Gender and Law Research seminar - Dr Flora Renz

Location
Frankland 1125
Dates
Wednesday 13 November 2019 (16:00-17:00)
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The Future of Legal Gender: Reconceptualising gender through other legal categories

Dr Flora Renz (Kent)

  • One of this year's Gender and Law research seminars
  • Postgraduate students and academic staff are welcome to attend.

Abstract:

How can we move beyond current contentious debates around the role of gender? Is it possible to (re)imagine gender within the legal sphere in a way that does not conceive it as either solely oppressive or purely self-determined? To address these questions I will draw on some initial thoughts emerging from a wider ESRC funded research project on the Future of Legal Gender. This is a prefigurative law reform project that asks whether legal gender status still matters, in what circumstances, and for whom.

By asking a law reform question that is not yet on the table, namely, what value does the current status quo have - if it has any - this project seeks to explore the consequences and impact of more fundamental changes to legal gender status. Specifically, one strand of this project considers what the implications for single-sex services are, if legal gender status were to be reformed. Especially, what the consequences would be for reform options, which (re)allocate authority to organisations or individuals to determine gender criteria and individual status in terms of eligibility to receive or access services or to exclude people on the basis of a characteristic protected under equality law.