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Of the essential in criticism: Some intersections in writing, political protest and law

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“… silence strengthens inequality and injustice”. (Stang Dahl, 1987)

“She conveys meaning with her body.” (Cixous, 1986)

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References

  1. Within feminist theory, see A.R. Jones, “Writing the body: toward an understanding ofl'écriture féminine”,Feminist Studies 7,2 (1981), 247–263 onécriture féminine; in relation to political protest, see the collection of essays,Breaching the Peace, by the onlywomen group (London: Onlywomen Press, 1983) on Greenham Common.

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  2. If we sought to avoid all reductionism by ensuring the inclusion of everything, we would end up in the same position as Borges's Cartographers. In this story, the craft of Cartography had become so highly developed that “a Map of the Empire was of the same Scale as the Empire and … coincided with it point for point”: J.L. Borges, “Of exactitude in science” inA Universal History of Infamy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), 131. Since we do not seek the congruity of analysis with reality, some measure of reduction is inevitable.

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  3. Her book,Women's Law, was published in Britain in 1987.

  4. T. Stang Dahl,Women's Law: an Introduction to Feminist Jurisprudence, translated. R.L. Craig (Oxford: Norwegian University Press, 1987), 22.

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  5. Supra note 4..

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  6. Supra note 4, at 12..

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  7. Supra note 4, at 13..

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  8. Supra note 4, at 25..

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  9. For example, on 12 December 1982, thirty thousand women encircled the base. They constituted a statement both about opposition to nuclear arms and also about women's creativity, turning the perimeter fence into a gallery of drawings, poems, posters.

  10. For more on this and the protest in general, see B. Harford and S. Hopkins,Greenham Common: Women at the Wire (London: The Women's Press, 1984); A. Cook and G. Kirk,Greenham Women Everywhere (London: Pluto Press, 1983).

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  11. L. Jones, ed.,Keeping the Peace (London: The Women's Press, 1983), 93.

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  12. G. Simmel,Women, Sexuality and Love (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), 77.

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  13. H. Cixous, “Sorties”, inThe Newly Born Woman, H. Cixous and C. Clément (eds.), translated B. Wing (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), 63–132, at 92.

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  14. H. Cixous, “The laugh of the medusa” inNew French Feminisms, E. Marks and I. de Courtivron (eds.), translated K. Cohen and P. Cohen (Brighton: Harvester, 1981), 245–264, at 250–251.

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  15. These commentators include Jones,supra note 1,, “The text as body/politics: an appreciation of Monique Wittig's writings”,Feminist Studies 7,2 (1981), 264–288.

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  16. H. Cixous, “Interview with Christine Makward”,Sub-stance 13 (1976), 19–25, at 24.

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  17. T. Stang Dahl,supra note 4, at 12., 203

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  18. In Z. Curtis, “Older women and feminism: don't say sorry”,Feminist Review 31 (1989), 143–147, at 143.

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  19. Supra note 13, at 94., 209.

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  20. Supra note 4, at 105., 203.

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  21. Supra note 4, at 94, 91., 203.

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  22. Supra note 4, at 95–96., 203.

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  23. It is one of the limitations of Stang Dahl's work that the precepts of women's law seem to be applicable only to civil law. Gaps and impossibilities appear when it is envisaged within a common law system.

  24. T. Stang Dahl,supra note 4, at 21.

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  25. See J. Derrida, “Choreographies”,Diacritics 12/2 (1982), 66–76.

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Young, A. Of the essential in criticism: Some intersections in writing, political protest and law. Law Critique 1, 201–218 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02439613

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