Full Description
This collection of original essays looks at a topic of growing interest and debate in feminist and historical circles: the social regulation of women through law during the 19th and 20th centuries, and the resistance which emerged in response. The collection refutes the notion of women oppressed during the 19th century, unable to act in opposition to the law. When issues of motherhood and women's sexuality became areas of public policy, women began to negotiate the law, as case studies from Europe and the USA show. This book should be of interest to students of women's studies, sociology of law, and social policy.
Contents
Introduction, Carol Smart; Chapter 1 Disruptive bodies and unruly sex, Carol Smart; Chapter 2 Feminist vigilantes of late-Victorian England, Lucy Bland; Chapter 3 Child sexual abuse and the regulation of women, Carol-Ann Hooper; Chapter 4 Women and late-nineteenth-century social work, Jane Lewis; Chapter 5 Producers of legitimacy, Martine Spensky; Chapter 6 Representing childhood, Mariana Valverde; Chapter 7 Whose property?, Ursula Vogel; Chapter 8 Mothers as citizens, Selma Sevenhuijsen; Chapter 9 Humanity or justice?, Anna Clark;
