What the evolving fight for transgender rights reveals about government power, regulations, and the law Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to "F" or "M" (or more recently "X") depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you're dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, noted transgender advocate and scholar Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people. Providing examples from different states, government agencies, and court cases, Currah explains how transgender people struggle to navigate this confusing and contradictory web of legal rules, definitions, and classifications. Unlike most gender scholars, who are concerned with what the concepts of sex and gender really mean, Currah is more interested in what the category of "sex" does for governments. What does "sex" do on our driver's licenses, in how we play sports, in how we access health care, or in the bathroom we use? Why do prisons have very different rules than social service agencies? Why is there such resistance to people changing their sex designation? Or to dropping it from identity documents altogether? In this thought-provoking and original volume, Sex Is as Sex Does reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex classification policies in the United States and shows what the regulation of transgender identity can tell us about society's approach to sex and gender writ large.Ultimately, Currah demonstrates that, because the difficulties transgender people face are not just the result of transphobia but also stem from larger injustices, an identity-based transgender rights movement will not, by itself, be up to the task of resolving them.

This book explores femicide, and scrutinizes the three key American criminal doctrines usually applied in its cases: provocation; the felony murder rule; self-defence. The book also explores the influence of the American Model Penal Code, and proposes, connected to the various criminal doctrines applicable to femicide, a focused and detailed amendment to the Code containing unique features and a formula providing a socio-legal response to issues that the author believes have not yet been adequately addressed. Though primarily focused on femicide in America, the issues discussed are of global relevance due to the tragically widespread nature of femicide, and the book also makes significant contributions to the legal discourse of many other countries with similar legal structures.

This book seeks to rebalance the relationship between comparison and justification to achieve more effective equality and non-discrimination law. As one of the most distinguished equality lawyers of his generation, having appeared in over 40 cases in the House of Lords and the Supreme Court and many leading cases in the Court of Justice, Robin Allen QC is well placed to explore this critical issue. He shows how the principle of equality is nothing if not founded on apt comparisons. By examining the changing way men and women's work has been compared over the last 100 years he shows the importance of understanding the framework for comparison. With these insights, he addresses contemporary problems of age discrimination and conflict of equality rights.

Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance: Reimagining Justice for Black Girls in Virginia provides a historical comprehensive examination of racialized, classed, and gendered punishment of Black girls in Virginia during the early twentieth century. It looks at the ways in which the court system punished Black girls based upon societal accepted norms of punishment, hinged on a notion that they were to be viewed and treated as adults within the criminal legal system. Further, the book explores the role of Black Club women and girls as agents of resistance against injustice by shaping a social justice framework and praxis for Black girls and by examining the establishment of the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. This school was established by the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs and its first President, Janie Porter Barrett. This book advances contemporary criminological understanding of punishment by locating the historical origins of an environment normalizing unequal justice. It draws from a specific focus on Janie Porter Barrett and the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls; a groundbreaking court case of the first female to be executed in Virginia; historical newspapers; and Black Women's Club archives to highlight the complexities of Black girls' experiences within the criminal justice system and spaces created to promote social justice for these girls. The historical approach unearths the justice system's role in crafting the pervasive devaluation of Black girlhood through racialized, gendered, and economic-based punishment. Second, it offers insight into the ways in which, historically, Black women have contributed to what the book conceptualizes as "resistance criminology," offering policy implications for transformative social and legal justice for Black girls and girls of color impacted by violence and punishment. Finally, it offers a lens to explore Black girl resistance strategies, through the lens of the Black Girlhood Justice framework. Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance uses a historical intersectionality framework to provide a comprehensive overview of cultural, socioeconomic, and legal infrastructures as they relate to the punishment of Black girls. The research illustrates how the presumption of guilt of Black people shaped the ways that punishment and the creation of deviant Black female identities were legally sanctioned. It is essential reading for academics and students researching and studying crime, criminal justice, theoretical criminology, women's studies, Black girlhood studies, history, gender, race, and socioeconomic class. It is also intended for social justice organizations, community leaders, and activists engaged in promoting social and legal justice for the youth.

