Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Women and Justice

Understanding the contemporary place of women's lives requires an understanding of the historical legacies. Utilizing a sociological and feminist lens, Women and Justice examines what justice has meant in the lives of women. The book includes diverse quotes relating to the notion of justice and examines numerous issues_both civil and criminal_to bring a broader understanding. As the only sociolegal text on the market that attempts to include both civil and criminal issues between two covers, the work is framed by the working term 'quadraplexation'_a term grounded in the work of feminist theorist Juliet Mitchell. This framework helps us to better understand how and why women are treated the way they are in contemporary society, and it helps to frame our understanding of the historical legal decision-making process. Motherhood, marriage and same-sex coupling, paid and unpaid labor, education, criminal behavior, and women practitioners' lives in the justice system are among the topics included in the text. Suggestions for creating a more just world for women are also included. Review The positive tone of the new edition empowers the reader to think more critically--and optimistically!--about social justice. This comprehensive text is impressively thorough yet so user-friendly that it is appropriate for university students of all ages and degree programs as well as provide an excellent source for an inspired non-traditional (as in, a departure from the Socratic method) law school course.--Cara Tuttle Bell, J.D., University of South Carolina Upstate A highly readable foray into women, law, injustice, discrimination and male power and privilege. The text goes beyond the standard women and crime text that address women as criminals, victims and workers in the criminal legal system to explore women, class and justice through U.S. culture, education, employment (paid and unpaid labor), poverty, prison, and marriage and the family. Grana examines how injustice impacts not just women's legal lives, but their 'non-legal' or civil lives as well. She chronologies how the history of common law sets up civil, criminal and constitutional law to disenfranchise and burden women. She critically assesses contemporary resolutions such as compensatory equality laws, equal protection laws, the attempted Equal Rights Amendment, Titles VII and IX, and affirmative action. This decidedly accessible book is an exceptionally broad based analysis, from the lens of feminist jurisprudence, which canvasses concrete issues of injustice ranging from crime to 'Chilly Climate, ' single sex education, sports programming, sexual harassment, the wage gap, glass ceiling, the 'mommy tax' and childrearing, divorce/child support, and abortion, contraception, to lesbian couples, the feminization of poverty, sexual terrorism, rape, domestic abuse, pornography, the media, prostitution and violence, and the imprisonment of women. Women and Justice imparts clear and pithy insight into the multi-layered reality of legal and sociological injustice that women experience in all walks of life.--Susan Caringella, Western Michigan University The Second Edition of Women and Justice is a comprehensive volume that addresses the contested concept of justice in relation to women and gender in the context of privilege and oppression. It is a valuable introductory resource that can be used as a research and teaching reference or an undergraduate text by women's and gender studies scholars in such areas as law and feminist jurisprudence, education, work and economics, violence, marriage and family, and crime.--Jill Bystydzienski, The Ohio State University About the Author Sheryl J. Grana is associate professor of sociology at University of Minnesota Duluth.