Cluster Overview

Warwick Law School offered its first full year undergraduate module on ‘women and the law’ as long ago as 1977, when feminist studies of law were still in their infancy. Since then, it has continued to celebrate scholarship on the gendered construction, operation and impact of law, reflected both in colleagues’ research and teaching.

Many members of the School work closely with the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, which some colleagues were involved establishing.

Though the foci and approaches of scholarship within the Gender & Law Cluster are varied, a prominent theme of much research has been the relationship between gender, development and human rights, particularly in post colonial societies. Much work has also been undertaken on the issue of gender-based violence, whether during armed conflict or in times of ‘peace’, across domestic and international regimes, and within criminal, asylum and family systems. Issues linked to the valuing of women’s care labour in employment and family contexts has also been a dominant focus of attention, as have wider but often associated issues regarding equality, discrimination and inclusion. Theoretical, empirical, comparative and doctrinal methodologies weave through the research produced within this cluster, and its members draw variously on feminist and queer theories of law to expose the contradictions, constraints and consequences of prevailing power dynamics.