Erika Bachiochi offers an original look at the development of feminism in the United States, advancing a vision of rights that rests upon our responsibilities to others. In The Rights of Women, Erika Bachiochi explores the development of feminist thought in the United States. Inspired by the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Bachiochi presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women's rights, seamlessly weaving philosophical insight, biographical portraits, and constitutional law to showcase the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community. Bachiochi proposes a philosophical and legal framework for rights that builds on the communitarian tradition of feminist thought as seen in the work of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Jean Bethke Elshtain. Drawing on the insight of prominent figures such as Sarah Grimke, Frances Willard, Florence Kelley, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Mary Ann Glendon, this book is unique in its treatment of the moral roots of women's rights in America and its critique of the movement's current trajectory. The Rights of Women provides a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern political insight that locates the family's vital work at the very center of personal and political self-government. Bachiochi demonstrates that when rights are properly understood as a civil and political apparatus born of the natural duties we owe to one another, they make more visible our personal responsibilities and more viable our common life together. This smart and sophisticated application of Wollstonecraft's thought will serve as a guide for how we might better value the culturally essential work of the home and thereby promote authentic personal and political freedom. The Rights of Women will interest students and scholars of political theory, gender and women's studies, constitutional law, and all readers interested in women's rights.

Libby Adler offers a comprehensive critique of the mainstream LGBT legal agenda in the United States, showing how LGBT equal rights discourse drives legal advocates toward a narrow array of reform objectives that do little to help the lives of the most marginalized members of the LGBT community.

Konstantinos Kapparis challenges the traditional view that free women, citizen and metic, were excluded from the Athenian legal system. Looking at existing fragmentary evidence largely from speeches, Kapparis reveals that it unambiguously suggests that free women were far from invisible in the legal system and the life of the polis. In the first part of the book Kapparis discusses the actual cases which included women as litigants, and the second part interprets these cases against the legal, social, economic and cultural background of classical Athens. In doing so he explores how factors such as gender, religion, women's empowerment and the rise of the Attic hetaira as a cultural icon intersected with these cases and ultimately influenced the construction of the speeches.

Explores the failures of family court and calls for immediate and permanent change At the turn of the twentieth century, American social reformers created the first juvenile court. They imagined a therapeutic court where informality, specially trained public servants, and a kindly, all-knowing judge would assist children and families. But the dream of a benevolent means of judicial problem-solving was never realized. A century later, children and families continue to be failed by this deeply flawed court. The End of Family Court rejects the foundational premise that family court can do good when intervening in family life and challenges its endless reinvention to survive. Jane M. Spinak illustrates how the procedures and policies of modern family court are deeply entwined in a heritage of racism, a profound disdain for poverty, and assimilationist norms intent on fixing children and families who are different. And the court’s interventionist goals remain steeped in an approach to equity and well-being that demands individual rather than collective responsibility for the security and welfare of families. Spinak proposes concrete steps toward abolishing the court: shifting most family supports out of the court’s sphere, vastly reducing the types and number of matters that need court intervention, and ensuring that any case that requires legal adjudication has the due process protections of a court of law. She calls for strategies that center trusting and respecting the abilities of communities to create and sustain meaningful solutions for families. An abolitionist approach, in turn, celebrates a radical imagination that embraces and supports all families in a fair and equal economic and political democracy.

Gender and the Law provides an ideal introduction to gender and feminist theory for students. Beginning with an overview of traditional notions of gender, the book establishes the key feminist and queer legal theories. It provides a basic structure and overview upon which students can build their understanding of some of the complex and controversial topics and debates around gender. Structured thematically, the book explores many fascinating and controversial legal issues, including issues of transgender rights; equal pay and equality in the workplace; societal changes and challenges within the regulation of personal relationships; the law surrounding consent and sexual offences; the role of gender norms in the criminal courts; legal regulation of prostitution and pornography; and the ways in which the law has responded to societal changes surrounding reproduction. With 'thinking points' and 'further reading' suggestions within each chapter, the authors encourage an engagement with critique and theory in order to understand this dynamic and challenging field.

