◊    ◊   ◊

Women working in a variety of settings face challenges rooted in traditional cultural and social patterns surrounding gender. These challenges include barriers in the workplace, the historic divisions between work and family lives, and cultural conceptualizations of "work" itself. This conference draws together empirical and legal perspectives to examine the different strategies and models women have used in addressing the dilemmas of work and family.

This joint workshop continues a dialogue between the New Legal Realism Project, which focuses on developing higher quality translations between law and social science, and the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, long dedicated to an interdisciplinary examination of law and policy topics of particular interest to women. Both empirical methods and feminist approaches require scholars to look behind the apparent patterning and explanations that exist in societies to uncover the structures and meanings that lie beneath. In this sense, they both address the uneasy silences that can operate as challenges to accepted wisdom.

At our first joint workshop, scholars from a variety of disciplines came together to develop a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation about work, family, and gender. Exploring the core assumptions and approaches that motivated research from disciplines other than our own allows us to begin a process of real translation. Social scientists can come to understand why legal scholars might address problems in a particular framework, while legal scholars can benefit from similarly grappling with the quite different methods and theoretical frames that inform their social scientist colleagues.

Our objective in this second set of sessions is to build on the foundation already begun, continuing to develop not only a set of empirically-based perspectives on women, work, and family - but also to generate methods for systematic translation between law and other disciplines. Both feminist and new legal realist precepts for these discussions stress the need for sustained effort in attempting to understand differing perspectives, eschewing more combative (and ultimately less substantive) approaches.

Possible topics for this workshop include:

·       What is the position of law vis-à-vis the challenges women face in the work/family dichotomy?

·       How have empirical studies been marshaled in arguments about the need to change family law?

·       What counts as empirical for purposes of family law reform? For purposes of informing feminist theory?

·       Are there particular problems with the use of quantitative empirical work in the context of families and relational interests?

·       How has empirical information applied in the family context changed through differing historical periods?  Across geographical boundaries?

·       Has feminist theory shaped questions about the intersection of work and family in ways that are compatible with empirical approaches?

·       Can empiricism accommodate feminist theory?

·       Is an expanding definition of family beneficial or detrimental to women’s ability to integrate their work and family lives?

 

A short proposal should be sent to Pam Hollenhorst, Associate Director of the Institute for Legal Studies at the UW Law School (pshollen(at)wisc.edu) by July 2, 2007.  Working paper drafts to be duplicated and distributed prior to the Workshop will be due September 4, 2007.

 

◊    ◊   ◊