Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Past Speakers

Winter Term 2021 Lectures | Fall Term 2020 Lectures | Winter Term 2020 Lectures | Fall Term 2019 Lectures

Winter Term 2019 Lectures | Fall Term 2018 Lectures | Winter Term 2018 Lectures | Fall Term 2017 Lectures

Winter Term 2017 Lectures | Fall Term 2016 Lectures | Winter Term 2016 Lectures | Fall Term 2015 Lectures

Winter Term 2015 Lectures | Fall Term 2014 Lectures | Winter Term 2014 Lectures | Fall Term 2013 Lectures

Winter Term 2013 Lectures | Fall Term 2012 Lectures | Winter Term 2012 Lectures | Fall Term 2011 Lectures

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2021 Lectures

Friday, January 29, 2021
1-2:20pm, via Zoom, Register Here

Nandini Ramanujam, McGill University, Faculty of Law

Topic: Pathways to Equality: Women and Legal Empowerment

Abstract:

Women’s inequality is a major barrier to sustainable global development and universal human dignity. Women’s empowerment has long been considered a crucial component of global development, and human rights agendas. Disillusionment with the failure of a strictly law focussed approach to realizing equality and dignity, has led to the emergence of Legal empowerment movement. This lecture will explore legal empowerment as an effective strategy for achieving political, economic, and social empowerment of women. Looking at both narrow and broad approaches to legal empowerment, the lecture aims to assess its ability to contribute to attaining Sustainable Development Goal Five, Gender Equality. The lecture will conclude by surveying case studies where women’s legal empowerment may be an effective strategy to respond to systemic gender inequality: land rights in South Africa and gender-based violence in the United States and Nepal.

Bio

Required Reading:

Stephen Golub, “Beyond Rule of Law Orthodoxy: The Legal Empowerment Alternative” (2003) 41 Democracy and Rule of Law Project. 

Tanja Chopra & Deborah Isser, “Access to Justice and Legal Pluralism in Fragile States: The Case of Women’s Rights” (2012) 4 Hague J Rule of Law 337. 

Suggested Reading:

Aljazeera, “Nepal Makes First Arrest Over Woman’s Death in ‘Menstrual Hut’” (6 December 2019) 

The Economist, “How an Apartheid-Era Deal Still Afflicts the Land of the Zulus” (19 December 2020) online: The Economist <www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2020/12/19/how-an-apartheid-era-deal-still-afflicts-the-land-of-the-zulus?frsc=dg%7Ce>

Nicholas Reimann, “Inmates Repeatedly Raped And Beaten By Staff At Nation’s Largest Women’s Prison, DOJ Says” (22 December 2020) online: Forbe <www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/12/22/inmates-repeatedly-raped-and-beaten-by-staff-at-nations-largest-womens-prison-doj-says/?sh=a206e6e43c00>

US Department of Justice, “Justice Department Alleges Conditions at Lowell Correctional Institution Violate the Constitution” (22 December 2020) online: DOJ < www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-alleges-conditions-lowell-correctional-institution-violate-constitution>

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2020 Lectures

Oct 1, 2020

Hello, everyone. FLSQ has decided to take advantage of an incredibly important opportunity to hear Suzan Shown Harjo speak on a variety of significant issues affecting US Indian cultural rights -- including cultural rights issues that are present in the Canadian context as well. On Oct. 1, she is delivering the 9th Annual Peter A Jaszi Distinguished Lecture on Intellectual Property at the American University Washington College of Law (DC) on the topic of "From Sacred Places to Playing Fields -- The Long Struggle for Dignity and Respect." 

The abstract of Suzan Harjo's Oct. 1 lecture (6 pm) and her bio can be found here: 
https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/events/suzan-shown-harjo-delivers-the-9th-annual-peter-a-jaszi-distinguished-lecture-on-intellectual-property/

Suzan Harjo is a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee activist who has advocated for a wide range of American Indian rights. She has helped Native peoples recover more than one million acres (4,000 km²) of tribal lands, served as Congressional liaison for Indian affairs in the President Carter administration, as President of the National Council of American Indians, and is currently President of the Morning Star Institute, a national Native American rights organization. For decades Harjo worked on getting sports teams to drop names that promote negative stereotypes of Native Americans, and, ultimately, her advocacy and mobilization led to the eventual cancellation of the Redskins trademark (Washington Redskins). The Institute of American Indian Arts, in anticipation of a symposium held in her honour (2019), noted that two-thirds of teams with American Indian mascots changed them due to these public campaigns. Harjo has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom which confers the highest civilian honour.

You will have to register for this lecture, preferably before 6 pm Tues. Sept. 29. There is no charge or fee for registration, and you will receive immediate confirmation when registering. If necessary, it is possible to register within the last 48 hours before the lecture, but early registration is advised. The registration link is here:

https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/events/suzan-shown-harjo-delivers-the-9th-annual-peter-a-jaszi-distinguished-lecture-on-intellectual-property/

The plan for this lecture is that we will all attend it online, and then will convene by zoom at 8 pm for a half hour discussion led by Ann Deer, the Queen's Faculty of Law Indigenous Recruitment and Support Coordinator. This discussion will draw on both Suzan Harjo's lecture and explore some of the potential impacts of her work and advocacy in Canada.

The following items are background readings for this lecture and help underscore the cross-cutting and cross-jurisdictional aspects of these issues (the latter two dealing with broader legal and conceptual issues relating to the discriminatory harms of "race branding" and trademarks):
1.    CBC News, "When multiple First Nations lay claim to ancient Indigenous remains, how does repatriation get sorted? (2020) https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-remains-repatriation-consensus-1.5488750
2.    CBC News, "'We were horrified': Fights to repatriate Indigenous ancestral remains continue worldwide" (2020) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/indigenous-remains-repatriation-efforts-1.5489390
3.    The 2015 US Blackhorse decision by US District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee that references the Harjo trademark litigation leading up to the cancellation of the Redskins trademark, available here: http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/judges-ruling-on-redskins-trademark/1750/
4.    Douglas Cardinal Ontario Human Rights Tribunal interim order re the Cleveland Indians playing in Toronto (attached). 

Please send any questions or clarifications about this lecture to us. If anyone has a conflict with the time of this lecture -- which is not one of the formal FLSQ lecture time slots -- please let me know so we can make alternative arrangements for you. And, also, be sure to review the course assignment details to make sure that you prepare for and then report on this lecture per the guidelines for the course!

Our meeting session details for 8 pm on October 1- following the public lecture - are:

Topic: FLSQ Post Lecture Discussion

Time: Oct 1, 2020 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://queensu.zoom.us/j/91912432113?pwd=R2pYNExCcitGcFZuS0FVUFlMVStGUT09

Classtime viewing of the Sherene Razack youtube lecture entitled "Anti-Brown Racism Today -- 30th Air India Anniversary Conference": 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOtGOaD8yjY:

follow these instructions: 

Advance reading for this lecture: 

• Sherene Razack, Malinda Smith, and Sunera Thobani (Toronto : Between the Lines, 2010), The States of Race, "Preface: The State of Critical Race Studies," pp ix-xviii (copy attached to this email)
• Razack et al., "Introduction: States of Race: Critical Feminis for the Twenty-First Century?," pp 1-19 (copy attached to this email)
• Razack et al., "Race, Gender and the University: Strategies for Survival" (ch. 1), pp 23-35 (copy attached to this email)

Advance questions: These should be submitted via onQ and cc to me and Bita after doing the advance reading above, and they should be submitted before actually viewing the video.

Briefing notes: These should be submitted within 2 weeks if possible after viewing the recording. 
Purpose of briefing notes: The purpose of the briefing notes is to help assess your questions for investigation, post-talk knowledge-acquisition, and reflections on the materials and speaker to which they have been exposed.
Content of briefing notes: The content can include any reactions, critiques, questions, or observations that you consider important, and should integrate any description of the readings or the lecture with your own critical reflections on the lecture. 
Format of briefing notes: Length: No more than 1-3 pages; 8.5x11 inch paper; minimum font size 12 point.
Submission of briefing notes: Upload your briefing notes on onQ and cc both me and Bita as backups in case there is an upload failure on onQ. Staff are not permitted to receive ccs as onQ backup. 
How to identify yourself as the author of your advance questions and briefing Notes: Submit your work with only your name on it -- no student numbers please.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2020 Lectures

Monday, February 3, 2020
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Dr. Elaine Power (Queen’s School of Kinesiology & Health Studies)

Topic: I Don't Want to Say I'm Broke

Abstract:

Food insecurity—inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints—has serious consequences for physical and mental health and academic performance. In this presentation, I will describe the results of my recent qualitative interviews with 26 Queen’s students who didn’t have enough money for food or who worried about having enough money for food. Study participants were undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, the majority of whom were racialized or Indigenous, including first generation Canadians, law students, international students, and undergraduate students transitioning to independent living.