In 1845 women entered the career of policing, and ever since it's been an evolving history for them. There are countless stories of women shaping this career, adding particular gifts and abilities to the profession. There are, also, countless stories of their struggles to fit in and survive in this "all-boys club." Thriving in an All Boys Club: Female Police and Their Fight for Equality examines one of the most debated issues surrounding female police officers - their ability to find acceptance in the male subculture. Through the stories of women who joined policing in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, readers learn that women's acceptance in policing is complex and officer's experiences are wide-ranging. Stories of resistance and harassment by colleagues, the glass ceiling in promotion, and gender specific obstacles related to pregnancy and childcare are common. Their stories show a strong sense of determination and perseverance to perform the duties of police officer. The potential for enduring change in the field of policing is growing as women continue to make strides in achieving high ranks, breaking down assignments barriers, and ensuring just opportunities for future generations of female police officers. Despite the struggles that women face to survive in the "all-boys club" of policing, women not only survive, most thrive in this almost exclusively male occupation.

Winner of the 2016 Book Award from the American Society of Criminology, Division of Critical Criminology. In this book, Carrie L. Buist and Emily Lenning reflect on the origins of Queer Criminology, survey the foundational research and scholarship in this emerging field, and offer suggestions for the future. Covering topics such as the criminalization of queerness; the policing of Queer communities; Queer experiences in the courtroom; and the correctional control of Queer people, Queer Criminology synthesizes the work of criminologists, journalists, legal scholars, non-governmental organizations, and others to illuminate the historical and contemporary context of the Queer experience. Queer Criminology offers examples of the grave injustices that Queer people face around the world, particularly in places such as Russia, Kyrgyzstan, England, India, Thailand, Nigeria, and the United States. These injustices include, but are not limited to, selective enforcement, coerced confessions, disproportionate sentencing, rape, extortion, denial of due process, forced isolation, corporal punishment, and death. By highlighting a pattern of discriminatory, disproportionate, and abusive treatment of Queer people by the criminal legal system, this book demonstrates the importance of developing a criminology that critiques the heteronormative systems that serve to oppress Queer people around the world. Buist and Lenning argue that criminology is incomplete without a thorough recognition and understanding of these Queer experiences. Therefore, Queer Criminology is a vital contribution to the growing body of literature exploring the Queer experience, and should be considered a necessary tool for students, scholars, and practitioners alike who are seeking a more just criminal legal system.

Despite recent reforms to the Turkish Penal Code, the country retains a high level of honour-based violence. This book analyses the motives behind honour-based violence in Turkey and examines the criminal justice system's approach to this type of crime. The work takes a socio-legal approach to explore the concepts of honour, patriarchy, and hierarchy, along with the roles of culture and tradition. It also examines how the legal system deals with this phenomenon, focusing on the decisions of the criminal courts in honour killing cases and drawing on prisoner interviews. These analyses show the extent to which the State follows a patriarchal approach when dealing with honour killings and inform recommendations for improving the legal and criminal justice system so as to deter crimes of this nature.

This volume takes a critical look at the gender inequality of tax policy around the world. The book's contributors - based in eight different countries - examine the profound effects that gender norms and practices have had in shaping tax law and policy, and how taxation in turn impacts the possibilities for equality along the lines of gender, race, class, sexuality, and other. The chapters explore: how the gendered fiscal state might be theorized * how structural choices about rates and bases in tax policy are designed to contribute to gender inequality * how tax policy affects family configurations and perceptions of what constitutes a family * how fiscal systems impact savings and wealth accumulation by women and men * the role of different policy making processes and institutions in occluding and sometimes challenging these patterns. Most significantly, the book explores these questions in an international frame, traversing countries and continents. The book's conclusion is that fiscal policy has deep-rooted, long-standing gender implications that affect virtually every aspect of individual's social, political, and economic lives. (Series: Onati International Series in Law and Society)

