New Radfem Theory

Friedrich Engels' remarkable essay, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State" (1884) discussed in the article by Ariana Diaz in Left Voice which I'm re-posting below, is to me the pivot upon which feminism and Marxism find a balance. Engels' paragraph setting forth the two basic motivations of human beings, upon which human culture in its entirety is built, was such a discovery for me. It explains why Marxism is both a powerful method of analysis of women's situation, and at the same time why Marxism itself has not sufficiently addressed women's situation (because Marx, culturally-bound to the misogyny of his century, applied his theory almost entirely to the "production" side, paying little attention to social reproduction). When the theories of historical materialism and sexual selection are glimpsed together, as combined in one compressed, remarkable paragraph in the essay, the ultimate origin of male domination in human his...

The article below is from the paywalled NYT on July 22. It's about "Fertility Equality", the alleged right to have children by contracting to use a fertile female body for reproduction. As I read through I was hoping a little something would be allowed in about feminist objections to commercial surrogacy -- and was pleased to see that viewpoint expressed at the end. My reaction is complicated. I see a desire to have a child as natural and real. I also see the Religious Right objections, based on avoiding a deity's displeasure, as insufficient to prohibit surrogacy. But I think the feminist objections are far more substantive: 1. Is this framing of the desire to have a child as a civil right appropriate? I don't mean, should one have a civil right to surrogacy when one is "socially infertile" (as the article puts it). I mean, is the co-option of the civil rights framework, plugging this desire into the overstuffed nondiscrimination framework of US civil r...

    In the five weeks since the US Supreme Court case of Bostock v Clayton County was decided, not much has been written about it due to Covid 19 and the social unrest caused by the death of George Floyd.  So I'm not well-informed on other lawyers' opinions on this, though I've benefited from talking with interested feminists who've followed the case. These are just one radfem's takeaways from the Bostock decision.  1. The main holding is clear: the prohibition against sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act covers LGB and T workers and job applicants. 2. The reasoning is this: adverse employment decisions are prohibited if the sex of the employee is necessarily a factor in the adverse decision. There's no distinguishing analysis between sexual orientation and trans status. LGB and T legal interests are assumed to be the same for purposes of civil rights law. When either sexual orientation or trans status is a reason for an adverse employment dec...

Below is a NYT Op-Ed article dated July 16, 2020, from Pulitzer Prize winner Linda Greenblatt called "The Many Dimensions of the Chief Justice's Triumphant Term". It outlines how Justice John Roberts has been identified as having a dual agenda in several of the decisions he has either written or heavily influenced this term. He is trying to roll back racial equality. Greenblatt discusses two recent cases on this subject, but her article has come out only one day before another attack on minority and poor voters who are disproportionately convicted of felonies. And, in just the past few weeks, in a set of opinions regarding discriminatory religious employers, he has made it clear that religious discrimination is fine even when it violates the US Civil Rights Act. And he's not being subtle about it. I've called it a "gutting" of the Act. It is, but it's been dressed up to look like a good thing. Greenblatt has to use her words carefully to get her poi...

From Justice Sotomayor's Dissent in the Our Lady of Guadalupe case (Cite as: 591 U. S. ____ (2020) 21): "In expanding the ministerial exception far beyond its historic narrowness, the Court overrides Congress’ carefully tailored exceptions for religious employers. Little if nothing appears left of the statutory exemptions after today’s constitutional broadside. So long as the employer determines that an employee’s “duties” are “vital” to “carrying out the mission of the church,” ante, at  21–22, then today’s laissez-faire analysis appears to allow that employer to make employment decisions because of a person’s skin color, age, disability, sex, or any other protected trait for reasons having nothing to do with religion. This sweeping result is profoundly unfair. The Court is not only wrong on the facts, but its error also risks upending anti-discrimination protections for many employees of religious entities. Recently, this Court has lamented a perceived “discrimination again...

Aloha, it's a "soft" morning here in the rain forest (which means drizzling like bejeesus). The avocado needs compost, the chickens are off chasing lizards, the gate is open and I'm ready for a little comparison here on the topic of the right to privacy in US constitutional law. You may remember that a few days ago I wrote about the Roe v. Wade case, reminding us that the "right to privacy" women were acknowledged to possess in Roe derived, according to the Court in that faraway time (1973), from the constitutional right to liberty. This liberty right is at the heart of the US Constitution, named along with the right to life and the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable natural right in our Declaration of Independence. My conclusion, in the next article I wrote, was that maybe US women should just bust out of the legal box we've been put into by our opponents. Instead of putzing around trying to resurrect the moribund ERA, or fighting for wee ex...

Nobody ever said Team Gilead had bad coaching, and the team had brought in a new quarterback and tight end during the previous term. But Team Gilead surpassed all bets, rolling over Team Women in a surprise end-run in the last ten seconds before the season adjourned. A real play-by-play of the season-ender isn't available, because Team Gilead played it close to the chest and the commentary they put out about the plays (called "Opinions") is just a pile of bullshit. But we watched the game and noticed a few things: PLAY ONE: Bostock v Clayton County   Justice Roberts passed the ball to Justice Gorsuch and timeout was called for some judicial deliberation. Gorsuch huddled with Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh. He said Roberts was willing to let him use his pet Scalian method, and that Team Women would give up five yards for a "win" of any kind. The other three hated the idea, but Gorsuch promised Alito his dissent could be as long and droning as he wanted, a...

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION AND CORRECTION REVISED July 7 INTRODUCTION The original US Constitution did not consider women to be "persons" protected by by inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that omission has been only incompletely remedied over the succeeding 250 years. Most recently, the Equal Rights Amendment has not been adopted by the US Congress. The only federal protections for women as a class are found in statutes such as the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibit discrimination in employment, education, and public housing based on one's status as a man or woman. Most recently, in Bostock v Clayton County, the US Supreme Court has expanded Title VII's sex category to also include discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. The stare decisis processes of judicial decision-making mean that the Bostock holding will be applied to most if not all federal statutes that use a "sex-neutral" ca...