Feminist Legal StudiesPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2026-03-13DOI: 10.1007/s10691-025-09596-x
Marta Bucholc, Iskra de Vries, Bartosz Cyran
{"title":"Abortion Lawfare and the Margin of Appreciation in the ECtHR Jurisprudence on Poland.","authors":"Marta Bucholc, Iskra de Vries, Bartosz Cyran","doi":"10.1007/s10691-025-09596-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10691-025-09596-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines the legal device known as the margin of appreciation at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). To critically evaluate its modus operandi, we first explore scholarly literature on its functioning to then analyse the margin's application in abortion-related jurisprudence. By relying on the framework of reproductive justice, we present three objections to the doctrine. First, spurious incrementalism addresses individualised burdens of standardised human rights procedures, which place disproportionate procedural and evidentiary constraints onto applicants and reinforce prevailing injustices. Second, politicised presentism explores the normative prioritisation of state representatives, which entrenches static abortion attitudes, even in the face of evolving societal views or the rights of minority groups. Third, the watershed of injustices interrogates the possibility of justifying restrictive jurisdictions through market logics, which displaces access to human rights across borders, compelling citizens to engage in a form of absurd forum-shopping for reproductive health care.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"34 2","pages":"227-247"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13350197/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148425237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist Legal StudiesPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-12-17DOI: 10.1007/s10691-025-09589-w
Ella Berny
{"title":"The Abortion Plot: A Lyrical Critique of the Prosecutions for Suspected 'Illegal' Abortion in England.","authors":"Ella Berny","doi":"10.1007/s10691-025-09589-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10691-025-09589-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This poetic/critical piece offers an urgent reflection on nine criminal prosecutions for suspected 'illegal' abortion in England that occurred between 2012 and 2025. Drawing on published traces of the cases, including sentencing remarks, appeal decisions and media reports, this essay-meditation evokes the haunting, suffocation and cruelty imposed by the criminalisation of abortion. In paying attention to plot and the discursive violence of this particular legal framing, this piece applies creative writing methods to provoke a destabilising, denaturalising, twisting, deplotting, dismantling and undoing, in a project of reproductive justice, abolition and liberation. CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains distressing content taken directly from prosecutions and trials, including references to abortion, stillbirth, infant death, murder, domestic violence.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"34 2","pages":"269-286"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13350207/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148425358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist Legal StudiesPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-11-06DOI: 10.1007/s10691-025-09588-x
Emma Yapp
{"title":"Normal Trauma and Abnormal Diagnosis: A Discursive Analysis of Sexual Violence Law and Policy in England and Wales.","authors":"Emma Yapp","doi":"10.1007/s10691-025-09588-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10691-025-09588-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper interrogates the discursive construction of the relationship between sexual violence and 'mental health' in case law and legal policies from England and Wales. It shows that the law invariably enacts a binary discursive construction of those who have experienced sexual violence where mental health evidence is introduced. Individuals are constructed as either experiencing 'normal trauma' or an 'abnormal diagnosis'. These findings are contextualised within recent feminist legal reforms to the treatment of mental health evidence in sexual violence cases, and emphasise the pressing need to centre the experiences of those who identify with psychiatric diagnoses in feminist anti-sexual violence politics.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"34 2","pages":"187-205"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13350113/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148425290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labour Law’s (Mis)Management of Menopausal Workers","authors":"Grace James","doi":"10.1007/s10691-024-09555-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-024-09555-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>At the core of this paper is a critique of labour law’s engagement with menopausal workers in the UK. The critique is framed by an overarching discussion of the coping strategies adopted when lived realities of menopausal workers disrupt traditional organisational cultures, especially its manifestation in the ‘ideal worker’ norm. At the core of the paper is an argument that the legal treatment of menopausal workers is failing to encourage effective management of menopause / workplace tensions and, as a result, validates the promotion of this problematic ‘ideal worker’ norm within organisational cultures. Effective labour laws could however better support menopausal workers: labour laws could encourage long term individual and organisational resilience by adopting more effective anti-discrimination and dismissal protections and more strongly centring negotiation as a realistic strategy for menopausal workers and employers when navigating any tensions that arise.