Book Reviews : ELIZABETH KINGDOM, What's Wrong with Rights? Problems for Feminist Politics of Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991, xii + 172 pp., £25 hardback
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200206 |
| Author | Margaret Thornton |
| Date | 01 June 1993 |
| Published date | 01 June 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
BOOK REVIEWS
ELIZABETH
KINGDOM,
What’s
Wrong
with
Rights?
Problems for
Feminist
Politics
of Law
.
Edinburgh:
Edinburgh
University
Press,
1991,
xii
+
172
pp.,
£25
hardback.
The
masculinist
propensities
of
law
and
legality
within
liberalism
render
problematic
any
engagement
between
women
and
law.
Not
only
does
the
distortion
constitute
a
strategic
impediment
for
dealing
effectively
with
the
sex-specific
vicissitudes
of
women’s
lives,
but
it
also
constitutes
a
linguistic
and
theoretical
impediment.
’Rights
talk’
is
central
to
liberal
legalism
which
postulates
that
certain
rights
are
inalienable.
Women’s
long
exclusion
from
citizenship,
followed
by
a
grudging
and
qualified
admission,
has
meant
that
legal
rights,
conceived
in
male
terms,
have
never
flowed
to
women
unequivocally.
In
any
case,
the
idea
of
autonomous
and
atomistic
individuals
asserting
their
rights
against
the
whole
world
is
antipathetic
to
the
feminist
recognition
of
women’s
connectedness
to
others.
The
title
of
the
book
sets
up
a
verbal
paradox
(p.
1)
which
epitomizes
the
feminist
dilemma.
While
it
might
be
tempting
to
adopt
a
separatist
position
and
abandon
altogether
any
hope
of
salvaging
a
discourse
and
a
politics
which
appear
to
be
undeniably
androcentric,
Elizabeth
Kingdom
eschews
this
course.
In
some
situations,
Kingdom
argues,
the
pursuit
of
rights
for
women
is
appropriate
while,
at
other
times,
it
is
not.
Kingdom
sets
out
to
demystify
rights
as
the
linch-pin
of
liberal
theory.
She
is
dismissive
of
a
one-dimensional,
univocal
and
essentialist
theory
of
rights
and
of
law.
Indeed,
she
expressly
acknowledges
that
her
monograph
is
a
contribution
to
the
anti-essentialist
critique
of
law
(p. 6).
Accordingly,
she
argues
that
there
is
no
single
well-spring
from
which
feminist
principles
can
be
derived,
thereby
recognizing
that
rights
are
dynamic,
not
fixed
in
stone.
Generally
speaking,
Kingdom’s
approach
is
a
pragmatic
one:
’the
effect,
if
not
necessarily,
the
point
of
establishing
rights
in
general,
and
human
rights
in
particular,
is
to
judge
the
issue
of
public
policy’
(p.
82).
It
is
this
public
dimension
in
the
creation
of
societal
standards
which
crystallize
into
rights
which
cannot
be
gainsaid
in
light
of
women’s
traditional
assignation
to
the
private
sphere.
In
this
series
of
essays,
most
of
which
were
initially
published
as
articles
over
the
past
decade,
Elizabeth
Kingdom
confronts
rights
discourse
and
interrogates
its
appropri-
ateness
as
a
political
strategy
for
women.
Kingdom
meticulously
analyses
how
rights
are
constructed
within
feminist
legal
politics
with
a
particular
focus
on
the
contested
issues
pertaining
to
reproduction.
In
establishing
the
groundwork
for
her
thesis,
Kingdom
explores
various
models
of
law
developed
by
feminist
legal
scholars.
She
attacks
approaches
which
aver
that
law
inevitably
furthers
male
interests
and
universally
oppresses
women,
as
well
as
approaches
SOCIAL
&
LEGAL
STUDIES
(SAGE,
London,
Newbury
Park
and
New
Delhi),
Vol.
2
(1993),
237-256
_
_
_
LEGAL
237
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