Locating law: a discussion of the place of law in feminist politics

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Abstract
This book is a contribution to the growing library of feminist work on law, sexuality and the family. Over the last decade we have witnessed an enormous expansion of interest in issues such as rape, child sexual abuse, marriage and pornography. Even where there has been no specific concentration on law, many contributions on these topics have recognised the role of law in perpetuating, or in failing to intervene in, these spheres. For example, studies of child sexual abuse and rape have drawn attention to the law’s failure to protect children and women from the sexual attentions of men, while campaigns on pornography and violence against women have considered the possibility of changing legislation and legal practice to meet the concerns of women. What is more, there has been a growing recognition that law impinges on our lives in the most mundane of circumstances. Law sets the parameters to what is considered ‘normal’, for example marriage, sexual relations, the way we care for our children. So law is not simply something we have recourse to at times of duress - it affects our daily lives. We cannot ‘opt out’ of these legal parameters by adopting unconventional lifestyles or by avoiding heterosexuality. The law still has something to say about our domestic lives and intimate relations, and we cannot assert its irrelevance by ignoring it. It is, therefore, the aim of this book to draw attention to law and to discuss how we, as women, should recognise the place of law in contemporary feminist politics.

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