Governance Feminism: An Introduction

320 Pages·2018·6.305 MB·English

by  Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché, Hila Shamir

Governance
Feminism
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Governance
Feminism
AN INTRODUCTION
Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran,
Rachel Rebouché, and Hila Shamir
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the generous a ssistance
provided for the publication of this book by the Margaret S. Harding Memorial
Endowment, honoring the first director of the University of Minnesota Press.
Small portions of chapter 4 were published as Prabha Kotiswaran, “A Bittersweet
Moment: Indian Governance Feminism and the 2013 Rape Law Reforms,”
Economic & Political Weekly 52, nos. 25– 26 (2017): 78– 87. Small portions of chapter 6
were published as Rachel Rebouché, “Testing Sex,” University of Richmond Law
Review 49 (2015): 519– 77, and as Rachel Rebouché, “Abortion Rights as Human
Rights,” Social and Legal Studies 25 (2016): 765– 82.
Copyright 2018 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Halley, Janet E., author.
Title: Governance feminism : an introduction / Janet Halley, [and three others].
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2018] |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017018693 (print) | ISBN 978-0-8166-9845-5 (hc) |
ISBN 978-0-8166-9847-9 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism— Political aspects.
Classification: LCC HQ1236 .H274 2018 (print) | DDC 320.56/22— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017018693
UMP BmB 2018
In memory of Helen Reece
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Contents
Preface: Introducing Governance Feminism ix
Janet Halley
Abbreviations xxiii
PART I
Varieties of Governance Feminism
1 Where in the Legal Order Have Feminists Gained
Inclusion? 3
Janet Halley
2 Which Forms of Feminism Have Gained Inclusion? 23
Janet Halley
3 Dancing across the Minefield: Feminists Reflect on Generating,
Owning, and Critiquing Power 55
Janet Halley
PART II
From the Transnational to the Local
4 Governance Feminism in the Postcolony: Reforming India’s
Rape Laws 75
Prabha Kotiswaran
5 Anti- trafficking in Israel: Neo- abolitionist Feminists, Markets,
Borders, and the State 149
Hila Shamir
6 When Rights Return: Feminist Advocacy for Women’s
Reproductive Rights and against Sex- Selective Abortion 201
Rachel Rebouché
Conclusion. Distribution and Decision: Assessing Governance
Feminism 253
Janet Halley
Acknowledgments 269
Index 275
PREFACE
Introducing Governance
Feminism
JANET HALLEY
Feminists now walk the halls of power. By no means all feminists:
some forms of feminism disqualify their proponents from inclusion in
the power elite. But you can get a job in the United Nations, the World
Bank, the International Criminal Court, the local prosecutor’s office,
and the child welfare bureaucracy for espousing various strands of
feminism. Exactly what forms of feminism “make sense” to power
elites as they gradually let women in? What happens when feminists
and feminist ideas find their way into legal institutions and change le-
gal thought and legal operations? Whose nongovernmental organiza-
tions get funding from international aid and development agencies
and from ideologically driven private donors? Once feminists gain a
foothold in governance, what do they do there and which particular
legal forms are they most heavily invested in? What are the distribu-
tive consequences of the partial inclusion of some feminist projects?
Who benefits and who loses? Can feminism foster a critique of its own
successes?
The four authors of this book have dubbed our topic Governance
Feminism (GF). By that we1 mean every form in which feminists and
feminist ideas exert a governing will within human affairs: to follow
Michel Foucault’s definition of governmentality, every form in which
feminists and feminist ideas “conduct the conduct of men.”2 And of
course that does not include only male human beings but all of us, and
not only all human affairs but also human- inflected processes like
knowledge formation, technology, and even the weather. We wish this
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