This book presents a feminist historical materialist analysis of the ways in which the law, policing and penal regimes have overlapped with social policies to coercively discipline the poor and marginalized sectors of the population throughout the history of capitalism. Roberts argues that capitalism has always been underpinned by the use of state power to discursively construct and materially manage those sectors of the population who are most resistant to and marginalized by the instantiation and deepening of capitalism. The book reveals that the law, along with social welfare regimes, have operated in ways that are highly gendered, as gender - along with race - has been a key axis along which difference has been constructed and regulated. It offers an important theoretical and empirical contribution that disrupts the tendency for mainstream and critical work within IPE to view capitalism primarily as an economic relation. Roberts also provides a feminist critique of the failure of mainstream and critical scholars to analyse the gendered nature of capitalist social relations of production and social reproduction. Exploring a range of issues related to the nature of the capitalist state, the creation and protection of private property, the governance of poverty, the structural compulsions underpinning waged work and the place of women in paid and unpaid labour, this book is of great use to students and scholars of IPE, gender studies, social work, law, sociology, criminology, global development studies, political science and history.

As Kenyan women traditionally have fewer formal employment opportunities, often occupying lower-paid jobs in the informal sector, the experiences of women who earn money in unorthodox ways can offer revealing insights into the agency of women and its limits. Grounded in the narratives and life stories of women selling sex in Kenya, Egle Cesnulyte reveals the range of gendered and gendering effects that neoliberal policies have on everyday socio-political realities. By contextualising and historicising contemporary debates in the field, this important interdisciplinary study explores the societal structures that neo-liberal narratives and reforms influence, their gendered effects, and the extent to which individuals must internalise neoliberal economic logics in order to make or improve their living. In so doing, Cesnulyte counters the prevailing male-dominated studies in political science to place women, and female-based narratives at the forefront.

How two teenage girls in Minnesota jump-started a revolution in high school athletics Peggy Brenden, a senior, played tennis. Toni St. Pierre, a junior, was a cross country runner and skier. All these two talented teenagers wanted was a chance to compete on their high school sports teams. But in Minnesota in 1972 the only way on the field with the boys ran through a federal court-so that was where the girls went. Break Point tells the story, for the first time, of how two teenagers took on the unequal system of high school athletics, setting a legal precedent for schools nationwide before the passage of Title IX. As Peggy's younger sister, author Sheri Brenden is uniquely positioned to convey the human drama of the case, the stakes, and the consequences for two young women facing the legal machinery of the state, in court and in school. In an account that begins with Peggy painstakingly typing her appeal to the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union and concludes with a long view of what Brenden v. Independent School District 742 set in motion, Sheri Brenden summons the salient details of this landmark case as it makes its way through the courts. Peggy and Toni, coaches, administrators, and experts testify before Judge Miles Lord, whose decision, upheld in a precedent-setting appeal, would change these girls' lives and open up athletic opportunities for innumerable others. Grounded in newspaper coverage, court records, and interviews, Brenden's deeply researched, scrupulously reported book is at heart the story of two talented teenage girls whose pluck and determination-and, often, heartache-led to a victory much greater than any high school championship.

This volume examines the role of law as a tool for advancing women's rights and gender equity in local, national, and global contexts. Many feminist scholars note a marked failure of law to achieve goals connected to women's rights and gender equality. Despite its limitations, law provides aspirational norms that can be mobilized to hold institutions accountable and to provide material benefit to those excluded from systems of power. In conversation with each other, the chapters in this volume help to advance understanding of both the limitations and the potential of law as a tool for advancing democratic participation, rights, and justice around issues related to gender and sexuality. Contributors acknowledge, to varying degrees, that law has important symbolism and may be used as a lever to mobilize change. At the same time, some offer cautionary notes about the potential downside risks and unintended consequences of relying upon law in pursuit of women's rights and gender equity. Collectively, the chapters in this volume explore the disjuncture between the promise and expectation of legal reform and the lived experience of those laws by people intended as the beneficiaries of legal change. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

