Gender and Law

The study of gender and law from an anthropological perspective emerged during the 1970s. It was associated with an increased emphasis on examining power relations and the emergence of processualism within legal anthropology, as well as with the development of feminist scholarship in other fields. Scholars studying gender and law from an anthropological perspective are diverse in both their theoretical and their methodological orientations. However, they are united by a view that legal systems cannot be understood in isolation from the wider social contexts in which they are embedded. They also tend to focus on people's lived experiences of the law rather than on textual and doctrinal analyses of the law. Scholars working at the intersection of anthropology, law, and gender have examined a broad range of topics, including the impact of colonization on gender relations, the operation of transnational legal institutions, and women's property and labor rights.