Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

The aims of the module are:

1) To provide you with knowledge of gender theories – and in particular a variety of different feminist theories – and the relationships to law, as well as relationships between different forms of oppression;

2) To increase your understanding of law’s situation and operation within social and political relations and contexts;

3) To enable you to critically and analyse and evaluate approaches to gender and law in its wider social and political contexts;

4) To enable you to critically analyse and evaluate particular areas of law with regard to, and in light of, gender theories;

5) To inspire you to recognise and to seek to address social injustices in everyday, personal, social, and work life;

6) To support you to develop your own learning practices and participate in educational environments in inclusive and respectful ways, with particular thought and attention to oppressive structural relations and people’s lived experiences.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module starts by introducing you to gender theories and the relationship to law, and developing your critical skills to analyse and evaluate these theories. Following this, you will explore a number of areas of substantive areas of law, and critically analyse and evaluate them in light of relevant gender theories. By nature of the module, it is interdisciplinary and not only focused on legal academic scholarship, the law, and legal practice but draws on and engages with scholarship in other disciplines including, but not limited to, sociology, politics and gender studies.

There are five topics, one for each seminar cycle:

1) Gender theories and law;

2) Sexual violence, law and justice;

3) Rape trials: consent and sexual history evidence;

4) Tort law and gendered harms: civil claims for sexual abuse

5) Sex work and the law or other research-led topic, dependent on teaching staff

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

You will be able to demonstrate a detailed knowledge and understanding of:

1) the main theories relating to gender and law;
2) the social, political and gendered dimensions of law;
3) particular areas of substantive law and the relationship to gender and gender theories

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of this module, through written work, you will be able to show you can:

Subject-specific skills:

1) Undertake in-depth critical analysis and evaluation of the law in light of gender theories;

2) synthesise and distinguish complex theoretical arguments and perspectives on law and its relationship to gender;

3) create and structure strong persuasive arguments;

4) write with care and precision;

5) conduct thorough research on law and gender issues, including making decisions about search terms; being able to distinguish most relevant materials; evaluating the quality and reliability of sources; and retrieving accurate and relevant legal and other sources in primary and secondary form.

Cognitive skills:

1) Analysis. Identifying and ordering issues by relevance and importance.

2) Synthesis of materials from diverse legal and other sources.

3) Critical judgement. Discernment between the merits or otherwise of particular arguments whether legal, political or philosophical.

4) Evaluation. Making a reasoned choice between competing solutions or arguments.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

In person lectures and online materials and activities provide you with an overview of each topic, including academic scholarship, key concepts and issues, and the main legal processes, practices and provisions.

Seminars enable you to develop and consolidate knowledge and understanding, as well as to develop analytical and critical thinking / evaluation skills, which in part is developed through verbal dialogue. Time will be spent reflecting on and supporting inclusive pedagogic practices.

Moderated discussion boards will enable you to share ideas, materials and discuss topical issues and questions, and to develop your knowledge and understanding of each topic.

Multiple choice quizzes will support your learning by enabling you to check your own knowledge and understanding of each topic, and will assist with revision for the exam.

The workshop will enable you to work together to consolidate your knowledge and understanding, to draw together themes from across the module, to analyse and evaluate key issues and themes, and to collaboratively produce documents as part of exam preparation.

Directed research and reading as well as independent study will consist of essential reading to supplement lectures and seminars, further reading lists, and research which is self-directed. Independent study also includes preparation for and undertaking the exam.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The timed off campus assessment examines your knowledge, subject-specific skills, and cognitive skills across a range of topics included in the module. You will have access to notes and wide range of sources and materials meaning the examination is less focused on memory recall and more focused on analysing and evaluating the law, theories and social and political issues covered on the module, and constructing an argument. Through this you will demonstrate your research skills and engagement with the literature, which is appropriate to stage 3. In addition, these specific skills are more appropriate to this module as this form of assessment enables you to engage in depth and detail with the law, gender theories and social issues, not limited to one area of the module, demonstrating both broad and deep learning of complex theories and legal and social problems.

The detailed essay plan submitted for written feedback will support the development of the skills required for the written exam, particularly in relation to selecting which of the relevant material is needed for the specific argument that you are making in response to the question. The formative is done in groups as collaborative working of can encourage peer-to-peer learning and each individual's knowledge is enhanced through the collective.

General Notes

Law and gender research is an area of interest in the Law School, which aligns with research and teaching in gender theories across the University, in particular within the HaSS faculty (indicated by the presence of the Gender Research Group). The module will sit well alongside other modules that are provided by the law school, and the course will be led by staff who research in the area. The course may attract students who may want to pursue postgraduate research in law and gender. The module is not focused on one area of law, but rather the course cuts across a number of different areas of law, many of which are either compulsory or optional modules (for example, criminal law, tort law, and human rights law), increasing students’ knowledge and understanding of law more generally. It also draws on scholarship from other disciplines, in particular in exploring the relationship between law, society and politics. The module also introduces students to a number of new and different theoretical perspectives from which to interrogate law, contributing to the development of students’ critical and analytical skills.