Bio

Background Reading:

Maynard, M., Meyer, S. B., Perlman, C. M., & Kirkpatrick, S. I. (2018). Experiences of Food Insecurity Among Undergraduate Students: “You Can’t Starve Yourself Through School”. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 48(2), 130-148.

Power, E., Abercrombie, D., St-Germain, A.-A. F., Vanderkooy, P., & Dietitians of Canada. (2016). Prevalence, Severity and Impact of Household Food Insecurity: A Serious Public Health Issue. Dietitians of Canada Background Paper.

Monday, February 28, 2020
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Dr. Bhumika Jhamb, former UN Women Gender Budgeting Manager for India, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka, responsible for ensuring that all government budgets promote gender equality; currently Research Coordinator, ACORN Canada, Toronto

Topic: Gender Responsive Budgeting: Strategies and Lessons from the Asia-Pacific Region

Abstract:

TBA

Bio

Photo

Background Reading:

Yamini Mishra and Navanita Sinha, "Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: What Has Gone Wrong?", Vol. 47, No. 17 (APRIL 28, 2012), pp. 50-57

Friday, March 6, 2020
1-2:30pm, Robert Sutherland Hall, room 202

Professor Val Napoleon, Law Foundation Professor of Aboriginal Justice and Governance, University of Victoria Law

Topic: Indigenous Women Talking: The Work of Indigenous Feminisms in the World

Abstract:

TBA

Bio

Background Reading:

Did I Break It?

Noon March 6, 2020 until 5 pm March 7, 2020
Robert Sutherland Hall, room 202

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's International Women's Day Conference

Lands, Laws, Rights, and Governance Relations: Communities, Climate, and Cosmologies in Gender Equality and Sustainable Development

Working title: Empowering Indigenous Law with Indigenous Knowledges, Discourses, and Institutions

Note: Law 693 students are to attend the keynote lecture, which is scheduled for 1 to 2:30 pm on the Friday of the conference, and should select one panel from the conference sessions as their fourth lecture. [Reminder: Full year 692/693 students only need to attend seven lectures across the full year, but one of those should include the conference keynote lecture unless attendance is not possible.]

Law 693 or full year 692/693 students may select one panel event from the conference sessions as a replacement for any other regularly scheduled speaker event that was missed due to conflicts or other factors; this replacement does require permission of either instructor.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2019 Lectures

Monday, September 16, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Dr. Elizabeth Brulé (Professor, Gender Studies Queen’s University) and
Dr. Ruth Koleszar-Green (Professor, Professional Studies, York University)

Topic: A second cup of tea and a few more stories: Deepening our understanding of Indigenization

Abstract:

Let us tell you a story… or two.
Sit and witness us unravel how we are implicated in Indigenizing the Academy.
In returning to our article “Cedar, Tea and Stories” we will re-answer our discussion questions. We will delve deeper into the personal and professional responsibilities that we hold up as we hold each other up.

Bio

Elizabeth Brulé

Ruth Koleszar-Green

Poster

Background Reading:

• Cedar, Tea and Stories: Two Indigenous Women Scholars Talk About Indigenizing the Academy
• E. Brulé. (2018). “Casting an Indigenous Feminist Worldview on Gender-Based Violence Prevention Programs,” Special Issue of Studies in Social Justice, “Activist in Academy, Feminists in the Field: In Memoriam Jackie Kirk, 1968-2008," 12(2), pp. 337-344.
• E. Brulé & R. Kolezar-Green.(2018, Fall). “Cedar, Tea and Stories: Two Indigenous Women Scholars Talk About Indigenizing the Academy.” Special Issue of Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, “Spirit and Heart: Indigenous People contest the formal and lived curricula,” 10(2), pp. 109-118.
• E. Brulé. (2015). “Voices from the Margins: The Regulation of Student Activism in the New Corporate University.” Special Issue of Studies in Social Justice, “Scholar- Activist Terrain in Canada and Ireland II,” 9(2), pp.159-175.

Monday, October 21, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 001

Dr. Carys Craig, Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Director, Osgoode LLM Program in Intellectual Property Law;
formerly Associate Dean, Osgoode Hall Law School

Topic: The Death of the AI Author: A Relational Feminist Perspective

Abstract:

Much of the second-generation literature on AI and authorship asks whether an increasing sophistication and independence of generative code should cause us to rethink embedded assumptions about the meaning of authorship, arguing that recognizing the authored nature of AI-generated works may require a less profound doctrinal leap than has historically been suggested. In this essay, we argue that the threshold for authorship does not depend on the evolution or state of the art in AI or robotics. Instead, we contend that the very notion of AI-authorship rests on a category mistake: it is not an error about the current or potential capacities, capabilities, intelligence or sophistication of machines; rather it is an error about the ontology of authorship.

Building on the established critique of the romantic author figure, as well as recent scholarship at the intersection of intellectual property and gender, we argue that the death of the romantic author also and equally entails the death of the so-called AI author. We provide a theoretical account of authorship that demonstrates why claims of AI authorship do not make sense in terms of the realities of the world in which the problem exists. Those realities, we argue, must push us past bare doctrinal or utilitarian considerations of originality, assessed in terms of what an author must do. Instead, what they demand is an ontological consideration of what an author must be. Drawing on insights from feminist literary and political theory, we suggest that the ontological question requires an account of authorship that is relational; it necessitates a vision of authorship as a dialogic and communicative act that is inherently social, with the cultivation of selfhood and social relations as the entire point of the practice. Of course, this ontological inquiry into the plausibility of AI-authorship transcends copyright law and its particular doctrinal conundrums, going to the normative core of how law should—and should not—think about robots and AI, and their role in human relations.

Dr. Carys Craig

Photo

Poster

Background Reading:

Carys J. Craig (2007), "Reconstructing the Author-Self: Some Feminist Lessons for Copyright Law." Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law, 15.2, pp. 207-268

Carys Craig and Ian Kerr (in publication), 'The Death of the AI Author," Mar. 23, 2019 draft.

Monday, November 18, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Dr. Pamela Palmater, Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance, Ryerson University

Topic: There Can Be No Reconciliation in Canada without Addressing Genocide

Abstract:

Dr. Palmater addresses the historical context leading up to the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls – both in terms of sexualized and racialized genocide and the advocacy of Indigenous women and their allies in getting the inquiry -- and the role international human rights treaty bodies served in securing the inquiry and their involvement as independent experts and overseers as Canada moves into a transitional justice phase to end genocide. Truth and justice come before reconciliation, and until Canada ends genocide and makes reparations to the victims, reconciliation cannot truly start.

Bio:

Dr. Pam Palmater is a Mi’kmaw lawyer, professor, author, and social justice activist from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. She has four university degrees, including a BA from St. Thomas in Native Studies, an LLB from University of New Brunswick, and her Masters and Doctorate in Law from Dalhousie University specializing in Indigenous law. She currently holds the position of Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University.

Additional biographical, professional, and legal advocacy information can be found on Prof. Palmater's webpage.

Poster

Background Reading:

National Inquiry on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls: Supplementary Report on Genocide (2019)

Pamela Palmater, “Shining Light on the Dark Places: Addressing Police Racism and Sexualized Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls in the National Inquiry” (2016) 28:2 Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 253-284.

Pamela Palmater, "Indigenous Women Warriors are the Heart of Indigenous Resistance,"

Other items that may be of interest but are not considered to be official background reading:

"Missing and Murdered: Canada’s Genocide Cover-up"

"Justice System Still not Protecting Indigenous Women and Girls," Lawyer’s Daily

Dr Palmater's open access blog

"Why Canada should Stand Trial for Tina Fontaine’s Murder"

"Sexualized Genocide"

To Be Rescheduled in Winter Term
Friday, November 22, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Dr. Elaine Power, Professor, Health Studies, Queen’s University;
cross-appointed Gender Studies; affiliated with Cultural Studies

Topic: “I don’t want to say I’m broke”: Student Experiences of Food Insecurity at Queen’s University

Abstract:

Food insecurity—inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints—has serious consequences for physical and mental health and academic performance. In this presentation, I will describe the results of my recent qualitative interviews with 26 Queen’s students who didn’t have enough money for food or who worried about having enough money for food. Study participants were undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, the majority of whom were racialized or Indigenous, including first generation Canadians, law students, international students, and undergraduate students transitioning to independent living.

Bio:

Dr. Power is a professor at Queen’s School of Kinesiology and Health Studies with a PhD from the University of Toronto. Her research is focused on issues related to poverty, class, food, and health. Drawing on literature from the sociology of food, the sociology of health, the sociology of consumption, the sociology of childhood, and cultural studies, and using qualitative research methods, she explores social, cultural, political, and symbolic aspects of food, eating, the body, and health.

Photo:

Poster

Background Reading:

Merryn Maynard, Samantha B. Meyer, Christopher M Perlman, and Sharon I. Kirkpatrick (2018), "Experiences of Food Insecurity Among Undergraduate Students: 'You Can’t Starve Yourself Through School'." Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 48(2), pp. 130-148.