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142222220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Those Lucky Enough to Transcend Gender: Travis Alabanza, Radical Transfeminism, and the Law","authors":"Sandra Duffy","doi":"10.1007/s10691-024-09556-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-024-09556-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Travis Alabanza is a Black British transfeminine author and playwright, best known for their play <i>Burgerz</i> and their memoir <i>None of the Above</i>. This article places these works in conversation with the politics of radical transfeminism, a community-centred ethos which places above all the needs of marginalised transfeminine people, as they pertain to law and society. It engages themes of identity, violence, and legal regulation, and argues for a liberatory approach to trans life which does not depend on legal recognition for its legitimacy. It also discusses how radical transfeminism approaches intersectional forms of discrimination such as transmisogynoir by positing a different approach to legal and social structures.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142222221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gender-Based Violence and Carceral Feminism in Australia: Towards Decarceral Approaches","authors":"Rachel Loney-Howes, Marlene Longbottom, Bianca Fileborn","doi":"10.1007/s10691-024-09546-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-024-09546-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article explores the limitations of criminal legal responses to gender-based violence in Australia, specifically sexual assault law reforms and the criminalisation of coercive control. We demonstrate that carceral horizons deployed to address gender-based violence cause further harm to survivors and overshadow diverse perceptions and practices of justice. We suggest that such an approach is inappropriate and dangerous in the Australian context, given the historical and enduring harms of colonisation and the extent to which the actors within and the structure of the criminal legal system perpetrate violence towards Indigenous survivors of gender-based violence. Drawing on insights from research on survivors’ justice needs, survivors’ experiences in the criminal legal system, and abolitionist, transformative, and Indigenous scholarship, we discuss the potential for alternative ways of conceptualising justice responses in the Australian context that move beyond and avoid further perpetuating the harms arising from criminal legal responses to gender-based violence.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140588613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Separate But Equal: Is Segregated Schooling (Still) Good for Girls?","authors":"Moira Dustin, Kate Malleson","doi":"10.1007/s10691-023-09542-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-023-09542-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The UK’s Equality legislation prohibits formal segregation with limited exemptions. Single-sex schools are one such exemption. No rationale for this was provided at the time of the legislation, and it was not until 2017 in the case of <i>Al Hijrah</i> that the question arose of whether and when sex-segregation in schools is lawful. We take up this question, reviewing the equality costs and benefits of sex-segregated schools conceptually and empirically. We highlight the incoherence of equality law regarding schools, and the limited evidence of their benefits. Drawing on feminist theory, we recommend improvements that may be useful in future cases where sex-segregation is contested in the context of faith-based schools. Lastly, we note that these legal questions may one day be challenged by a deeper source of instability if there is a breakdown in the binary sex categories on which sex-segregation in schools currently depends.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140006924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Feminist Legal StudiesPub Date : 2024-01-01Epub Date: 2023-08-18DOI: 10.1007/s10691-023-09533-w
Marína Urbániková, Barbara Havelková, David Kosař
{"title":"The Art of Waiting Humbly: Women Judges Reflect on Vertical Gender Segregation.","authors":"Marína Urbániková, Barbara Havelková, David Kosař","doi":"10.1007/s10691-023-09533-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10691-023-09533-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), compared to common law countries but also other civil law countries of Europe, are known for a strikingly high representation of women within judiciaries. This, however, does not mean that equality has been achieved, as women judges do not reach leadership positions at the same rate as their male peers. Taking the Czech Republic as a case study, this contribution explores the barriers women judges face within a CEE judiciary and analyses their reflections on their positions. The interviews with women judges show that while they are well aware of what is holding them back, most of them do not perceive the structurally unequal position of men and women in Czech society and in the judiciary as a problem and accept the consequences as being part of women's destiny. This means that the system currently lacks bottom-up incentives and pressure for change.</p>","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"259-284"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11496311/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"52211490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Polyamory and Legal Parentage: The Possibilities of C.C. (Re) and BCSC 767 for Expanding Conceptions of Kinship in Canada","authors":"Margot R. Challborn","doi":"10.1007/s10691-023-09539-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-023-09539-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"31 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138951710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gendered Childhoods, Linear Sex Development and Unruly Temporalities","authors":"Fae Garland, Mitchell Travis","doi":"10.1007/s10691-023-09541-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-023-09541-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45822,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Legal Studies","volume":"23 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.8,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138952690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}