Based on new historiography, this paper advocates for an understanding of the civil rights period as constituting what Nikhil Pal Singh calls the long civil rights era, and part of what scholars such as Manning Marable and Clayborne Carson call the black freedom struggle. New historiography is beginning to expose the limitations of the truncated civil rights story and to provide a fuller picture of the era. For instance, it suggests that the civil rights era begins in the 1930s, is transformed in the 1950s, and again in the mid-1960s and ends but remains unfinished sometime around the early eighties with its broad egalitarian democratic agenda largely unmet
An Exegesis of the Meaning of \u3cem\u3eDobbs\u3c/em\u3e: Despotism, Servitude, & Forced Birth
No full textThe Dobbs decision has been leaked. Gathered outside of New York City\u27s St. Patrick\u27s Old Cathedral, pro-choice protesters chant: Not the church, not the state, the people must decide their fate.
A white man wearing a New York Fire Department sweatshirt and standing on the front steps responds: l am the people, l am the people, l am the people, the people have decided, the court has decided, you lose . . . . You have no choice. Not your body, not your choice, your body is mine and you\u27re having my baby.
Despicable but not unexpected,³ this man\u27s comments provide insight into the meaning of the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u27s Health Organization and the conditions it creates for women, girls, and others capable of pregnancy. Despite the Supreme Court\u27s assertions that it is returning the decision of abortion back to the people, a disingenuous assertion from the start, American society currently finds itself facing judicial opinions about whether pregnant people are even allowed to access modern medicine – the abortion medication (mifepristone) - to exercise control over their own bodies and lives.
This Article is an exegesis of the statements of this man pontificating on the Cathedral steps. His statements and the instincts that support them tell us a great deal about the condition of U.S. society, the state of our democracy, and the relationship of both to the concrete meaning of Dobbs and its theory of life. ⁷ The Dobbs decision facilitates conditions that encompass the forced continuation of a pregnancy, forced birth, involuntary servitude, disturbing outcomes of permissive rape, and the false idolatry of adoption. These conditions have real consequences for women, girls, and others who are capable of pregnancy, including trans and gender-diverse people. They are eerily reminiscent of the reproductive subjugation imposed on enslaved Black women. While these conditions admittedly do not mark the chattel slavery of the past they are part of a broader notion of slavery, of involuntary servitude. And, these conditions of servitude no longer apply to just a single group of women but now extend to all those capable of pregnancy.
Postscript: Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are children thus jeopardizing invitro fertilization practices generally and families’ control over their frozen embryos, in particular
An Exegesis of the Meaning of \u3cem\u3eDobbs\u3c/em\u3e: Despotism, Servitude, & Forced Birth
No full textThe Dobbs decision has been leaked. Gathered outside of New York City\u27s St. Patrick\u27s Old Cathedral, pro-choice protesters chant: Not the church, not the state, the people must decide their fate.
A white man wearing a New York Fire Department sweatshirt and standing on the front steps responds: l am the people, l am the people, l am the people, the people have decided, the court has decided, you lose . . . . You have no choice. Not your body, not your choice, your body is mine and you\u27re having my baby.
Despicable but not unexpected,³ this man\u27s comments provide insight into the meaning of the Supreme Court\u27s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u27s Health Organization and the conditions it creates for women, girls, and others capable of pregnancy. Despite the Supreme Court\u27s assertions that it is returning the decision of abortion back to the people, a disingenuous assertion from the start, American society currently finds itself facing judicial opinions about whether pregnant people are even allowed to access modern medicine – the abortion medication (mifepristone) - to exercise control over their own bodies and lives.
This Article is an exegesis of the statements of this man pontificating on the Cathedral steps. His statements and the instincts that support them tell us a great deal about the condition of U.S. society, the state of our democracy, and the relationship of both to the concrete meaning of Dobbs and its theory of life. ⁷ The Dobbs decision facilitates conditions that encompass the forced continuation of a pregnancy, forced birth, involuntary servitude, disturbing outcomes of permissive rape, and the false idolatry of adoption. These conditions have real consequences for women, girls, and others who are capable of pregnancy, including trans and gender-diverse people. They are eerily reminiscent of the reproductive subjugation imposed on enslaved Black women. While these conditions admittedly do not mark the chattel slavery of the past they are part of a broader notion of slavery, of involuntary servitude. And, these conditions of servitude no longer apply to just a single group of women but now extend to all those capable of pregnancy.
Postscript: Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are children thus jeopardizing invitro fertilization practices generally and families’ control over their frozen embryos, in particular
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