Elaine Power, with Delone Abercrombie, Andree-Anne Fafard St-Germain, and Pat Vanderkooy (2016). Prevalence, Severity and Impact of Household Food Insecurity: A Serious Public Health Issue: Background Paper.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2019 Lectures

Friday, January 18, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Martha Jackman, University of Ottawa

Topic: One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: Poverty, the Charter and the Legacy of Gosselin

Abstract:

In 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Louise Gosselin’s Charter challenge to a Quebec welfare regulation that reduced benefits for those under-30 by two-thirds, forcing them to choose between hunger and homelessness. The paper examines the legacy of Gosselin for the rights and constitutional inclusion of women and others living in poverty. It first considers the important jurisprudential step forward in the case: the Supreme Court’s rejection of the argument, at odds with the expectations of equality seeking groups and with Canada’s international socio-economic rights obligations, that section 7 cannot impose positive obligations on governments. The paper then considers the Court’s two steps back in the Gosselin case: the majority’s approach to the evidence and its treatment of Louise Gosselin’s substantive argument. The paper argues that Charter claimants in poverty cases continue to face prejudicial stereotypes and disproportionate evidentiary burdens that are particularly harmful to women. Their section 7 claims are also consistently reframed by the courts and then found to be non-justiciable. The paper concludes that the Supreme Court’s failure to revisit Gosselin, or even to grant leave to appeal in any poverty case since then, represents a serious failure of constitutionalism in Canada.

Bio

Background Reading:

Martha Jackman, “One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: Poverty, the Charter and the Legacy of Gosselin” (2019) 39 National Journal of Constitutional Law (forthcoming)

Bruce Porter and Martha Jackman, “Introduction: Advancing Social Rights in Canada”, in Martha Jackman and Bruce Porter, eds., Advancing Social Rights in Canada (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2014) 1- 31, online: SSRN (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2696226).

Monday, February 11, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Kim Brooks, Dalhousie University

Topic: The Daily Work of Fitting in as a Marginalized Lawyer

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading

Black on Bay Street: Hadiya Roderique had it all. But still could not fit in

The Daily Work of Fitting in as a Marginalized Lawyer

Diversity by the Numbers: The Legal Profession

Monday, March 1, 2019
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Angela Lee, University of Ottawa

Topic: Why 'Frankenfoods' Need Feminism

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading:

Angela Lee, "An Ecofeminist Perspective on New Food Technologies" (2018) 5:1 Canadian Food Studies
House of Commons, Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, Genetically Modified Animals for Human Consumption: Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food (December 2016) (Chair: Pat Finnigan)
Bruce Friedrich, "Nerds Over Cattle: How Food Technology Will Save the World", Wired (7 October 2016)

Friday, March 8-Saturday, March 9, 2019
12:00 pm, Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202
Feminist Legal Studies Queen's Annual Conference

Poster

Bio

Friday, March 8, 2019
1-2:30pm, Robert Sutherland Hall, room 202 [Policy Studies building, next to law building]

Professor Angela Harris, University of California (Davis) School of Law

Topic: The Colour of Farming: Food and the Reproduction of Race

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading:

Angela Harris, "[Re]Integrating spaces: The Color of Farming," Savannah Law Review, vol. 2 (2015): 157-199

Angela P. Harris, "Anti-Colonial Pegagogies: '[X] Justice' Movements in the United States,' Canadian Journal of Women and the Law/Revue Femmes et Droit, vol. 30, no. 3 (2018):567-594

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2018 Lectures

Monday, October 1, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Nancy Coldham, The CG Group

Topic: The Gendered Politics of the C-Suite

Abstract:

The glass ceiling discussion is usurped by the “glass cliff” when it gets to the issues around gender leadership and women achieving the top corporate leadership CEO role. Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders is a significant area of academic research. Organizational development and behavior studies have long pointed to the think management-think male dynamic, but what is of most interest and up for discussion at the FLSQ lecture is the think crisis-think female scenario that appears to be a trend supporting women being selected to assume the CEO role during times of corporate malaise. The August 2018 announcement that PepsiCo Inc. CEO Indra Nooyi, would be stepping down made her the fifth woman CEO being moved out of the C-Suite in 2018. In each case, a male would take over the CEO. Some speculate the replacement is made once the woman leader tackled the corporate “mess” inherited. Is there merit to the glass cliff premise of when and why women leaders are advanced corporately? This presentation will address these questions and use recent gender and leadership reports, research and studies.

Bio

Poster

Background Reading:

Ashby, J., Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. In press. Legal work and the glass cliff: Evidence that women are preferentially selected to lead problematic cases. William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law.

Appelbaum, S. H., Audet, L., & Miller, J. C. (2003). Gender and leadership? Leadership and gender? A journey through the landscape of theories, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 24(1), 43-51.

Blum, L., & Smith, V. 1988. Women’s mobility in the corporation: A critique of the politics of optimism. Signs, 13:528–545.

Eagly, A. H., & Karau, S. J. (2002). Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598. 153 ©JBSQ 2012

Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2009). Glass cliffs are not so easily scaled: On the precariousness of female CEOs’ positions. British Journal of Management, 20(1), 13-16. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2008.00598.x

Schein, V. E., Mueller, R., Lituchy, T., & Liu, J. (1996). Think manager–think male: A global phenomenon?Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 33-41.

Skelly, J. J., & Johnson, J. B. (2011). Glass ceilings and great expectations: Gender stereotype impact on female professionals. Southern Law Journal, 21(1), 59-70.

(PDF) The Glass Cliff: Exploring the dynamics surrounding the appointment of women to precarious leadership positions.

Monday, October 15, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202FLSQ Speakers

Erica S. Lawson, University of Western Ontario

Topic: The Pursuit of Justice in Peace Huts: A Feminist View from Liberia

Abstract:
How do women utilize motherwork to end war and re-shape political culture for peace, security and justice? We explore this question by examining women’s motherwork at the site of peace huts established by women at the end of a14-year civil war in Liberia. We further address three principles of African feminist theory - holism, collectivity, and situationality - that underpin the work that women do in peace huts. The collaborative project on which this talk is based seeks to translate research findings into greater capacity building for women who work in peace huts to influence policy and law and to advance gender equality across institutions in a post-conflict context.

Bio

Background Reading:

Sharon Abramowitz and Mary H. Moran, International Human Rights, Gender-Based Violence, and Local Discourses of Abuse in Postconflict Liberia: A Problem of “Culture”?
Amina Mama & Margo Okazawa-Rey, Militarism, conflict and women's activism in the global era: challenges and prospects forwomen in three West African contexts
Elizabeth Porter, Women, Political Decision-Making, and Peace-Building

Monday, October 29, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Fay Faraday, Osgoode Hall Law School

Topic: Pay Equity Reform in Canada

Abstract: TBA

Bio

Background Reading: TBA

Friday, November 16, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Martha Friendly, Trent University

Topic: Canada Can't Work Without Good Child Care: Current Progress and Challenges

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading:
Friendly, M., Prentice, S., and Ballantyne, M. (2018). No equality without universal child care. Policy Options, March 8, 2017. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Bezanson, K. (2018). Feminism, Federalism and Families: Canada’s Mixed Social Policy Architecture. Journal of Law and Equality.

White, L.A., and Prentice, S. (2018). Childcare deserts and distributional disadvantages: the legacies of split childcare policies and programmes in Canada. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, Feb 15, 2018.

Anderson, L. Ballantyne, M. and Friendly, M. (2016). Child care for all of us: Universal child care for Canadians by 2020. Technical paper. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2018 Lectures

Monday, January 15, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, room 202

Kristen Thomasen, University of Windsor Faculty of Law

Topic: A Feminist Perspective on Drone Privacy Regulation

Poster

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading:

Thomasen, Kristen M.J., "Beyond Airspace Safety: A Feminist Perspective on Drone Privacy Regulation"

Kaminski, Margot E., "Enough With the "Sunbathing Teenager" Gambit", Slate Magazine, May 17, 2017.

Allen, Anita L. and Mack, Erin, "How Privacy Got Its Gender" (1991). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 1309.

Monday, January 29, 2018
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall, Room 202

Angela Cameron, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Topic: Should Canada implement a flat fee reimbursement model for surrogacy arrangements? Legal and ethical recommendations for a “three baskets” approach to reimbursement

Poster

Bio

Background Reading:

Robert Cribb & Emma Jarratt, “Canada’s Vague Surrogacy Laws May Be Doing More Harm Than Good” Toronto Star, September 28, 2016, online: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/09/18/canadas-vague-surrogacy-laws-may-be-doing-more-harm-than-good.html

Alison Motluk, “Anatomy of a Surrogacy” Hazlitt Magazine (6 November 2017): online: https://hazlitt.net/longreads/anatomy-surrogacy

Karen Busby and Delaney Vun, "Revisiting The Handmaid's Tale: Feminist Theory Meets Empirical Research on Surrogate Mothers", Canadian Journal of Family Law [Vol. 26, 2010]

Dave Snow, "Criminalising commercial surrogacy in Canada and Australia: the political construction of ‘national consensus’", Australian Journal of Political Science, Feb 2016

Friday, March 2-Saturday, March 3, 2018
1:00 pm, Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 202
Feminist Legal Studies Queen's Annual Conference

Poster

Bio

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2017 Lectures

Monday, September 25, 2017
1-2:30pm, Robert Sutherland Hall, room 202

Rachel Kohut, Faculty of Law, McGill University (Law IV)

Topic: The Importance of Stories in Legal Education and Practice: From Midwifery in the Arctic to LNFB ['Law Needs Feminist Because...']

