Kamir, Orit --- "A dignitarian feminist jurisprudence with applications to rape, sexual harassment and honor codes" [2019] ELECD 114; in West, Robin; Bowman, G. Cynthia (eds), "Research Handbook on Feminist Jurisprudence" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 303

Book Title: Research Handbook on Feminist Jurisprudence

Editor(s): West, Robin; Bowman, G. Cynthia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781786439680

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: A dignitarian feminist jurisprudence with applications to rape, sexual harassment and honor codes

Author(s): Kamir, Orit

Number of pages: 18

Abstract/Description:

This chapter advances two claims: that feminist theory and jurisprudence should adopt the universal dignity-and-respect discourse, rooted in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, and that they should look out for remnants of honor mentality in social conventions and legal norms. These two claims are intertwined in the chapter’s presentation of a dignitarian feminist jurisprudence that is critically sensitive to traces of honor and addresses them as offenses to women’s dignity and respect. Dignitarian legal feminism exposes how prevailing social conventions, especially regarding sexual conduct, reflect remnants of honor mentality that infringe on women’s dignity, respect and fundamental human rights. It proposes adoption of legislation that would acknowledge such social norms and replace them with clear affirmation and celebration of women’s full subjecthood, dignity and respect. Israel’s sexual harassment law, from 1998, based in dignitarian feminist jurisprudence, is presented as a case in point.