Course Description
This course presents gender and law by introducing legal theories and cases from the comparative and historical perspective. The course begins with the notion of legal reasoning related to women in the fields of private law including contracts, property law, and family law. These areas of law are analyzed from three major legal theories: Critical legal theory, law as the systems theory, and Legal Orientalism. The course adopts narrative discourse as a method of comparing landmark court decisions in different regions of the world: Italy, Japan, China, Korea, the U.S., and Qatar. In addition, references to literature within the legal text and the media portrayal of gender issues in property ownership, marriage and divorce, inheritance, taxation and asset management are explored.

Prior to the in-person classes, there will be four preliminary virtual components introducing the OECD Gender Index and related publications to compare different legal systems. The second virtual class meeting will focus on characteristics of common law and civil law jurisdictions. A student will choose a nation or nations to compare whether the choice of the nation’s gender policies is based on customary law or the rule of law.
The third virtual component will focus on how to find legal cases from various search engines related to gender and law. The instructor will walk through how to use the largest search engine, Lexis/Nexis. At the fourth virtual meeting, students will learn methods of doing case analysis. Students will be informed how to identify legal issues based on facts, rules, and recognize the final decisions by reading interpretations.

From the week of August 3, the class will meet in-person twice a week. For the first week, students will read and learn feminist jurisprudence theory and analyze the Merchant of Venice play by William Shakespear. The class will also read and discuss one of the cultural defense cases in the U.S., People v. Kimura (1997).
For the second week, critical legal theory will be introduced followed by the discussion of how legal reasoning can be limited. Core themes include patriarchy, patrilineality in the Confucian context and family law from a historical perspective. Cases related to dissolution of marriage and family registry systems will be analyzed. Right to marry or right to divorce will also be explored comparing patrilineality in the Islam civil codes.
Gender and Legal Orientalism theory and law as the systems theory will be discussed during the third week. Students will read cases on contemporary issues related to gender, labor law, welfare, and taxation. The most recent spousal income tax exemption limits in Japan and the community property issues in Qatar will be the major cases for the discussion.
For the last week, students will seek to establish an inclusive and empowering legal paradigm. Students will re-visit legal reasoning notion by implementing the role of Artificial Intelligence. Students will discuss whether AI legal reasoning can minimize prevalent unconscious gender bias and function as a tool for advancing women’s rights. Students will discuss cases related to eco-feminism and environmental litigations.

Virtual Component
Pre-recorded lectures and real-time Zoom Sessions
Time: Wed 9:00 a.m. Venice Time
July 1-5 Gender and the concept of law: from OECD to Global South
July 6-12 Comparative historical perspective on common and civil law
July 13-19 Customary law and the rule of law
July 20-26 Online search engines related to gender and law
July 27-Aug. 3 Introduce case analysis method

In-Person Aug. 4 – Aug. 29, 2025

Learning outcomes
Students will have an enhanced understanding of legal reasoning in gender-related issues. Students will also develop an analytical skill that can be applied to analyzing various legal cases. Moreover, students will learn to use Lexis/Nexis search engine and identify issues and engage in an in-depth research for seeking solutions to gender-related conflicts.

Teaching and Assessment Methods
The teaching method is based on three parts: (1) The instructor will introduce concepts and theories in relation to legal cases from different jurisdictions at the beginning of the class based on the required reading. (2) A small group discussion will focus on concrete issues that are to be solved by referring to a theory or theories. Each group will come back from the discussion and will make a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. (3) The instructor will share overall comments and will give an in-class writing.

Course Topics and Schedule
Week 1.1 Gender and Jurisprudence from the Merchant of Venice
・Feminist jurisprudence and the notion of rights
・Case analysis – Women and property rights
Reading: Feminist Jurisprudence
https://iep.utm.edu/jurisfem/#:~:text=American%20feminist%20jurisprudence%20is%20the,concrete%20effects%20in%20women%27s%20lives
Cambridge Companion to Gender and the Law (2023) – Chapter 1 Introduction
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-gender-and-the-law/introduction/2255D5B1A962D6D596474537DB9EF603
Week 1.2 Limits of legal reasoning and gender equality
・Principles of differences and equality
・Case analysis – Cultural particulars and cultural defense, People v. Kimura
Reading: Barbara Hartley, Voicing Herstory’s Silence: Three Women Playwrights-Hasegawa Shigure, Ariyoshi Sawako, and Dakemoto in Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers, Cambridge University Press, 2023

Week 2.1 Critical Legal Theory –
・Patriarchy, Power, Confucian Code
・Case Analysis – Surrogate mothers
Reading: A collection of cases will be distributed in class on the dissolution of marriage and the family registry system in China, Japan, and Korea
Week 2.2 Right to marry, Right to divorce
・Comparison: Patrilineality in Islam Civil Code and Confucian Context
・Case Analysis – Chastity and punishment
Reading: Rajnaara C. Akhtar, Contemporary Issues in Marriage Law and Practice in Qatar,Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 20 (2022) 124–158.