Poster

Link to the video: https://stream.queensu.ca/Watch/Kw6y4GEb

Abstract

Importance of Stories in Legal Education and Practice: From Midwifery in the Arctic to LNFB

Stories have informed Rachel’s research and career trajectory. Beginning with her graduate studies in public health before starting law school, Rachel will speak to how she started researching midwifery in northern communities and how narratives surrounding birth from women, midwifes and obstetricians and gynecologists informed the analysis used in her work.

She will then speak to how discussions with her feminist mentors helped her resist the strong push to work in private practice and pursue opportunities in the human rights space—starting with her very first talk at FLSQ in March 2014. From her position with the HIV, Health and Development Team at the UNDP’s Istanbul Regional Hub, to interning with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network to her most recent role with the Center for Reproductive Rights’ Global Legal Program, she will speak candidly about how she made these opportunities transpire. Rachel will conclude by speaking to how her professional experiences helped her kickstart LNFB, and now narrative continues to play an important role in her advocacy efforts and legal career.

Bio

A fourth year law student at McGill University, Rachel is insatiably curious about the intersection of law, health and gender, and spends her time thinking about how to make policies in these realms can be more innovative and effective. This same curiosity fuelled her to pursue a Masters of Public Health in Newfoundland before attending law school. She has presented her research on maternal health care in remote and northern communities at Queen's twice before, as well as in Tromsø, Norway at Arctic Frontiers.

Rachel just completed an internship with the Center for Reproductive Rights' Global Legal Program in New York City where she primarily worked on the human rights implications of Zika virus infection in three South American countries. She has also held positions with the United Nations Development Program, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, International Development Research Centre's Global Health Research Initiative, the Chief Public Health Office of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Environmental Stewardship Department of the Assembly of First Nations and the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation.

#LawNeedsFeminismBecause was also Rachel's brainchild. Spearheaded by feminist law students, this initiative now spans coast to coast to coast, with over thirteen law faculties having organized photo campaigns. Visit Rachel's to learn more about what she gets up to.

Background Reading

1. Women Lawyers Blog for Workplace Equality: Blogging as a Feminist Legal Method

2. Models and Mentors (Chapter 3) in Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change

Monday, November 13, 2017
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Gillian Balfour, Chair and Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Trent University

Topic: Gender based violence and moral culpability: Exploring colonial trauma in sentencing narratives of Indigenous Women​

Bio

Gillian Balfour is an Associate Professor and Chair, Sociology, at Trent University. Her research is in the areas of feminist engagement with all aspects of the criminal justice system, with a particular focus on the victimization, criminalization and incarceration continuum. She has examined sentencing law reforms and practices with regards to Aboriginal women. She is currently examining the discipline of women prisoners and how prisoners resist their conditions of confinement.

Her teaching areas include Sociology of Law, Feminist and Radical Criminology, Introductory Sociology and Prison Based Learning. She obtained her Bachelor of Science and Masters Degrees in Ottawa and her Doctor of Philosophy in Socio-legal Theory and Feminist Criminology at the University of Manitoba.

Poster

Background Readings

Balfour, Gillian. "Do law reforms matter? Exploring the victimization− criminalization continuum in the sentencing of Aboriginal women in Canada." International review of victimology 19, no. 1 (2013): 85-102.

Balfour, Gillian, and Janice Du Mont. "Confronting restorative justice in neo-liberal times: Legal and rape narratives in conditional sentencing." Sexual assault in Canada: Law, legal practice and women’s activism (2012): 701-724. *** Please note this is a book chapter; not sure of availability to participants or copyright permissions for providing copies.

Stubbs, Julie, and Julia Tolmie. "Battered women charged with homicide: Advancing the interests of Indigenous women." Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 41, no. 1 (2008): 138-161.

Monday, November 20, 2017
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall 001

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada

Topic: Q&A with the Chief Justice

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

McLachlin, Beverley. "The Charter 25 Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Challenges." Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 45.2 (2007): 365-377.

Monday, November 27, 2017
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Nancy Coldham, Chief Advocate and Founder, Society for the Advancement of Women’s Voices in Public Policy (EVE Society) and CriticalMass Women Inc.

Topic: The Politics of Voice: Women at the Ballot Box

Abstract

Bio

Nancy Coldham

Nancy Coldham, MAIIC, Hons. B.J. is a past candidate herself. She is past president of the Judy LaMarsh Fund that raised money for women candidates. Founder of the EVE Society and CriticalMass Women Inc.

Nancy is the 2013 Recipient of the Governor General of Canada's Gold Medal for Academic excellence for her thesis, "The Gendered Enterprise of Nation-Building: Rwandan Women Entrepreneurs". She is a 2014 Recipient of the YWCA Toronto's Women of Distinction Award for Political Action & Advocacy.

Poster

Background Reading

Stuart Soroka, Fred Cutler, Dietlind Stolle and Patrick Fournier. “Capturing Change (and Stability) in the 2011 Campaign." Policy Options (2011): 70-77.

Coulter, Kendra. “Women, Poverty Policy, and the Production of Neoliberal Politics in Ontario, Canada.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. (2009): 23-45.

Elizabeth Gidengil, Andre Blais, Joanna Everitt, Patrick Fournier, Neil Nevitte. “Back to the Future? Making Sense of the 2005 Canadian Election outside Quebec.” Canadian Journal of Political Science/ Revue canadienne de science politique. (2006): 1-25.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2017 Lectures

Friday, January 27, 2017
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 201

Beverley Baines, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University

Topic: Women Judges and Constitutional Courts: Why Not Nine Women?

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

“Women Judges and Constitutional Courts: Why Not Nine Women?” available at​ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2840297

Link to lecture

Monday, February 13, 2017
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law Building), room 202

Anna Chapman, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Australia, and Co-Director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law at the University of Melbourne Faculty of Law

Topic: The Continuing Resonance of Breadwinner Norms in Australian Labour Law

Abstract

Poster

Link to lecture

Friday, March 10 to Saturday, March 11, 2017 - FLSQ Conference 2017. Conference page here. Program here.

Friday, March 10, 2017
1pm-2:30pm, Robert Sutherland Hall (Policy Studies), room 202

Yamini Mishra, United Nations, UN Women Gender Equality and Gender Budget Specialist, AsiaPacific Region, Delhi, India

Topic: What does Feminism have to do with Budgets?

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

CBC News (Feb. 13, 2017), "Feminists watching closely for gender-based analysis in Budget" (Canada), http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gender-based-budget-analysis-1.3980881

Mishra, Yamini Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: What Has Gone Wrong?

Mishra, Yamini and Jhamb, Bhumika Gender Responsive Budgeting in India: Time to Ask Questions

Monday, March 13, 2017
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall 001

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Supreme Court of Canada

Topic: Mediated Q&A

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2016 Lectures

Friday, September 30, 2016
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Dr. Linda Steele, Lecturer, School of Law, University of Wollongong, Australia, and Visiting Researcher, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto

Topic: Human Rights and Violence against Women with Disabilities: Theoretical and Legal Barriers

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

Linda Steele, ‘Policing Normalcy: Sexual Violence Against Women Offenders with Disability’ Continuum (accepted for publication in special issue: ‘Normalcy and Disability: Intersections Among Norms, Law, and Culture’, forthcoming 2017)

Linda Steele and Leanne Dowse, ‘Gender, Disability Rights and Violence Against Medical Bodies’ 31(88) Australian Feminist Studies 117-124 (DOI: 10.1080/08164649.2016.1224081)

Linda Steele, ‘Court-Authorised Sterilisation and Human Rights: Inequality, Discrimination and Violence Against Women and Girls with Disability?’ (2016) 39(3) UNSW Law Journal 1002-1037

Linda Steele, ‘Disability, Abnormality and Criminal Law: Sterilisation as Lawful and Good Violence’ (2014) 23(3) Griffith Law Review pp 467-497

Monday, October 17, 2016
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Emanuela Heyninck,, Pay Equity Commissioner, Government of Ontario, and member of the Ontario bar

Topic: Gender Wage Gap Strategy and Women’s Economic Empowerment: Ontario’s Path

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

Ministry of Labour, Ontario, Closing the Gender Wage Gap: A Background Paper (Toronto: Govt of Ontario, 2015)

Minister of Labour and Minister Responsible for Women's Issues, Ontario, Final Report and Recommendations of the Gender Wage Gap Strategy Steering Committee (Toronto: Gvt of Ontario, 2016)

Queen's PowerPoint presentation

Friday, October 21, 2016
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Dr. Josephine Dawuni, Professor of African Politics, Political Science Dept., and Fellow, Carnegie Africa Diaspora Program, Howard University, Washington DC

Topic: African women judges on international courts

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

Nienke Grossman, 'Shattering the Glass Ceiling in International Adjudication'

Friday, October 28, 2016
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Robert Blitt, University of Tennessee, College of Law

Topic: Equality and Nondiscrimination Through the Eyes of an International Religious Organization: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) Response to Women's Rights and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

Robert Blitt, Equality and Nondiscrimination through the Eyes of an International Religious Organization: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) Response to Women's Rights

Monday, November 14, 2016
1-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall (Law building), room 202

Dr. Emily Sanchez Salcedo, Associate Professor, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, and Fulbright Scholar, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Topic: Law Professor, Senior Partner, Wife and Mother, All Rolled Into One: Today’s Superwomen in the Philippine Legal Academe?

