How ares of contract law, specifically pre-marital agreements are Essay

How ares of contract law, specifically pre-marital agreements are affected from a feminist perspective Discuss in light of Radm - Essay Example Some legal feminists push for the equal application of laws to both men and women. Others believe that the law and the courts must take extra steps to favour women over men considering that women are, by definition and in reality, placed at a lower stratum than men in society. This clash of perspectives may even be more pronounced in the days to come with the recent Supreme Court decision in Radmacher v Granatino,1 an English premarital agreement case. This case does not only reverse previous decisions of courts in prenuptial agreements by conferring a rebuttable presumption on such agreements but it breaks the stereotypical image of wealthy men enforcing premarital agreements against economically vulnerable women spouses. The implication of the sweeping application of the legal dictum of Radmacher in future cases is to deprive women spouses, generally perceived to be the less economically viable partner, of court intervention and assistance in prenuptial agreements where such agreem ents contain provisions disadvantageous to women. The Feminist Legal Theory The feminist legal theory emerged in the 1970s and, as with any other feminist movement, was driven by the perception that men dominate and shape society, which itself subordinates women to men. Feminists bewailed that legal systems render decisions with underlying assumptions about gender, therefore, justifying and further institutionalising gender inequality. Such gender assumptions, according to them, can be gleaned in decisions that take into account and were influenced by essentially gender-related factors. It had been argued by some feminist movements that it was not nature that subordinates women in a sphere of domesticity, but culture aided by the courts with the latter’s restrictive decisions against women such as prohibiting married women to own or dispose property.2 Feminist legal movements, however, approaches their battle from diverse perspectives, some of which are complementary, whilst others are plainly conflicting. Nonetheless, all feminist legal models blame the legal and judicial systems in perpetuating gender hierarchy. The liberal equality model insisted that men and women should be treated alike in all respects. This model insists on the â€Å"sameness† between men and women in arriving at rational choices and seeks to dispute the perception that women are inferior to men, and should therefore, be accorded the same legal treatment as men. This means that even favour accorded to women because of their sex violates equality because it results in the differentiation of women and men.3 This model was, however, eventually assailed as weak because of its failure to take into account real and actual differences between the sexes such as pregnancy in the employment area. On the other hand, the radical feminist model emphasises the differences between the sexes and rallies the legal system to give special treatment to women. Contrary to the liberal equality m odel, the radical feminist model compels the law to highlight such differences and accord relief to women to bridge the gap of inequality that separates them from men. Radical feminists believe that women are subjugated to the state and to men all of the time and are therefore, disempowered. Radical feminist legalists subscribe to the ideas of Catherine MacKinnon, Sylvia Law and Nan Hunter: MacKinnon regarded women’s sexual submission to men as false consciousness of individuals who are inherently oppressed, and; Law