Winner of the 2016 Book Award from the American Society of Criminology, Division of Critical Criminology. In this book, Carrie L. Buist and Emily Lenning reflect on the origins of Queer Criminology, survey the foundational research and scholarship in this emerging field, and offer suggestions for the future. Covering topics such as the criminalization of queerness; the policing of Queer communities; Queer experiences in the courtroom; and the correctional control of Queer people, Queer Criminology synthesizes the work of criminologists, journalists, legal scholars, non-governmental organizations, and others to illuminate the historical and contemporary context of the Queer experience. Queer Criminology offers examples of the grave injustices that Queer people face around the world, particularly in places such as Russia, Kyrgyzstan, England, India, Thailand, Nigeria, and the United States. These injustices include, but are not limited to, selective enforcement, coerced confessions, disproportionate sentencing, rape, extortion, denial of due process, forced isolation, corporal punishment, and death. By highlighting a pattern of discriminatory, disproportionate, and abusive treatment of Queer people by the criminal legal system, this book demonstrates the importance of developing a criminology that critiques the heteronormative systems that serve to oppress Queer people around the world. Buist and Lenning argue that criminology is incomplete without a thorough recognition and understanding of these Queer experiences. Therefore, Queer Criminology is a vital contribution to the growing body of literature exploring the Queer experience, and should be considered a necessary tool for students, scholars, and practitioners alike who are seeking a more just criminal legal system.

This book addresses the specific position of domestic workers in the context of evolving human rights norms.

Human rights law has somewhat belatedly begun to address the structured inequalities and exclusions that define the domain of domestic work. The continuum of exploitation that has historically defined the everyday of domestic work - exclusion from employment and social security standards and precarious migration status have frequently been neglected. However, as in other areas of international law, it is primarily the moments of crisis, incidents of human trafficking, slavery or forced labour, that have captured the attention of human rights law.

Drawing upon a broad range of case studies, "Care, Migration and Human Rights" presents a thorough examination of key issues such as the commodification of care, the impact of the jurisprudence of the CJEU and the European Court of Human Rights on primary care providers, as well as the effect that trends in migration law have on migrant domestic workers. In addition to the question of how migration status impacts upon the effective realisation of rights, the editors also explore wider problems such as the continuing gendered division of labour and the absence of state or societal supports.

This volume will be of interest to lawyers, academics and policy makers in the fields of human rights, migration, and gender studies."

Demands for redress of historical injustice are a crucial component of contemporary struggles for social and transnational justice. However, understanding when and why an unjust history matters for considerations of justice in the present is not straightforward. Alasia Nuti develops a normative framework to identify which historical injustices we should be concerned about, to conceptualise the relation between persistence and change and, thus, conceive of history as newly reproduced. Focusing on the condition of women in formally egalitarian societies, the book shows that history is important to theorise the injustice of gender inequalities and devise transformative remedies. Engaging with the activist politics of the unjust past, Nuti also demonstrates that the reproduction of an unjust history is dynamic, complex and unsettling. It generates both historical and contemporary responsibilities for redress and questions precisely those features of our order that we take for granted.