Abstract

Bio

Poster

Background Reading

Irene R. Cortes, 'The Law Teacher in Philippine Society'

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2016 Lectures

Monday, January 18, 2016
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 202

Kuukuwa Andam, Lawyer, Ghana, and PhD student, Faculty of Law, Queen's University

Topic: “A Flower without a Fence”: Female Sexual Minority Rights in Ghana

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading

• Serena Owusua Dankwa, '"It's a Silent Trade": Female Same-Sex Intimacies in Post-Colonial Ghana', September, 2009
• Kehinde Okanlawon, Akudo Oguaghamba, Caroline Kouassiaman and Mariam Armisen, 'Struggling Alone: The Lived Realities of Women who have sex with Women in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Nigeria', April 2012
• Kuukuwa Andam, Asylum Application, Re A (Ghana), Mar. 7, 2014
• Gay Star News, 'Gay man brutally beaten by mob in Ghana,' Feb. 11, 2015

Friday, February 5, 2016
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 202

Dr. Jane Bailey, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

Topic: A perfect storm: How the online environment, social norms and law shape girls’ lives

Abstract

Bio

Background Reading

Bailey, J. “A Perfect Storm: How the Online Environment, Social Norms and Law Constrain Girls’ Online Lives”, eGirls, eCitizens, Jane Bailey and Valerie Steeves, eds. (Ottawa: uOttawa Press, 2015).

February 26/27, 2016 - Feminist Legal Studies Queen's Conference: Gender, Wellbeing and the Politics of Imagination: Law, Culture, Compassion

Friday, February 26, 2016
1:30pm-3:30pm, Dupuis Auditorium, Dupuis Hall, 19 Division St.

Keynote Address: Dr. Norah McKendrick, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University

Topic: The Body Toxic: Gender and the Politics of Environmental Health

Abstract:

Bio:

Background Reading

Cranor, Carl F. "Do You Want to Bet Your Children's Health on Post-Market Harm Principles? An Argument for a Trespass or Permission Model for Regulating Toxicants"
MacKendrick, Norah "More Work for Mother: Chemical Body Burdens as a Maternal Responsibility"
Scott, Dayna Nadine "'Gender-benders': Sex and Law in the Constitution of Polluted Bodies"

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2015 Lectures

Monday, October 5, 2015
1pm-2:30pm, Room 202

Marguerite Russell is a barrister (UK and Ont.) and is one of the Founder Members of Garden Court Chambers in London. Throughout her career, Marguerite has been committed to developing understanding of equality and human rights issues both within the legal process and in society at large. She was an invited speaker at a symposium organised for Madame Justice L'Hereux-Dube on her retirement from the Canadian Supreme Court, has advised Labour MPs and MEPs on crime issues as well as domestic violence, abortion, embryo experimentation, and reproduction technologies, and has presented papers on various criminal law issues at various North American and European conferences, and has presented her work on national and international trafficking at the United Nations CSW NGO Conference in New York, the Law and Society International Conference in Hawaii, the Faculty of Law, Northern (Arctic) Federal University in Arkhangelsk, Russia, and at professional advisory meetings.

Topic: Women and Trafficking: International and Domestic Legal Issues and Challenges

Monday, October 19, 2015
1pm-2:30pm, Room 202

Dr. Sule Tomkinson, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Policy and Social Research, University of Kansas. Doctoral Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. Her Dissertation: “Contextualizing discretion: Micro-dynamics of Canada’s refugee determination-system”, based on the first empirical study of refugee hearings, received an outstanding dissertation mention; She was nominated for Dean's Honor List. Dr. Tomkinson also holds an MA degree in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from University of Essex. Her sociological research examines the intersection of law, governance of migration, and adjudication of non-citizens' rights claims in Canada. Her overall research program is to reflect her strong interest in a broader research agenda that seeks to understand how international human rights are employed, negotiated, or challenged through front-line practices in administrative tribunals in relation to non-citizens.

Topic : Knocking on refugee law’s door: persecution claims based on gender and sexual orientation

Event Poster

Monday, October 26, 2015
1pm-2:30pm, Room 202

Dr. Vrinda Narain, Associate Professor, McGill University, joint appointment in the Faculty of Law and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She is also a Research Associate at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her research and teaching focus on constitutional law, social diversity and feminist legal theory.

Topic: Critical Multiculturalism
Abstract

Monday, November 9, 2015
1pm-2:30pm, Room 202

Dr. Elaine Brooks-Craig, Assistant Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, researching in the areas of Evidence, Sexual assault law, Public commissions, Criminal law ethics, Constitutional law, Law, Feminist legal theory.

Topic: Sexual Assault Law, Ethical Lawyering, and the Judicial Process t.b.c
Abstract

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2015 Lectures

Friday, January 16, 2015

1pm, Macdonald Hall room 202

Dr. Anna Dolidze

Assistant Professor, The University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law; former President, Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, the largest legal advocacy organization in the Republic of Georgia

Talk to Her: Feminist Civil Society Organizations and Gender-related Discourse in International Criminal Tribunals

Abstract:

Much has been written about civil society's role in creating and strengthening the international criminal tribunals and fostering a greater recognition of women under international criminal law. However, little is known about the specific nature of feminist legal strategies aimed at international law-making. Aiming at advancing the scholarship on feminism and international lawmaking, this paper examines the nature of feminist interventions as amici curiae in international criminal tribunals based on the first comprehensive empirical study of feminist amici curiae interventions in the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Court.

What are the issues in relation to which feminist groups request to be heard by the Tribunals and what is the proportion of feminist interventions relative to the overall number of amicus curiae briefs? How do we interpret the fact that the Coalition for Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations has requested an amicus curiae intervention in the ICTR in three cases and was denied the opportunity by the Tribunal in all three instances? Or what is the role of women academics in fostering a particular view of gender related issues, considering the fact that women academics are often heard in the capacity of amicus curiae by the international tribunals? The ICTY case of Furundžija (IT-95-17/1) ''Lašva Valley'', where eleven women academics, including Dr. Annie Bunting and Dr. Valerie Oosterveld took part is a pertinent example.

This paper will answer these and related questions with the aim to enrich our knowledge about the relationship between feminism and the formation of international law.

Readings:

The Jurisprudence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights

The Arctic Sunrise and NGOs in International Judicial Proceedings

Friday, Feb. 27, 2015

1pm, Macdonald Hall room 202

Sudabeh Mashkuri

Adjudicator, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (until 2012) and Senior Staff Lawyer, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic (2006-2009); presently Arbitrator, Financial Services Commission of Ontario

Practice, Power, and Intersections of Oppressions in Adjudication and Advocacy: A Practitioner's View Point

Abstract:

What does it mean to practice either in advocacy or adjudication through an anti-oppression lens? What are the systemic and individual barriers in attempting to move through the intersection of various oppressions? Anti-oppression framework is a concept which is mostly used in social work theory. This presentation will be based on an experiential framework - advocacy and adjudication. However, background reading provided to those attending provides background on the analysis of intersectionality and oppression from positions of privilege.

Sudabeh Mashkuri has practiced law and social justice advocacy in the areas of refugee and immigration law, human rights, and rights-based advocacy for women and children. She is currently an arbitrator for the Ontario Financial Services Commission. Previously, she served as an adjudicator at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada in the Refugee Protection Division until 2012. Prior to her appointment to the IRB, Sudabeh was Manager of Legal Services and Senior Counsel at the Human Rights Legal Support Centre of Ontario. Sudabeh established the first immigration and refugee law practice at the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic in Toronto, where she represented and advocated on behalf of women who are survivors of violence in immigration, family, and poverty law.

Readings:
To those attending my Feb. 27 session --

In advance of this session, I ask that you set aside some time to think about how perspectives and perceptions are shaped by experiences of racialization, immigration, privilege, and gender. Some references that address these issues are provided here:

In 1988 Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called 'White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,' which has been used in the last 25 years in anti-oppression training (in shorter format). It should be noted that the article was written in a US context and reality and many years ago.

