LW | Recommends

LW | Recommends

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BBC Woman's Hour

@BBCWomansHour

If you want to think about women and negotiation this is an excellent podcast. It

includes talking about the history of women in negotiations, and includes hearing from an expert hostage negotiator.

BOOK REVIEW

GOVERNANCE FEMINISM

Prabha Kotiswaran

Governance Feminism is a book written by four international feminist lawyers and scholars with feminist engagement in the law; Janet Halley, Prabha Katiswaran, Rachael Rebouche and Hila Shamir. It was published by University of Minosota Press in 2018.

The book refers to ‘Governance Feminism’ in terms of where in the legal order, feminists have gained inclusion as office holders in state, or state like or state affiliated places of power and how in these positions of seniority, they ‘do’ power as feminists from inside the legal landscape.

Its point of departure is, that whilst the problem of gender inequality has not gone away, there has developed over the past 30 years a mainstream acceptance of the idea of gender equality as an issue, wherein institutions and policy makers have embraced the fact that women are subject to certain forms of harm, against which legal processes and institutional mechanisms should afford them some protection. In this context; says Katiswaran one of the authors,

We are often consultants, we are on sexual harassment committees, university boards, corporate boards - not to the extent that we want, but we have a presence and feed into the institutional processes in various different ways, and there is interest on the part of those who rule in listening to what we have to say.

The book frames the ways in which the authors engage with issues of gender inequality on the ground via their research and work: Katiswaran explores the effects of rape law reform in post-colonial India; Shamir examines a transformative moment in anti trafficking enforcement in Israel; Rebouche considers the contradictory legal discourses related to abortion and reproduction rights in the US. In this sense, Governance Feminism performs as an international phenomenon not confined to any particular jurisdiction.

However, the unintended consequences of the application of feminist ideas across a complex apparatus of contexts that involve the transnational and the local test even the most foundational elements of feminist thought and practice. According to Halley,

Sometimes participating in power requires passionate feminists to deny their partiality, to declare they are not feminist at all, or to argue feminist inspired changes on the basis of non-feminist rationales.

The complexity of their insider positions is a key focus of the book. The theoretical lens they bring to this complexity around questions of power is Foucauldian and feminist, whose analyses enable the authors and those they represent to navigate and articulate their experience.

The complexity of their insider positions is a key focus of the book. The theoretical lens they bring to this complexity around questions of power is Foucauldian and feminist to do with how privileged women represent those more marginalised. The authors do not try to avoid this bind. Katiswaran adds,

I don’t think there’s any escaping it, no clever way to get ourselves out of the bind, but I think awareness is a crucial first step.

Governance Feminismis a must gift on 8th March as a tribute to all those women we have interviewed in Legal Women over the past 3 years and all those women everywhere who hold office in the Corridors of Power and do feminism from the inside.