1st Edition
Women Going Backwards Law and Change in a Family Unfriendly Society
By Sandra Berns
Copyright 2002
232 Pages
by
Routledge
232 Pages
by
Routledge
464 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This title was first published in 2002. Gender has become a culturally laden signifier. Sometimes used to differentiate the social from the biological, gender itself has become gendered. In common parlance gender issues often slide inexorably into women's issues and are in that way designated as marginal and outside the concerns and lives of ordinary men and women. In this book, signifiers such as... Read more
Contents: The persistence of inequality; The unencumbered citizen; Equal opportunity: rhetoric and reality; The fragile family; Structuring dependence: family, state and self; Workplaces and women: an uneasy relationship; The family as signifier: tax and families; Making room for families: choices and realities; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Sandra Berns, Professor of Law, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
’Sandra Berns has created a sprawling and insightful work that examines the obstacles, both legal and social, to the enlargement of non-traditional gender roles of both men and women. She explodes the myths of flexible employment policies as mechanisms that often serve to perpetuate the long-standing gendering of the workplace, and reveals the breadwinner-caregiver dichotomy that underlies contemporary notions of family law and social welfare. Drawing on diverse strands of employment law, family law, social welfare, and taxation schemes, and synthesizing legal and social policies across three continents, Sandra Berns compels us to re-examine society's treatment of gender, particularly the formation of social policy predicated on false notions of gender-blindness. Extensively researched and thoroughly argued, a fresh approach to examining the social reinforcement of gender assumptions.’ Dr Bridget Cullen Mandikos, Lecturer and Barrister (Qld), Griffith University, Australia ’Bern’s work is a valuable contribution not only for assessing policy in Australia, but also for considering similar issues globally.’ Griffith Law Review