Kimberle Crenshaw has written extensively on the intersectionality of race and gender and critical race theory as it relates to the practice of law. I have included a link to an interview she conducted last year in commemoration of the 20th year of Anita Hill and Clarance Thomas hearings. Crenshaw was on the team representing Anita Hill. http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-could

Other references that might be useful to you include a paper written by Carole Aylward in the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry entitled 'Intersectionality: Crossing the Theoretical and Praxis Divide' in 2010. It gives a background to how intersectionality has been interpreted in Canadian court cases, and Patricia Williams groundbreaking work on intersectionality in law, The Alchemy of Race and Rights: a diary of a law professor.

Friday, Mar. 6, 2015

7-8.30 pm, Sutherland Hall, room 202 [Policy Studies, next door to Faculty of Law]

Dr. Attiya Waris

Senior Lecturer, Department of Commercial Law, School of Law, University of Nairobi; Visiting Lecturer, Law School, National University of Rwanda; Vice Chair, Tax Justice International

Friday and Saturday, Mar. 6-7, 2015

9 am-5 pm (Fri.) and 9-4 pm (Sat.)

FLSQ/Women for Tax Justice/FemTax Int'l's International Women's Day Conference, Women and Tax Justice at Beijing+20: Taxing and Budgeting for Sex Equality Law 693 students are expected to select any panel or keynote event from the sessions scheduled over the course of these two days - each panel or keynote will count as one of the four lectures attended this term; other sessions or keynote events from these sessions can also be selected as substitutes for any other scheduled lecture that may have been missed during the term.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2014 Lectures

Friday, September 26, 2014

1pm, Macdonald Hall room 201

Kimberley Brooks

Dean and Weldon Professor of Law, Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law, Halifax

Why Feminism Matters to the Study of Law

To those attending my Sept. 26 session --

My hope for you in advance of the session on September 26 is that you will set aside two hours to turn your mind to some of the framing contributions of feminisms generally, and of the contribution of feminisms to the study of law more specifically.

To aid in that thinking, you will find three pieces attached: (1) Toni Pickard (retired Queen's law faculty member)'s wonderful introduction to law students at Queen's from 1987, (2) Patricia Monture (Queen's grad) 2004 piece, 'Women's Words' , and (3) Ruthann Robson (lesbian legal theorist and class crit)'s piece 'To Market, To Market'. I hope that each of these is a challenging and enjoyable (and relatively short) read.

I'd also turn your attention to two less conventional sources to spur reflection. The first is Emily Coyle's valedictory remarks at Dal last year, which can be found here. The second is Sonia Lawrence (Osgoode)'s institute for feminist legal studies blog here.

I welcome any thoughts or questions you have in advance of the session. You can find me at kim.brooks@dal.ca Otherwise, I look forward to meeting you in a couple of weeks.

Best,
Kim

Readings

Toni Pickard

Paticia A. Monture

Ruthann Robson

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2014 Lectures

Date TBA

Martha Shaffer

Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Jurisprudence on defences to sexual assault charges

Abstract: TBA

Friday, February 28, 2014
1pm, Room 202 Sutherland Hall (Policy Studies Building)

Eva-Maria Svensson,Professor, University of Gothenberg Faculty of Law, and Professor, University of Tromso Faculty of Law

'Gender Equality in Regional Governance of the Arctic Region'

Friday February 28 and March 1, 2014

9am-5pm, Policy Studies Room 202

FLSQ Conference on Arctic/Northern Women: Situating Law and Justice in Development and Equality

Individual selection of panel to attend encouraged*

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

2:30-3:30, followed by a reception with students and faculty
202 Policy Studies

Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube

former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

Conversations about equality law and the future

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2013 Lectures

Monday September 30, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Pamela Hrick

Clerk, Federal Court of Appeal, and Law '13

Conditional permanent residence and continuing need for critical gender legal analysis

Abstract: TBA

Background Reading: A Dangerous Step Backwards and NAWL Gender and the Law Manual

Pamela Hrick is currently clerking for Justice David Stratas of the Federal Court of Appeal and is a Queen's Law '13 grad. She holds a Bachelor of Social Science with an honours specialization in Political Science from the University of Ottawa. Pam has been involved in student-driven feminist initiatives throughout her post-secondary studies. At the University of Ottawa, she helped organize a campaign called 'Take Back the Campus' to address issues related to sexual harassment and sexual assault in the university community. Following the campaign, she co-authored and helped implement a report recommending improvements to the university's processes of addressing sexual assault and sexual harassment. At Queen's, she and several other students co-founded the Feminist Law Students' Association, which addresses issues of women's equality in the law and the legal profession. Prior to attending law school, Pam worked at the national office of a federal political party and served as the Legislative Advisor to a provincial Attorney General.

Friday November 1, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Jane Bailey

University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Common Law Section

Privacy in service of equality?: Online sexualized bullying in AB v Bragg

Abstract: TBA

Background Reading

Jane Bailey is an Associate Professor at the University of
Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), who teaches cyberfeminism,
technoprudence, contracts and civil procedure. She has been a feminist
for as long as she can remember and is trying her best to raise two more
to add to the collective. Her research focuses on the intersections of
law, technology and equality. Among her proudest professional
achievements are:

(1) acting as co-principal investigator (together with Dr. Valerie
Steeves) on The eGirls Project - a 3 year project investigating girls' and
young women's firsthand perspectives on privacy, equality and identity in
online social networks (www.egirlsproject.ca);

(2) the creation and teaching of a first-year law course called
Cyberfeminism; and

(3) in her former life as a litigator, having assisted as counsel in the
battle against online hate propaganda before the Canadian Human Rights
Tribunal.

Monday November 4, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Kate McInturff

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, former ED, Canadian Feminist Allilance for International Action

Why Put a Price on Suffering?: Costing Violence Against Women

Abstract:
What are the merits and faults of using economic indicators to promote gender equality in Canada? This presentation will examine the positive impact of engaging in economic debates-the potential to demonstrate quantitatively the extent of inequality in Canada, and to move decision-makers to put increased resources into narrowing the gender gap. It will, likewise, consider the negative impact of rendering pain and suffering in financial terms. Further, it will consider the effectiveness of using the framework of rational self-interest to address irrational resistances to gender.

Background Reading

Kate McInturff is a Research Associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Kate is an ongoing contributor to the Alternative Federal Budget and has recently joined CCPA full time to lead an initiative on gender equality and public policy: Making Women Count. Kate is the past Executive Director of FAFIA and currently sits on the UN Advisory Group on Inequalities in the Post-MDG Framework and the Coordinating Committee of SocialWatch. Kate received her doctoral degree from the University of British Columbia in 2000.

Friday November 8, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Rakhi Ruparelia

Professor, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law

Seeing Colour: A Workshop on Recognizing and Challenging White Privilege

Abstract: TBA

Background Reading

Rakhi Ruparelia is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa specializing in the area of critical race feminism. She was the founding director of the Second Chance Community Legal Clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Friday November 22, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Maneesha Decka

Professor, University of Victoria Faculty of Law

Beyond Personhood: Toward an Embodied Legal Subjectivity for Animals

cosponsored with the Faculty of Law speakers program

Abstract: TBA

Background Reading

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2013 Lectures

Monday January 21, 2013

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Dayna Scott

Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University

Winaaptae (It is Blowing Dirty): A Corporeal Feminism for Environmental Justice

Abstract. This presentation explores the significance of an emerging type of experiential knowledge based on the sense of smell. Environmental justice activists organizing the resistance of residents in pollution hotspots around the world now employ a citizen science tactic known as the 'bucket brigades' to collect data by taking advantage of residents' spatially-ordered and place-based knowledge of the 'smellscape'. On the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, downwind of Canada's Chemical Valley, a phrase in Ojibwe - winaaptae - is employed to mean 'it is blowing dirty'. The bucket brigade strategy depends on a series of actions triggered by this initial olfactory observation grounded in residents? finely honed experiential knowledge of the place. Some of those actions in fact mobilize a new set of tools, primarily oriented to the observation, measurement, and sampling of pollution according to norms developed outside the community, under a foreign system of expertise and according to western scientific standards. But as the author will discuss, the knowledge that is critical to the strategy's success is not only experiential knowledge, but is actually collectively held, which means that the validation of that knowledge and the challenge it presents to positive notions of science and evidence is a potent one that can be bolstered with recourse to a corporeal feminism.

Dayna Nadine Scott is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. Her research is in the areas of environmental law and policy, risk regulation, and the distribution of harms from industrial pollution. Her empirical research project in partnership with the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, downwind of Canada's Chemical Valley, has generated insights for environmental justice scholarship, feminist theory of the body, and feminist torts. Since 2008, she has been the Director of the National Network on Environments and Women's Health, which, until Budget 2012, was a federally-funded Center of Excellence in women's health research.

She is the editor of 'Consuming' Chemicals: Law, Science and Policy for Women's Health (forthcoming from UBC Press) and the author of "Gender-Benders: Sex and Law in the Constitution of Polluted Bodies," which was published in Feminist Legal Studies in 2009.

