[DOWNLOAD] "Some Abcs of Feminist Sex Education (In Light of the Sexuality Critique of Legal Feminism) (Sexuality and the Law)" by Columbia Journal of Gender and Law # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Some Abcs of Feminist Sex Education (In Light of the Sexuality Critique of Legal Feminism) (Sexuality and the Law)
- Author : Columbia Journal of Gender and Law
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 322 KB
Description
This Essay has two aims. First, it offers some guiding principles, or "ABCs," for a feminist vision of sex education. Second, in keeping with this symposium's topic, "Sexuality and the Law," the Essay evaluates that feminist project in light of what the I call "the sexuality critique" of legal feminism--a line of criticism leveled by feminist and post-feminist scholars against feminist legal theorists' work on sexuality. The ABCs advanced here reflect a liberal feminist approach to sex education, which stresses the three themes of fostering capacity, equality, and responsibility. Such an approach, the Essay maintains, is better suited for facilitating the development of young women's and men's capacities for responsible sexual self-government than the abstinence-until-marriage model of sex education ("abstinence-only") embraced in the federal welfare law codified as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. (1) "Abstinence-only" sex education reflects a conservative sexual economy. As put into practice in various curricula funded by the federal government, such sex education is laden with gender role stereotypes about "his" and "her" sexuality that reinforce women's role as sexual gatekeepers. (2) This Essay, given the constraints of space, presents a condensed account of a basic liberal feminist framework for sex education and contrasts such a framework with the conservative sexual economy of "abstinence-only" sex education. (3) For this symposium, I will address the following issue: what implications for sex education--and in particular, feminist frameworks for sex education--grow out of the sexuality critique? The gist of this critique, leveled by feminist and post-feminist scholars against feminist legal work on sexuality, is that feminist legal theory analyzes sexuality as a site of subordination of and harm to women. As a consequence, such theory calls for and embraces legal regulation, protection, and remedy aimed at such harm, but abdicates to others the task of developing a positive account of sexuality.