In 1991, Anita Hill's testimony during Clarence Thomas's Senate confirmation hearing brought the problem of sexual harassment to a public audience. Although widely believed by women, Hill was defamed by conservatives and Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The tainting of Hill and her testimony is part of a larger social history in which women find themselves caught up in a system that refuses to believe what they say. Hill's experience shows how a tainted witness is not who someone is, but what someone can become. Why are women so often considered unreliable witnesses to their own experiences? How are women discredited in legal courts and in courts of public opinion? Why is women's testimony so often mired in controversies fueled by histories of slavery and colonialism? How do new feminist witnesses enter testimonial networks and disrupt doubt? Tainted Witness examines how gender, race, and doubt stick to women witnesses as their testimony circulates in search of an adequate witness. Judgment falls unequally upon women who bear witness, as well-known conflicts about testimonial authority in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries reveal. Women's testimonial accounts demonstrate both the symbolic potency of women's bodies and speech in the public sphere and the relative lack of institutional security and control to which they can lay claim. Each testimonial act follows in the wake of a long and invidious association of race and gender with lying that can be found to this day within legal courts and everyday practices of judgment, defining these locations as willfully unknowing and hostile to complex accounts of harm. Bringing together feminist, literary, and legal frameworks, Leigh Gilmore provides provocative readings of what happens when women's testimony is discredited. She demonstrates how testimony crosses jurisdictions, publics, and the unsteady line between truth and fiction in search of justice.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a longstanding problem that has increasingly come to the forefront of international and national policy debates and news: from the US reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act and a United Nations declaration to end sexual violence in war, to coverage of gang rapes in India, cyberstalking and "revenge porn", honor killings, female genital mutilation, and international trafficking. Yet, while we frequently read or learn about particular experiences or incidents of VAWG, we are often unaware of the full picture. Jacqui True, an internationally renowned scholar of globalization and gender, provides an expansive frame for understanding VAWG in this book. Among the questions she addresses include: What are we talking about when we discuss VAWG? What kinds of violence does it encompass? Who does it affect most and why? What are the risk factors for victims and perpetrators? Does VAWG occur at the same level in all societies? Are there cultural explanations for it? What types of legal redress do victims have? How reliable are the statistics that we have? Are men and boys victims of gender-based violence? What is the role of the media in exacerbating VAWG? And, what sorts of policy and advocacy routes exist to end VAWG? This volume addresses the current state of knowledge and research on these questions. True surveys our best understanding of the causes and consequences of violence against women in the home, local community, workplace, public, and transnationally. In so doing, she brings together multidisciplinary perspectives on the problem of violence against women and girls, and sets out the most promising policy and advocacy frameworks to end this violence.

Cosmopolitanism and the Development of the International Criminal Court analyzes a set of prominent and competing discourses that emerged in the context of the development and establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is the first permanent juridical body designed to prosecute individuals who commit offences including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Drawing on scholarship on public memory and human rights, the book argues that international law and the international human rights system play a key role for the development of transnational memory discourses and transnational or cosmopolitan subjectivities. Despite the International Criminal Court being recognized as a landmark development in global cooperation, an examination of key events in the development of the court shows how some state and nonstate actors advance calls for cosmopolitanism while others resist cosmopolitanism to bolster nation-state sovereignty. Drawing on the establishment of the International Criminal Court as a case study, the book examines several events that continue to shape national and international public discourse. The book examines debates that occurred during the drafting process of the international treaty at the United Nations and that led to the groundbreaking inclusion of provisions on gender and sexual violence in the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. The analysis discusses the tension between feminist advocates' rhetoric and the discourse of anti-women's rights actors involved in the treaty-making process who resisted such inclusions in international criminal law. The book analyzes other key events related to the establishment of the ICC that invoke tensions between competing demands of cosmopolitanism and national sovereignty, including advocacy campaigns by nongovernmental organizations working to drum up public support of the institution of the International Criminal Court and the debates surrounding the unprecedented act of the United States "unsigning" an international treaty. In sum, this examination of the rhetoric of state and nonstate actors attempting to shape the court according to their visions of global community shows how discourses about international criminal law and human rights are employed not only to advance cosmopolitanism but also to strengthen nationalist discourses.

This book considers the rapidly evolving, both legally and socially, nature of image-based abuse, for both minors and adults. Drawing mainly from UK data, legislation and case studies, it presents a thesis that the law is, at best, struggling to keep up with some fundamental issues around image based abuse, such as the sexual nature of the crimes and the long term impact on victims, and at worst, in the case of supporting minors, not fit for purpose. It shows, through empirical and legislative analysis, that the dearth of education around this topic, coupled with cultural norms, creates a victim blaming culture that extends into adulthood. It proposes both legislative developments and need for wider stakeholder engagement to understand and support victims, and the impact the non-consensual sharing of intimate images can have on their long-term mental health and life in general. The book is of interest to scholar of law, criminology, sociology, police and socio-technical studies, and is also to those who practice law, law enforcement or wider social care role in both child and adult safeguarding.

This book offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women's legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women's legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world. -- .