Friday March 1, 2013

9am, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Belinda Bennett

Professor of Law and Medicine, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

Women and Health Law: Issues and Challenges

Friday March 1, 2013

5pm, Macdonald Hall Room TBA

Isabel Karpin

Professor and Chair Technology University, Sydney, Australia

Public Health and Bodily Conceptions

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2012 Lectures

Monday September 17, 2012

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 202

Pamela Cross

Counsel, Luke's Place Legal Clinic, and Consultant, National Association of Women and the Law

Custody and access in cases involving violence against women: In the best interests of whom?

Pamela Cross is a Queen's Law graduate and feminist lawyer who works in the violence against women sector. She is well known and respected in legal reform circles, particularly for her expertise on family law issues as they relate to violence against women. Pamela works primarily with Luke's Place Support and Resource Centre for Women and Children. She has worked as an educator and trainer on the topic of violence against women and the law for many years, and is an experienced trainer on the topic of recordkeeping, confidentiality. and production of third-party records as well as on family and criminal law, particularly as these topics relate to violence against women.

While Pamela was the Legal Director at METRAC, she was responsible for the development of extensive public legal education materials and trainings for frontline workers and for women experiencing violence. She also developed the Ontario Women's Justice Network. She was a member of the Management Committee of Family Law Education for Women (FLEW), Ontario's largest public legal education project about family law for women. She has developed and delivered a number of online courses on family and criminal law and violence against women. Pamela is a member of the teaching faculty with the National Judicial Institute, where she plans and delivers educational programs on violence against women to Canadian judges, and is leading the development of violence against women curriculum for law schools in a project with the Law Commission of Ontario. With Luke's Place Support and Resource Centre, Pamela is leading the development and delivery of online resources and training for frontline workers who support unrepresented women through family court as well as in-person training on the family court process for unrepresented women. She is also the lead trainer for Family Court Support Workers in Ontario.

Pamela Cross, 'Custody and access in cases involving violence against women: In the best Interests of whom?'

October 15, 2012

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Kim Pate

Executive Director, Canadian Association of E. Frye Associations of Canada

Forgotten Sisters? Why women are Canada's fastest growing prison population; and, why you should care

Kim Pate is an internationally recognized advocate for marginalized, victimized, and criminalized women. Since 1992, she has been the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, taking a solution-oriented approach to social justice for criminalized and imprisoned women, regularly consulting in prisons and advocating in court. Ms. Pate helped bring to light the shocking strip-searches of women inmates by male staff at the federal Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario. She also lobbied for a public inquiry into conditions at the prison, resulting in the landmark 1996 report by Justice Louise Arbour. Ms. Pate led a national campaign to re-examine cases of battered women convicted of homicide, resulting in the ground-breaking "Self-Defence Review" in 1997. She recently called national attention to the death of 19 year-old Ashley Smith who was in federal custody, highlighting the systemic human rights issues associated with Ashley's death.

In addition to serving as visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa through the Shirley Greenberg Chair in Human Rights and as an Ontario Law Foundation Fellow, she has written numerous scholarly articles, chapters, briefs, reports and submissions, considered essential reading in the field of women's imprisonment. Ms. Pate has been honoured by many organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association, the American Correctional Association, the Correctional Service of Canada, Dalhousie Law School, and the International Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. She is known for her courage and empathy in fighting for vulnerable women, and in 2011 received the prestigious Governor General's Persons Award.

Monday October 29, 2012

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Event Poster

Patricia Hughes

Executive Director, Law Commission of Ontario

Legal Education in Violence Against Women: Taking it to Law Schools and Communities

Patricia Hughes has been the Executive Director of the Law Commission of Ontario since its inception in September 2007. She obtained her Ph.D. in Political Theory from the University of Toronto and her LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Among other positions, Patricia the Dean of Law at the University of Calgary from 2001-206 and held the Chair in Women and Law at the University of New Brunswick's Faculty of Law from 1992 to 2001 and in that capacity established a Feminist Perspectives Workshop for all first year students (later to become the equity workshop).

Dr. Hughes has been involved in equity issues throughout her career and personal/political life, from being a student researcher with the Abella Commission on Employment Equity, to being active in the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) as President of the New Brunswick chapter and as a member of the national Board of Directors, to being a member of the New Brunswick contingent on the Wilson Task Force on women in law that resulted in Touchstones for Change: Equality, Diversity and Accountability, developed an equity segment for the New Brunswick Bar Admission Course and co-organized a national workshop on civil legal aid. The LCO's projects relating to older adults, persons with disabilities, vulnerable workers and family law all address the situation women face in those contexts. The LCO also recently completed curriculum modules on violence against women for law school use.

Reading: tba

Monday November 12, 2012

1-2:30 pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201

Kerri Froc

Background Reading

Adjunct research professor, Carleton School of Canadian Studies, and Ph.D. candidate, Faculty of Law, Queen's University; Vanier and Trudeau Scholar; former staff lawyer for LEAF

Seasons of With(l)er? A Reflection on the Supreme Court's Record on Distributive Justice from Gosselin to Today

Kerri A. Froc is an adjunct research professor in the School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University and a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Law, Queen's University. She received her B.A. from the University of Regina (1993, with distinction), her LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (1996), and her LL.M. at the University of Ottawa (2009). She has been employed since 2005 at the Canadian Bar Association as a staff lawyer in the area of law reform and equality. Prior to joining the CBA, she worked as a staff lawyer for the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and as a lawyer in private practice in Regina at the Balfour Moss law firm (now part of Miller Thomson). Her practice focussed on civil litigation, administrative law, human rights, and constitutional law. She is a member of the bars of Ontario (2005) and Saskatchewan (1997).

A passionate advocate for women both in her legal practice and as an active volunteer for LEAF over a decade, she acted as co-counsel in notable cases including Falkiner et al. v. Ontario (Ministry of Community and Social Services) (2002) 212 D.L.R. (4th) 633, 159 O.A.C. 135, 59 O.R. (3d) 481 (C.A.) (finding Ontario's punitive "spouse in the house" regulation discriminated against single mothers on social assistance), and Merk v.International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, Local 771, 2005 SCC 70, [2005] 3 S.C.R. 425 (finding Saskatchewan's labour legislation protected a whistleblower who reported financial mismanagement within her workplace). She lectures and writes on constitutional issues concerning poor women, racialized women, women's work, and access to justice, among others. Her research interests include feminist legal theory, women's constitutional rights claims, and the theory of constitutional interpretation.

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Winter Term 2012 Lectures

Monday January 23, 2012

1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201 (lunch included)

Emanuela Heyninck

Ontario Pay Equity Commissioner

Feminist Legal Studies Workshop

• History, Purpose, and Results of Pay Equity Laws in Canada

Emanuela Heyninck is currently serving her second term as Commissioner of the Pay Equity Commission for Ontario, an independent agency of the Ministry of Labour. The Commissionis mandatd to administer and enforce the Pay Equity Act. Since 2010, Emanuela has also served as an adjudicator for the Health Professions and Health Services Appeal and Review Boards. Before her appointment she practiced civil, family and administrative law in London, Ontario. She is currently an active member of the Society of Adjudicators and Regulators and is also serving on several Advisory Councils, including the Toronto Human Resources Professional Association, Conestoga College and the University of Western Ontario Student Law Clinic. Her community involvement has included several terms on the Executives of the London Chamber of Commerce, the London Business and Professional Women's Club, the Middlesex Family Lawyers Association and the Middlesex as well as the Ontario Collaborative Law Group. She holds an Hon. B.A. in Italian and French from McMaster University and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Windsor.

Background reading: Pay Equity Commission (Ont.), Resource List (2011) - read one background and one wage gap item

Friday January 27, 2012

1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201 (followed by an informal reception and discussions with Dr. Palmater)

Pamela Palmater

Ryerson

Feminist Legal Studies Workshop

Aboriginal Identities, Constitutional and Charter Law, and Aboriginal Rights

Pamela Palmater is a Mi'kmaq lawyer whose family originates from the Eel River Bar First Nation in northern New Brunswick. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University, Interim Chair in Indigenous Governance in Ryerson's new Centre for Indigenous Governance, and affiliated with the MA program in Public Policy, Yeates School of Graduate Studies, affiliated with the MA program in Public Policy and Administration. Dr. Palmater received her JSD from Dalhousie University Law Faculty, and her thesis was published in 2011. She holds several other degrees, was called to the New Brunswick bar in 1998, and worked on Aboriginal issues both at Justice Canada and as Director at Indian and Northern Affairs, managing treaties, claims, self-government, land and registration portfolios. Her current research interests relate to Aboriginal Governance matters, specifically how land and natural resources, treaties and Aboriginal rights, jurisdiction and law-making powers and citizenship and identity issues can contribute to stronger Aboriginal families, communities, organisations, and Nations. A key part of this research is the ever-changing political structures and relationships within and between Aboriginal communities, their relationships with the state, and on the international stage. She works actively with Aboriginal organisations and communities on these and other issues.