Week 3.1 Gender and Legal Orientalism
・Against Legal Orientalism
・Challenged stereotype, Unconscious bias
・More cases related to women’s property rights
Reading: Teemu Ruskola, A Reader’s Guide to Legal Orientalism, 2022.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3824&context=faculty_scholarship
Margolin, Elaine. We Do Not Part: A Novel, World Literature Today Norman 99, 1, (Jan/Feb 2025): 55.
Week 3.2 Gender and Labor Law
・Law and economics, gender, labor, and taxation
・Case Analysis: Spousal exemption limits in Japan, property rights in Qatar
Reading: Aaron Schwabach, Convergence and divergence: the treatment of certain aspects of real property under the Civil Codes of Qatar and California https://www.qscience.com/docserver/fulltext/irl/2015/3/irl.2015.7.pdf

Week 4.1 New Paradigm and Praxis
・Toward an empowerment paradigm
・Case analysis: Eco-feminism and environmental litigation in Japan
Reading: Liv Navntoft Hennningsen, Prefiguring the Legal Subject of European Human Rights Law, Nordic Journal on Law and Society, V. 7, (2024),1-28 https://doi.org/10.36368/njolas.v7i01.467
Week 4.2 Inclusive and Empowerment
・Law beyond Medusa
・Case analysis: Female virtual influencer
Reading: Matilda Arvidsson, Laugh All You Medusas! Hélène Cixous’ Écriture Feminine as Feminist Legal Translation, Transformation, Transgression, and Translactation in the Era of AI and the Anthropocene Australian Feminist Law Journal 47, (2021), 283-297,https://doi.org/10.1080/13200968.2021.208378.
Textbook: Cambridge Companion to Gender and the Law (2023). All required and optional reading materials are available via the online access. There are a few which may be restricted but can be accessed through registration.

Assessment methods
Class attendance and Discussion 30%
In-class writing, Presentation 30%
Final research paper 40%
Final Exam must be completed by Sept. 15, 2025

Bibliography
Arvidsson, Matilda. Laugh All You Medusas! Hélène Cixous’ Écriture Feminine as Feminist Legal Translation, Transformation, Transgression, and Translactation in the Era of AI and the Anthropocene Australian Feminist Law Journal 47, (2021), 283-297,https://doi.org/10.1080/13200968.2021.208378.
Akhtar, Rajnaara C.,Contemporary Issues in Marriage Law and Practice in Qatar, Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 20 (2022) 124–158.
Cambridge Companion to Gender and the Law (2023) – Chapter 1 Introduction
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-gender-and-the-law/introduction/2255D5B1A962D6D596474537DB9EF603
Copeland, Rebecca L. and Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, The Father-Daughter Plot: Japanese Literary Women and the Law of the Father, Edited by Univ. of Hawai'i Press, (2001).
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Feminist Jurisprudence https://iep.utm.edu/jurisfem/.
Hartley, Barbara, Voicing Herstory’s Silence: Three Women Playwrights-Hasegawa Shigure, Ariyoshi Sawako, and Dakemoto in Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers, Cambridge University Press, (2023).
Hennningsen, Liv Navntoft, Prefiguring the Legal Subject of European Human Rights Law, Nordic Journal on Law and Society, V. 7, (2024),1-28 https://doi.org/10.36368/njolas.v7i01.467
Margolin, Elaine. We Do Not Part: A Novel, World Literature Today Norman 99, 1, (Jan/Feb 2025).
Ruskola, Teemu. A Reader’s Guide to Legal Orientalism, (2022).
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3824&context=faculty_scholarship
Schwabach Aaron, Convergence and divergence: the treatment of certain aspects of real property under the Civil Codes of Qatar and California (2015). https://www.qscience.com/docserver/fulltext/irl/2015/3/irl.2015.7.pdf
Wellner, Galit & Rothman, Tiran. Feminist AI: Can We Expect Our AI Systems to Become Feminist? Springer Nature Philosophy & Technology, (2020) 33:191–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00352-z

Last updated: March 19, 2025