Rapports sociaux de sexe/genre et droit: repenser le droit (review)

Roughly translated as Gendered Social Relations and Law: Re-Thinking Law, this edited collection was directed by Louise Langevin, the Claire-Bonenfant Chair on the Status of Women at Laval University in Qué bec. One objective of the publisher, l'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), was to create a space for the global French-speaking academic community to share ideas, develop collaborative relationships between researchers and teachers, and ensure wide distribution in countries of the South.¹ This volume, identified as part of the "manuel" series in the AUF collection, is intended to provide cutting edge research in areas of interest to the whole francophone community with particular emphasis on the needs of the countries of the South. With authors from Senegal, Canada, and France writing on topics such as transnational and environmental law, the Internet and religion, or as localized as family law in Benin and polygamy in Canada, this volume easily meets that goal.

Langevin and her collaborators set a further goal for this collection: to analyze the way that law approaches social relations among the sexes-in other words, to query the ways that the law takes into account, or ignores, the category of "women" while recognizing various political, social, historical, and cultural contexts.² They show, in the chapters of the volume, that while law may be used as a tool for social change that benefits women, the outcomes are often unpredictable when favourable laws and decisions are applied without adequate consideration of women's particular situations. In this way, the law is a double-edged sword for women, leading all of the authors to condemn the masculine norms embedded in the law and to argue for outcomes that will bring "real equality" for women.³

Comme le dit Langevin dans l'introduction de cet ouvrage collectif, "le droit peut . . . être une arme à double tranchant pour le mouvement des femmes."⁴ Pour analyser ce paradoxe, l'ouvrage cherche à combler un besoin dans la Francophonie pour les chercheuses qui critiquent le caractère androcentrique du droit et qui remettent en question sa neutralité et son universalité. Avec un ouvrage collectif tel que le présent, les chercheuses de la Francophonie peuvent échanger des idées et promouvoir "l'atteinte de l'égalité réelle pour les femmes-celle qui va au-delà de l'égalité de droit et formelle."⁵ Les auteures du Canada, du Sénégal et de la France apportent cette perspective féministe sur toute une gamme de sujets nationaux et internationaux. Les juristes francophones, les avocat-e-s de tradition civiliste et les chercheuses féministes pourront se servir de cet ouvrage pour développer ou approfondir leur compréhension des critiques féministes sur le droit.

The first chapter is an examination by Murielle Paradelle of the place of feminist perspectives in legal education.⁶ Paradelle completed all of her legal education in France and never encountered a feminist perspective before finding herself engaged to teach "women and law" in the civil law section of the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. She surveyed her students at the beginning and end of the course to determine their understanding of feminism and its place in their legal education.⁷ She was struck by how one course could develop in her students a full awareness of the masculinity of law and of the political and engaged character of feminism where none had existed at the beginning of the course.⁸ Together with her students, she concluded that perspectives that disrupt the neutrality of law are a necessary part of legal education. As Louise Langevin notes, this chapter amounts to a plea for feminist courses in law faculties, especially in French civil law faculties where historically there have been no such courses around the globe.⁹

Dans le deuxième chapitre, Édith Jaillardon pose la question "Quel droit d'asile pour les femmes?". Elle a noté que la...