PHL290H5 Lecture Notes - Feminist Legal Theory, Negative Liberty, Positive Liberty
Document Summary
Mackinnon the law sees and treats women the way men see and treat women the law is a vehicle for perpetuating the inequalities we in fact find between men and women in most societies. Negative liberty if main concern of law = protect negative liberties, and if protecting negative liberties involves keeping the government from interfering or letting citizens be, the law winds up protecting whatever the status quo . Mackinnon: the ideal of judicial neutrality and upholding negative liberties are thus not neutral, they protect and reinforce whatever qualities. It should worry less about judicial neutrality" and merely upholding negative freedoms and more about erasing the inequalities that in fact exist in society. Two possible solutions: strict formal equality = the law should recognize no differences between men and women, the difference approach = the law should recognize relevant differences between men and women.
