Queen's Law hosts international feminist constitutionalism conference

Photo by Anthony Hampton

Professor Jennifer Nedelsky of the University of Toronto delivers a keynote address at the International Conference on Feminist Constitutionalism at the Donald Gordon Conference Centre on February  28, 2009.

Queen's Law welcomed lawyers, academics and feminists from around the world to the Donald Gordon Conference Centre on February 28 and March 1, 2009 to discuss and debate issues in the growing field of feminist constitutionalism. Co-organized by Queen's Law professors Beverley Baines and Tsvi Kahana, and University of Tel Aviv professor Daphne Barak-Erez, the conference explored topics as diverse as systemic discrimination in Canada's immigration system, equality rights in Hong Kong and South Africa, and court recognition of internally displaced women in Colombia.

"This has been my first experience with an academic conference and I couldn't have asked for more," said Sheena Naidoo, Law '10.  "The speakers have been wonderful and the topics well-organized and engaging."

The conference consisted of eleven workshops over two days and two keynote speaker addresses.  The panellists, all experts in their fields, presented twenty-minute summaries of their current areas of research and, at the end of all the summaries, questions were asked, either by the panellists themselves or audience members.

During opening remarks of the conference, Barak-Erez discussed how the panels reflected participants' ideas, stating that the co-organizers wanted to react to their expressed interests.  "It's your program, it's our program," she said.

"I was really impressed with the diversity of the panellists," said Christina Lazarova, MPA '09.  "I have really liked it that we've a lot of time for questions and discussion."

In her introductory remarks at the beginning of the conference, Baines officially welcomed attendees and participants.  She noted that the field of "international constitutional feminism" had grown from six women, including herself, gathering in Seville in 2000, to a full-fledged conference with approximately fifty panellists, speakers and moderators and numerous audience members meeting in Kingston a mere nine years later.  She was especially pleased that representatives and experts from North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia were able to attend and add their voices to the discourse.

Two highlights of the conference were keynote speeches by University of Toronto professor Jennifer Nedelsky and Professor Reva Siegel from Yale University.  Their talks complemented many of the important topics discussed in the panels.

Reassessing gendered private practices and the impact on women

Nedelsky energized the conference with her keynote address, which encouraged people and governments to reassess gendered private practices.  Building on a "democratic accountability and relational approach to rights," Nedelsky argued that "household relationships are crucial for the development of rights."

Nedelsky suggested that women cannot fully enjoy rights until highly contested household relationships are changed.  So-called "women's work" (i.e. child rearing) has a diminished status and this leads to women generally having a lesser status than men, which impacts their rights, such as access to food and education. Nedelsky stressed that this was the reality not only in poor countries, but in developed nations as well.
 
"Women have less access to leisure," said Nedelsky.  "This is a rights violation."
 
Nedelsky stated that creating simple day care solutions is not enough.  She wants public discourse on these issues broadened and not just limited to courts and legislatures.

Before any developments, such as better maternity/paternity leave, on-site day care or pay equality, have any impact, Nedelsky thinks that we need to work on "changing desire."  Men need to learn to love homelife and being with their children.
 
"Creating a sense of home should not be gendered," she emphasized.

Nedelsky summarized by suggesting that "changing desire" should be an important private and public goal.  She suggested that classrooms, corporations and religious locations could be important forums for discussion of these vital matters.  She stressed the importance of framing the discussion as "social transformation."
 
Dignity and the Abortion Debate

Photo by Randy deKleine-Stimpson

Professor Reva Siegel (Yale University), keynote speaker; Professor Daphne Barak-Erez (Tel-Aviv University), co- organizer and panellist; Senator Nancy Ruth, moderator; and Professors Beverley Baines and Tsvi Kahana (Queen's Law), co-organizers and panellists.

The United States Supreme Court has narrowed women's rights to abortion since Roe v. Wade in cases such as Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Gonzales v. Carhart, according to Siegel.

"The Carhart decision is noteworthy because it suggests that the Court might soon recognize new interests in restricting abortion," said Siegel, "an interest in regulating abortion in order to protect women as well as the unborn."
 
Siegel, the Deputy Dean and the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale University, currently writes on the role of social movement conflict in guiding constitutional change.

Women-protective anti-abortion arguments, which focus on claims that women are coerced into abortions which cause them to suffer, express traditional forms of gender paternalism based on stereotypes about women's roles and capacities.  According to Siegel, criminalizing abortion is construed as a tool for protecting women's health and freedom.  Her concern is that this denies women the ability to make choices.

"This new paternalism points to social sources of harm and offers control of women as the answer," said Siegel.

Siegel finds it useful to emphasize different forms of dignity when conducting abortion debates outside of the courts and claims that women's movements ought to explore the meanings of dignity within the abortion context lest they be shaped by abortion-opponents.

"An account of why using criminal law to coerce women's continuing pregnancy does not free women," said Siegel. "The answer has to be an answer that provides something like the dignity framework."

By bringing together professors and students from all over the world, the conference demonstrated how feminist ideas can cut through international borders and maintain their relevancy to constitutional challenges.  

"I thought that the conference was tremendously important in showing not only how feminism interacts with constitutionalism," said Kahana, "but how it is impossible to truly understand any form of constitutionalism without the aid of critical perspectives, among which feminism is central."

"I think we can say we didn't only show feminist thinking is one possible take on constitutional law," said Barak-Erez, "but is rather a central mode of constitutional law."

For more photos of the International Conference on Feminist Constitutionalism, see http://law.queensu.ca/events/recentConferences/feministConstitutionalismPhotos.html