Type:	Non-Fiction
Title:	Less than equal : women and the Australian legal system
Authors:	Easteal, Patricia Weiser
Keywords:	Legal issues
Year:	2001
Publisher:	Butterworths
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index Explores the 'overt agenda' and the 'hidden gender' of Australian legal systems through an examination of the relationship between patriarchy, the law and the 'kaleidoscope' of culturally constructed filters through which we perceive the world. Adopting a three tiered holistic model, the author argues that through complex processes of enculturation, we construct reality and develop assumptions and beliefs based on our experience and knowledge of the world and that it is through this medium that the law finds its expression. Four main topic areas are explored. Firstly, the issue of women as rule breakers within the legal system and the impact of socially constructed perceptions of female criminality on the sentencing and prosecution of women charged with spousal homicide and single parent payment fraud is explored. Secondly, women as 'victims' within the legal system and the implications and limitations of recent legislative and practice reforms in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment are examined. Thirdly, the position of women who experience multiple or intersectional forms of disadvantage within and through the legal system is addressed. Lastly, the issue of women as legal practitioners is discussed and suggestions for micro and macro reform made. The book concludes by advocating for practitioners and advocates to begin 'thinking outside the boxes' into which our cognition and acculturated perceptions have been socialized and to challenge the traditional masculocentric and ethnocentric paradigms and assumptions of the law.
Contents:	Ch. 1: Introduction – the kaleidoscope of reality Ch. 2: Theories about criminality and impact on sentencing Ch. 3: Women who kill violent partners Ch. 4: Single parent payment fraud Ch. 5: Women in Prison Ch. 6: Violence against women in the home Ch. 7: Sexual assault law reform and mythology Ch. 8: Discrimination and dysfunction in the workplace Ch. 9: Sexual harassment Ch. 10: Intersectionality – greater than the sum of the parts Ch. 11: Women as legal practitioners Ch. 12: Outlaw looking in
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/11403
ISBN:	9780409316667
Physical description:	xiii, 254 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Appears in Collections:	Books

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