Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

Reform of divorce laws in light of the ways in which many women end up much worse off than their ex-husbands after divorce remains a huge problem for those of us concerned about Gender Justice. But consider the current divorce case in the news of Marie Douglas-David, the 37 year-old woman who in 2002 married [...]

After much gossip, hand-ringing, internecine scuffles and turf kick-up, the White House has announced that Luis de Baca will be appointed to head up the State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Office.  The TIP Office coordinates policy out of the State Department on the Traffic in Persons and, perhaps most importantly, must issue an annual [...]

The arguments before the California Supreme Court raised many hard questions, but one that particularly intrigued me was one to which the Justices frequently returned: What did Proposition 8 really do, after all?  Did it overturn the Marriage Cases – the California Supreme Court case that found it unconstitutional for the State of California to [...]

Grace Tabib is a third year student at Columbia Law School and offers these thoughts on the regulation of pornography – K. Franke As in other areas of gender study, Catharine MacKinnon’s extreme view once again forecloses the possibility of women controlling their own sexual impulses. When MacKinnon argues that all pornography is abusive to [...]

On Friday, the Gender and Sexuality Law Program held its inaugural symposium, this year honoring  the work of Professor Martha Nussbaum.  Nine scholars submitted papers providing insights on  Professor Nussbaum’s scholarship, points of departure for her theories, and novel applications of her  theories to many different contexts.  Dean Schizer introduced Professor Nussbaum before her keynote  speech at the end [...]

From Columbia Law School Professor Patricia Williams, via The Nation For some years now, the biotechnology of fertility enhancement has been exalted as God’s gift to the biblically barren. A relentless narrative of entitlement intertwined with prayerfulness has framed infertility as a tragedy, an oppression, an agony, a disease. Some have proclaimed a “right” to [...]

I blogged recently about the concerns I had when I read the statements Hilary Clinton made in her Senate confirmation testimony related to the issue of sex trafficking.  I heard little sign in her testimony of a desire to change policy from the crusade undertaken by the Bush Administration that overdetermined the problem of human [...]

Columbia’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic recently filed a brief in the European Court of Human Rights involving the right of victims of sex trafficking to a remedy under various European and International Laws.  My recent article in the European Lawyer magazine, which takes a somewhat different view from Professor Franke’s post, elaborates the trafficking/slavery [...]

In her confirmation hearing last week Hilary Clinton was asked by Barbara Boxer to talk about how she plans to use the office of the Secretary of State to better the “status of women in the world.” She was particularly interested in the problems of violence against women and sex trafficking, making explicit reference to [...]

Nazneen Mehta is a second-year law student at Columbia Law School and is writing a Note on the international market in surrogacy services – particularly between relatively affluent “intended parents” in the US and poor female surrogates in India. Her Note will examine the ways in which this market might better be regulated by law [...]