Thesis on "Women's Rights Cases for Gender"

Thesis 15 pages (4162 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

WOMEN'S RIGHTS CASES for GENDER and the LAW

"…Woman, as a human being,

has rights the inevitable conclusion of the then new philosophical theory"

Mary Wollstonecraft

(Wollstonecraft & Pennell, 1891, p. viii).

Rights of Women "Tried"

In 1891, more than one hundred years ago, after Mary Wollstonecraft published "Rights of Woman," Horace Walpole, as a number of others during this time in American history, denounced her as a social outcast. Walpole "politely called" Wollstonecraft a "hyena in petticoats," a "philosophising serpent" (Wollstonecraft & Pennell, 1891, p. vii). Woman, as a human being, Mary Wollstonecraft (1891) asserts in a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, has rights (Wollstonecraft & Pennell, 1891, p. viii). This research paper examines a number of rights of women and how they achieved some of their current legal rights through the United States (U.S.) justice system. As this study relates considerations regarding numerous contemporary legal constraints women have previously countered, the researcher also reflects on five cases linking to legal rights for women. In the end, the researcher presents perceptions noting women's legal rights, yet to be achieved, which the researcher asserts, need to considered, secured and implemented in future policies.

During the course of this study, the researcher explores and notes the significance of the following cases:

1. Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971): Contrary to the specification of the Idaho Probate Code "males must be preferred to females" for the appointment of administrators of estates, in Reed v. Reed, the Court ruled the dissimilar treatment of men and women by the law to be unconstitutional (the oyez…, 1971).

2. Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976): In Craig v. Boren: Curtis Craig, a male during this time between the ages of 18 and 21 challenged an Oklahoma law prohibiting the sale of "nonintoxicating" 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18. The Court found that: "Generalities about the drinking habits of aggregate groups did not suffice" ?(the oyez…, 1976, p.1). The Court also determined that in this particular case, the Twenty-first Amendment did not alter the application of the Equal Protection Clause.

3. United States ex-rel Robinson v. York, 281 F. Supp. 8 (D. Conn. 1968): In this case, the Court determined that disparate sentencing did, in fact, violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution was uniformly rejected by the courts; that sex-based disparate sentencing does violate the equal protection clause (Popiel, 1980).

4. Liberti v. York, 28 Conn. Supp. 9, 246 a.2d 106 (S. Ct. 1968): In Liberti v. York, a Connecticut superior court ruled that no "legitimate basis" for that state's sex-differential sentencing statute existed (Babcock, 1975).

5. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976): The Estelle v. Gamble case regarded medical care in the prison setting. The Supreme Court established that prison authorities must ensure "deliberate indifference" to the inmate's serious illness or injury must not be tolerated (Morrison, 1996, p. 100-101).

The Bill of Rights "Protection"

In Fundamentals of American law, Alan B. Morrison (1996) recounts that in the 20th century, the Bill of Rights' protection were expanded a third time when the 19th Amendment (1919) assured women of the right to vote. In 1787, primarily because the U.S. accepted the moral blights of slavery and the subordination of women, the original Bill of Rights did not voice any considerations regarding the equality concerns/issues (Morrison, p. 111).

The protections the contemporary Bill of Rights proffers are broad, Morrison notes, however, they have boundaries. When they stand alone, the Bill of Rights does not protect individuals from misuse of private power. Morrison notes that the Bill of Rights does not "guarantee economic or social movements. The document concentrates, instead, on preserving the personal and political rights needed for the proper functioning of the tolerant political democracy" (Morrison, p. 83).

Bill of Rights Components

Morrison explains that the original Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments, codifies 31 specific ideas, which include the following:

1. No establishment of religion (1st);

2. Free exercise of religion (1st);

3. Free speech (1st);

4. Free press (1st);

5. Free assembly (1st);

6. Petition for redress of grievances (1st);

7. Right to keep and bear forms (2nd);

8. No Quartering troops (3rd)

9. No unreasonable searches (4th)

10. No one reasonable seizures (4th)

11. Necessity of warrant on probable cause (4th)

12. Specifitivity of warranty (4th)

13. Grand jury indictment in serious cases (5th)

14. No double jeopardy (5th)

15. No compulsory self-incrimination (5th)

16. No deprivation of life, liberty for property without due process of law (5th)

17. No taking of property for private use (5th)

18. No taking of private property for public use without just compensation (5th)

19. Impartial criminal jury trial (6th);

20. Speedy and public trial (6th);

21. Criminal venue - vicinage (6th);

22. Notice of criminal charges (6th);

23. Right of compensation (6th);

24. Compulsory process for criminal defendants (6th);

25. Counsel in criminal cases (6th);

26. Civil jury trial (7th);

27. No excessive bail (8th);

28. No excessive fines (8th);

29. Note cruel and unusual punishments (8th);

30. Enumerated rights do not preclude other rights (9th);

31. Powers not dedicated to national government are reserved two states and people (10th) (Morrison, 1996, p. 85).

After the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the 14th Amendment; it has endeavored to prevent racial minorities been excluded from jury service. Recently, the Supreme Court invalidated state rules and keeping women from serving on juries (Morrison, 1996, p. 110).

Due to the increase in women and minorities, the composition of the law profession has changed over time. During 1963, of the only 3.7% of the approximately 47,000 law students enrolled in the 135 American Bar Association accredited aw schools were women. In 1994, when 129,000 students attended 177 accredited law schools, women made up approximately 43.7% of the student body (Morrison, 1996, p. 151).

The Code of Judicial Conduct

A judge is instructed to refrain from any semblance of impropriety his/her activities, Morrison (1996) purports as he addresses a number of facets of the judge's work and life.

One interesting point to note: The 1999 (however not the 1972) judicial conduct code also prohibits judges from joining organizations, including clubs, that practice "invidious" discrimination based on a person's 'race, sex, religion or national origin. "An organization invidiousouly discriminates, Morrison points out, if it specifically, arbitrarily excludes minorities, women, or others (Morrison, 1996). U.S. law specially relates to the enforcement of equal treatment in the courtroom, as judges are instructed (in the 1990 Code) to: "Require lawyers and proceedings before the judge to refrain from manifesting, by words or conduct, bias or prejudice based on race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, age, sexual orientation for socioeconomic status, against parties, witnesses, council, or others" (Morrison, 174).

During the next segment of this paper, the researcher presents more information about each of the aforementioned cases.

CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING CASES

"…on August 26, 1920,

the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

became law, and women could vote in the fall elections, including in the Presidential election"

- Jone Johnson Lewis

(August 26, 1920, 2009, ¶ 15).

Not until July, 1848, at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention which Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized, were votes for women first seriously proposed in the U.S. Charlotte Woodward, one woman who attended the 1848 convention was nineteen years old as this time. Seventy years later in 1920, when women won the right to vote Charlotte Woodward, the only remaining living participant who attended the 1848 Convention cast her vote at the age of eighty-one years old (Lewis, 2009). The point Wollstonecraft (1891) made during her lifetime, that woman, as a human being has particular rights, as Wollstonecraft, Woodard, and others knew frequently encountered legal challenges.

In "Transforming Society through Law: St. George Tucker, Women's Property Rights, and an Active Republican Judiciary, M.D. Mcgarvie (2006) also notes that during the 1790s, few individuals in America "considered women to be equal to men legally and socially. Believers in gender equality were even rarer among elite southern males…" (Mcgarvie, 2006, ¶ 1). In this time in America, most in society relied on patriarchal authority, primarily male, and prescribed roles, behaviors, and attitudes, primarily male, for social leadership/

A. Fulkerson and S.L. Patterson (2006) note in "Victimless Prosecution of Domestic Violence in the Wake of Crawford V. Washington," that discrepancies between men and women may be found in as American family values, economics, and sexism in bureaucracy (including the criminal justice system) throughout history. In Judicial Rhetoric and Women's Place, the United States Supreme Court's Darwinian Defense of Separate Spheres," Katie L. Gibson (2007) asserts that for the first half of the twentieth century, the leading concern in women's rights litigation involved women's rights in the workplace (Gibson, 2007).

Gibson notes that the first women's rights case the United States Supreme Court ruled on was Bradwell v. Illinois, the 1879 case which initially challenged a sex classification as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.… READ MORE

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