This path-breaking book examines the experiences of women in the legal profession in Australia. It looks at the relationship between the feminine and the public sphere through a study of women as members of the jurisprudential community. Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession challenges the assumption that women will become accepted within the legal community as increasing numbers are 'let in'. The fiction that the feminine is associated with disorder has resulted in the implementation of disciplinary strategies designed to curb refractory women. Dissonance and Distrust reveals the ways in which the "fictive feminine" is invoked to deny authority to professional women. The book is based on interviews with more than 100 women, including law students, academics, solicitors, barristers and judges. Although the book focuses on women in the legal profession, its significance transcends the case study, as it seeks to explain why women are perceived to lack authority in the public sphere.

Bringing together an international range of academics, Gender, Sexualities and Law provides a comprehensive interrogation of the range of contemporary issues – both topical and controversial – raised by the gendered character of law, legal discourse and institutions. The gendering of law, persons and the legal profession, along with the gender bias of legal outcomes, has been a fractious, but fertile, focus of reflection. It has, moreover, been an important site of political struggle. This collection of essays offers an unrivalled examination of its various contemporary dimensions, focusing on: issues of theory and representation; violence, both national and international; reproduction and parenting; and partnership, sexuality, marriage and the family. Gender, Sexualities and Law will be invaluable for all those engaged in research and study of the law (and related fields) as a form of gendered power.

How does one become a professional? This interdisciplinary collection offers new insights into that fundamental question. Employing a wide variety of approaches and methodologies, the original and thematically linked essays discuss such problematic issues as the most appropriate site for professional education, the proper focus and content of the initial and on-going preparation of professionals, and the nature of both continuity and change in professional education. In the process, they raise challenging questions about the development of professional education in Canada and elsewhere from the early 19th century to the present day, in fields as diverse as the health sciences, law, engineering, social work, theology, and university teaching. An essential resource for those studying the professions, this book will also appeal to practitioners, professional associations, administrators, and faculty in professional schools, and to all those interested in the past, present, and future state of their professions.

As questions concerning nationhood and national identity continue to preoccupy both Canada and Australia, Shaping Nations brings together the work of Australian and Canadian scholars around five core themes: constitutionalism, colonialism, republicanism, national identity, and governance.

It’s All About Learning: The Struggle in Choosing Traditional Public Education or Privatization is a reckoning with the contemporary struggle over choice about learning in public education. The future for learning depends on choice aligned with one of two major perspectives: traditional public education or privatization education. The profound implications of this struggle are too important to focus on gadgets, technology, and adult-centric intentions, also known as “chasing rabbits.” Instead, this book examines the purpose, intentions, and consequences of the perspectives battling for control of learning and teaching. When this conflict is resolved, a choice for learning will emerge: how to think or what-to-think. Who will write the narrative for the history of the future of US public education that best serves all students and the democracy in which they live? A reckoning with the struggle over choice about learning is past due. This book makes it clear that the time has come for traditional public educators to bypass the marketplace of privatization education and prioritize student-centric learning in traditional US public education.

This collection brings methods and questions from humanities, law and social sciences disciplines to examine different instances of lawmaking. Contributors explore the problematic of past law in present historical analysis across indigenous Australia and New Zealand, from post-Franco Spain to current international law and maritime regulation, from settler colonial humanitarian debates to efforts to end cruelty to children and animals. They highlight problems both national and international in their implication. From different disciplines and theoretical positions, they illustrate the diverse and complex study of law’s history.

There is massive public interest in same-sex marriage, a controversial topic that is rarely out of the media. This book investigates the extent to which legalizing same-sex marriage can contribute to ending the discrimination and social stigma faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women (LGBT) in the Western world. This issue breaks down into several further questions: can marriage equality be defended without reinforcing the idea that marriage is the most/only valuable form of intimate relationship? Can marriage equality be defended without further marginalizing non-conforming LGBT people? What kind of equality should LGBT people strive for? What critical agency might they lose when this equality is achieved? What institutional legacies should we embrace? The book focuses on human rights arguments supporting same-sex marriage and questions whether they are likely to both justify legal change and encourage shifts in the sociopolitical reception of LGBT people. After critically analyzing various arguments in favor of same-sex marriage, the author puts forward a justification that allows for marriage equality and does not result in the assimilation of queer identities into heteronormative identity.