Susan B. Boyd, Child Custody, Law, and Women's Work. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2003, 283 p.

Western thought has long been characterized by an ideological divide between public and private spheres. In the industrial era, the divide became highly gendered as men dominated the public spheres of politics and work, while women were closely associated with family and home. In the late twentieth century, social and legal policies have promoted equal opportunities in the labour force and shared responsibilities in the family. Despite this progress, inequalities are still evident for women in the labour force and in the family, and for some groups of women in relation to others. In this collection of original essays, feminist scholars in disciplines ranging from law to geography challenge the traditional notion of a public/private divide. The divide can represent boundaries between state and family, state and market, market and family, or state and community, which shift depending on location, social group, and historical time period. The contributors to this book examine the impact of the divide in respect to four themes: state intervention; the relationship between family, home, and work; the legal regulation of motherhood; and the challenges of privatization, restructuring, and globalization. They show that the impact of the divide varies according to factors such as race, class, (dis)ability, and sexual identity as they intersect with gender.

Challenging the Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law, and Public Policy

Introduction: Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism - Judy Fudge and Brenda Cossman Part 1: Reproducing the Market* Tax Law and Social Reproduction: The Gender of Fiscal Policy in an Age of Privatization - Lisa Philipps* From Segregation to Privatization: Equality, the Law, and Women Public Servants, 1908-2001 - Judy Fudge* Privatizing Pension Risk: Gender, Law, and Financial Markets - Mary Condon Part II: Producing the Social Body* Family Feuds: Neo-Liberal and Neo-Conservative Visions of the Reprivatization Project - Brenda Cossman* Public Entrance / Private Member - Audrey Macklin Part III: The Self-Reliant Citizen Social Health and Public Order * Creeping Privatization in Health Care: Implications for Women as the State Redraws Its Role - Joan M. Gilmour * Public Bodies, Private Parts: Genetics in a Post-Keynesian Era - Roxanne Mykitiuk * Both Pitied and Scorned: Child Prostitution in an Era of Privatization - Dianne L. Martin Conclusion: Privatization, Polarization, and Policy: Feminism and the Future - Judy Fudge And Brenda Cossman References

Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism

These fine books on aspects of law and criminality support the platitude that crime does not pay -- except for lawyers, criminologists and insurance companies. Canadian criminals put in more time in jail per dollar stolen in other countries, although these statistics predate the conviction of Alan Eagleson. Another statistic, even less likely to stir patriotic pride, is that Canadian youth, as Bernard Schissel points out, have the highest per capita rate of incarceration of any country in the world.If crime rates in Canada have dropped off in recent years, corresponding to the diminishing ratio of youth in the Canadian population, we still have a lot more lawyers. Prior to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians had less than half as many lawyers per capita as the Americans but now we approach two-thirds of the American ratio (Law and Markets 77-81) creating "the danger of supply-driven and socially harmful increases in litigation" (85). Virtually, all of the contributors to Law and Markets bemoan Canada's increasing litigiousness; none defend the very quality that brought one of Canada's most honoured citizens to jail. The Fraser Institute has brought together an interesting volume that seems to bear the message of Adam Egoyan's movie The Sweet Hereafter; namely, that lawyers as ambulance-chasers are bad news. Law and Markets is concerned not with corporate criminality but with the prospect that enterprising lawyers, instigating class action suits on contingency fees, will be able to dupe civil juries, and cut into profit margins. Indeed, Richard Hazelton, the CEO of Dow Corning which filed for bankruptcy because of the silicone breast implant suit, tells a cautionary tale for Canadian businesspeople.Contributors point out that jurors lack competence to assess the scientific and technical evidence about toxic emissions, risks to health, the relationship of causality and legal accountability; prejudices about dioxin spills may skew assessment of the personal injury caused by the spillage. The one exception to the anti-litigation view of the 17 contributors to Law and Markets is Mark Mattson, an environmental litigator, who argues convincingly that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act needs radical revision or abolition. Mattson argues that the federal government should either enforce environmental standards or leave private litigators like himself to engage in civil ligation against environmental polluters. Mattson recommends that public interest groups and their lawyers split the fine levied on the offending corporations or municipalities (135). While Mattson may conform to the Fraser Institute's policy on deregulation -- "It is government intervention that stands in the way of a public right to protect community resources" (136) -- his proposals would encourage litigation, diminish shareholder profits and raise citizens' taxes. If the aim of Canadian economic regulation is, as Konrad von Finckenstein puts it, "user-friendly regulation," we are led to conclude that deregulation and user-friendly regulation are not the same thing. If the conflicting interests of Richard Hazelton and Mark Mattson reveal the current contradictions of capitalism, we might also note that the provinces geographically and ideologically closest to the Fraser Institute (British Columbia and Alberta) are the most litigious, while New Brunswick are Newfoundland are least litigious (158-9).An exciting challenge for the Fraser Institute would be to take on the human rights legislation that emerged after the Second World War, arising from a combination of anti-Nazi principle, Keynesian welfarism and acceptance of wartime control of goods and services in the public interest. Since human rights codes abridge several common law rights, of property and contract, specifically the right of business to discriminate in favour of preferred employees, buyers, tenants and customers, the Institute's views on James Walker's compelling account of the role of human rights legislation in limiting racism in the Canadian marketplace would be illuminating. …

Susan B. Boyd, Child Custody, Law, and Women's Work. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2003, 283 p.

References

Challenging the Public/Private Divide: Feminism, Law, and Public Policy

Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism

Challenging the public/private divide : feminism, law, and public policy