Carleton University Department of Law
Course Outline
COURSE: LAWS 3001 A - Women and the Legal Process
TERM: Fall 2006-07
PREREQUISITES: Third year standing
CLASS: Day & Time: Tuesday 8:30-11:30 am
Room: 447 TB (Tory Building)
INSTRUCTOR: Professor T. Brettel Dawson
CONTACT: Office: D488
Office Hrs: Tuesday 11:30-12:30 pm (after class) or by appointment
Telephone: E-mail is the best way to reach me
Email: bdawson@ccs.carleton.ca

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodations in this course are required to contact a coordinator at the Paul Menton Centre to complete the necessary letters of accommodation. The student must then make an appointment to discuss their needs with the instructor at least two weeks prior to the first class or ITV test. This is to ensure sufficient time is available to make the necessary accommodation arrangement. Please note the deadline for submitting completed forms to the PMC for formally scheduled exam accommodations is November 6, 2006 for December examinations and March 9, 2007, for April examinations. With regard to accommodations for religious obligations and pregnancy, please see http://www.carleton.ca/law/accommodations.htm

COURSE OBJECTIVES & CONTENT:

This course examines historical and contemporary legal issues of particular concern to women in Canada. The “Person=s Case” in 1929 defined one threshold issue B the inclusion of women as full, public citizens entitled to participate in higher education, politics and the professions including the legal profession. It also raised issues such as how class and race intersected with gender in defining the scope and terms of ‘women’s’ inclusion and what it would mean for women to be part of Canada’s public institutions and the legal process. A related conceptual issue about the structure and content of law continues to reverberate -- was law made by men to respond to men’s interests or views of the world and (family and work) relationships? Has that changed? Once women were included in the legal system as ‘subjects’ would they expect the law to change? When they became lawyers, would they practice law differently? Would they identify new issues of particular concern to women and new ways of looking at other issues (e.g. sexual assault, violence)? Would they define problems differently and explore different ways to resolve conflict? Would law and legal practice change for both women and men once it was more inclusive? How would the resulting tensions between the “old” and the “new” ways be resolved to create a just and inclusive legal process/legal system for everyone? The course will look at some of these issues and the ‘tools’ of law that women can use towards this end: the equality guarantee of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and principles in leading judicial decisions and Canadian legislation. We will explore the idea that law both contains (limits) and enables (makes possible) progressive social change.

REQUIRED READING:

Readings for each week will be set out in the course schedule available on the course website.

The required text is:

T. Brettel Dawson, Women, Law and Social Change: Core Readings and Current Issues , 4th Edition (Toronto: Captus Press, 2002)

The Spring/Summer 2006 Issue of Nexus, the magazine of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law will also be handed out. It has a focus on women, law and social change and is a key resource for the essay assignment and readings throughout the semester.


Additional materials may be posted on the course web site from time to time.

Recommended Resources:

I have recently updated the “virtual casebook” section of the course web site; it may provide useful research links. Access via www.lawsite.ca, link research resources; virtual casebook.

Making Equality Rights Real: Securing Substantive Equality Under the Charter, ed. Fay Faraday, Margaret Denike, and M. Kate Stephenson (Toronto: Irwin law, 2006)

Canadian Feminist Perspectives on Law: An Annotated Bibliography (1989-99) (Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, vol.11, 1999). (Susan Boyd, E. Sheehy & J. Bouchard) (* Order from journals@utpress.utoronto.ca)

Canadian Feminist Literature on Law: An Annotated Bibliography of Interdisciplinary Writings (Toronto: Resources for Feminist Research, 1989). 80 pages, 527 abstracts. (Co-authored/edited by Susan Boyd and E. Sheehy)

The Canadian Journal of Women and the Law contains excellent research in theme areas relevant to this course.

EVALUATION PROCEDURES

There are two components to the final grade in this course. Both components must be completed to receive a passing grade in this course:

1. Essay: 40% of final grade. Due: Friday, November 10th by 4.30pm
Submit via the Law Department Essay Chute next to Loeb D473 (around the corner, hole in the wall). Marked essays will be handed back in the final class or before.

2. Examination: 60% of final grade. Scheduled, two hour examination, closed book; short answer and short essay questions.

Detailed information on the requirements of the essay assignment can be found on the essay sheet, also from the course web page.

NOTE: The Department of Law, Course Policy Statement applies to this course. It is available at www.carleton.ca/law.