Background reading: Pamela Palmater, Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Ltd., 2011.

For those who have not read the book, the readings are:

Pamela Palmater, "When Legislators Make Bad Law: Bill C-3's Attack on Democracy" (2011) Vol.15, No.1 OBA Aboriginal Law

Martin Cannon, "Revisiting Histories of Gender-Based Exclusion and the New Politics of Indian Identity" at http://fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/martin_cannon.pdf

Friday March 2, 2012

1pm-2:30pm, Dunning Hall Room 27 (followed by an informal reception and discussions with Asa Gunnarsson)

Asa Gunnarsson

Umea University Faculty of Law

Feminist Legal Studies Workshop

Women and Equality: Why Taxation, Social Transfers, and Government Budgets Matter

Revenue-raising systems and public budgets shape almost every aspect of economic and cultural life. The power to raise and spend public revenues remains fundamentally associated with the nation state (Levi 1989, Lahey 2011), but the fiscal systems and welfare regimes in welfare economies are also challenged by a world of unstable, mobile, and integrated markets (Philipps et. al. 2011). While no clear consensus has emerged about what the ideal revenue system looks like, major international financial and development organizations, such as the OECD, the IMF, and the World Bank, have increasingly promoted more competitive fiscal environments under the overall objective of stimulating economic growth. This promotion takes the form, for example, of encouraging investment, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and an increased incentive to take on paid work. The dominant ideology of tax design has been to reduce the degree of progressivity in tax systems, reduce total revenue,s and shift some of the tax burden from income tax to consumption taxation (Piper 2005, Owens 2006, Lahey 2011). As men in general have higher incomes from paid work, and own more wealth both as capital assets and business shares, they also benefit more from this type of tax design.

Economic inequality between men and women is deeply rooted in legal cultures and economic structures, most importantly, in the division of labour. Traditionally, men's labour has been valued publicly in the market, while women's reproductive labour inside the private domain of the family or household has not been afforded any economic recognition. Transplanting this normative pattern has also shaped the gender-segregation of men's and women's work on the labour market, and contributed to assigning a lower value to women's work once they entered that market (Gunnarsson 2003; Gunnarsson 2011 a). Welfare economies are facing massively gendered social risks (Bonoli 2005) created by the transformations of labour markets, demographic aging, and family structures, which will put additional pressure on the organizing and financing of care work and reproduction, with enormous implications for the gendered division of paid and unpaid work. However, governments and international bodies have never seriously considered the gendered nature of taxation and public expenditures. Within this international frame, the following issues are explored in this paper:

• the relation between economic gender equality and taxation,
• basic ontological challenges for gender studies in the area of taxation and budgeting,
• how structural choices in tax policy design and social transfers contribute to gender inequality.

Gender research from various parts of the OECD world has shown that even though taxation is not necessarily 'the' original source of economic structures of inequality between men and women, it powerfully perpetuates those relations when left unexamined, yet contains tools that can be used to change gendered economic gaps.

Background reading: Challenging the Benchmarks in Tax Law Theories and Policies from a Gender Perspective-The Swedish Case

Feminist Legal Studies Queen's - Fall Term 2011 Lectures

Monday September 26, 2011
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 202
Sammi King
School of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen's University, cross-appointed to Gender Studies and Cultural Studies
Feminist Legal Studies Workshop
Women's Health, War, and Diplomacy: The US-Middle East Partnership For Breast Cancer Awareness

Dr. King's research encompasses cultural studies, sociology, feminist theory, and critical race studies, and focuses on how health, sport, and the body can become powerful vehicles for the production of social difference and inequality. Her paper builds on the findings in her book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, which was the basis of the National Film Board documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc. premiering in September 2011 at the Toronto International Film Festival. In this paper, Dr. King speaks to the complex dynamics of gender issues in diplomacy, women's activism, globalism, and the NGO sector.

Advance reading: Nahla Abdo, 'Imperialism, the State, and NGOs: Middle Eastern Contexts and Contestations,' Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 30, no. 2: 238-249, 2010.

Monday October 17, 2011
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 201
Carys Craig
Osgoode Hall Law School
Feminist Legal Studies Workshop
What's Feminist about Open Access? A Relational Approach to
Copyright in the Academy

Abstract:

In a context of great technological and social change, existing intellectual property regimes such as copyright must contend with parallel forms of ownership and distribution. Proponents of open access question and undermine the paradigm of exclusivity central to traditional copyright law, thereby fundamentally challenging its ownership structures and the publishing practices these support. In this essay, we attempt to show what it is about the open access endeavour that resonates with a feminist theory of law and society - in other words, we consider what is "feminist" about open access. First, we provide an overview of a relational feminist critique of traditional copyright law and the assumptions of possessive individualism that pervade it. We then offer a brief description of the open access movement and the way in which it reflects or responds to this criticism. In doing so, we discover vital synergies between this branch of feminist legal theory and the open access movement. Ultimately, we hope to underscore the importance of an open access policy for legal journals such as this one, whose mission is to support, advance and disseminate a feminist perspective that challenges the prevailing hegemony within traditional legal challenges the prevailing hegemony within traditional legal scholarship. We conclude by offering ways in which this journal can help draw out the synergies between feminist criticism and the open access movement.

Biography:

Professor Craig's research interests are in domestic, comparative and international intellectual property law and policy, with an emphasis upon public interest theory and the public domain. A recipient of the Osgoode Excellence in Teaching Award, she teaches courses in copyright, digital copyright, trademarks, international intellectual property, and intellectual property theory. Professor Craig received her LL.B with First Class Honours from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, specializing in legal theory, international law, and contract law. Professor Craig has an LL.M from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Toronto, where she was a graduate fellow of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy. Dr. Craig has recently published Copyright, Communication and Culture: Towards a Relational Theory of Copyright Law (Edward Elgar, 2011), in which she employs critical legal and social theory to examine the central assumptions of copyright doctrine. In the 2004-05 academic year, Dr. Craig was awarded the David Watson Memorial Award for the most significant contribution to legal scholarship for an article that appeared in Volume 28 of the Queen's Law Journal.

Advance reading: Carys J. Craig, Joseph F. Turcotte, and Rosemary Coombe, 'What is Feminist About Open Access?: A Relational Approach to Copyright in the Academy,' Feminists@law, vol. 1, no. 1, 2011. Link

Friday November 18, 2011
1pm-2:30pm, Macdonald Hall Room 202
Avvy Yao-Yao Go
Clinic Director, Metro TO Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, and former Bencher, Law Society of Upper Canada
Feminist Legal Studies Workshop
Race and Gender in Canada's Immigration Policy

Abstract:

Canadians love to believe that Canada has always had an open immigration policy. But for racialized immigrants, the opposite has always been true. Federal governments have repeatedly enacted immigration and refugee policies aimed at deterring immigrants who are deemed 'undesirable' (racialized and poor) and limiting the rights of those already in Canada. Racism has always played a role in shaping Canadian immigration policy, but those engaged in issues surrounding immigration have been reluctant to discuss race. This paper presents an examination of the history of Canada's immigration law, then turns to contemporary immigration law to analyze how certain aspects of policy continue to exclude and screen out 'unwanted' immigrants.

Biography:

Avvy Go is the Clinic Director of Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. She received her B.A. in economics and management studies from the University of Waterloo, LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School. Since her call to the Bar in 1991, she has worked exclusively in the legal clinic system, serving the legal needs of low income individuals and families, the majority of whom are non-English speaking immigrants and refugees. Immigration, human rights, and employment law are some of the main areas of law that she practices in. Avvy received the 2008 City of Toronto's William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations, the 2002 President's Award of the Women's Law Association of Ontario, and served as a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada from 2001 and 2003, and 2006 and 2011 as well as a member of the Human Rights Monitoring Group, the Access to Justice Committee, the Equity and Aboriginal Issues Committee and the Profession Regulations Committee of the Law Society. Since 2005, she has been a part time adjudicator of the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board., was cross-appointed to the Health Services Appeal and Review Board in April, 2011, and served on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Justice Education Network from 2009 to 2011. In February, 2011, Avvy was appointed to the Advisory Council of the Canadian Human Rights Museum.

Avvy has presented numerous papers on various areas of law, including immigration, human rights, and employment law. She has also published extensively in the legal literature as well as in the mainstream media, dealing with a variety of issues such as redress and reparations, constitutional litigation, and other legal and policy issues affecting immigrants and racialized communities. Apart from her legal practice, Avvy spends much time doing community organizing and advocacy work. She was involved in a number of community organizations such as serving as the Vice-Chair of the Court Challenges Program of Canada, President of the Chinese Canadian National Council (Toronto Chapter), and board member of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. In 2007, she co-founded the Colour of Poverty Campaign - a campaign to address the increasing racialization of poverty in Ontario.

Advance reading: Sorry, Avvy Go's paper, 'A Race-Based Analysis of Canada's Immigration Policy,' is currently in publication and not available for reading.

For a list of previous Lectures please click [here]