The law can wreck our lives or kill us, especially in countries where the law is used by men to protect their power and assets. Let’s take a quick look at the latest legislative change in Afghanistan. In August 2024, the “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” added to the long list of restrictions on Afghan women and girls. Now, women’s entire bodies and faces must be covered and women cannot speak in public. Women cannot interact with non-Muslims, using public transport alone, or look at men to whom they are not related by blood or marriage (UN Women, 2024).
A few months before that, the Taliban prohibited “healthy” individuals from begging if they possessed enough money to buy one day’s worth of food. Since Afghan women have been banned from most forms of paid work, many women had no choice but to beg in the street. Now criminalized, nearly 60,000 beggars were rounded up in Kabul alone. Many were legally imprisoned, tortured and raped (Business Standard, 2024).
There is nothing new about men legislating against women. Most of the crimes committed against us, from being sold as chattel, burned alive, legally raped, prohibited from owning property, having rights over our own children, and exercising the right to decide whether to bear children at all….the list is endless and stretches back thousands of years.
But….
The law also does all sorts of powerful things for us: it sends people who wrong us to jail, it enables us to sue them and take their stuff, it stops institutions from doing bad things to us and forces them to do good things for us, it can recognize and formalize a group of us so that we can work together, it can force social transformation and it can even hold the global community to a measure of accountability. So it is worth focusing on.
In November, 2024, several states in the United States have adopted measures to enshrine the right to abortion. This was in response to the American Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had legally guaranteed the right to abortion across America. The overturning of Roe v. Wade enabled each state to develop its own legislation. Ten states put abortion rights on the ballot and seven entrenched abortion rights using a variety of legal mechanisms (Kekatos & Kindelan (2024).
Another set of gratifying examples is the legal remedies being leveled at the powerful men who thought they could get away with hurting us. Jian Ghomeshi, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein are just a few in a very long list, which is getting much longer. I have enjoyed the bleating of men distressed at the public appetite for male accountability.
Wherever the law can be used for the benefit of women, we need to acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants. In 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons” under Section 24 of the British North America Act. Just sit with that for a minute. Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise Crummy McKinney, and Irene Parlby took care of that for us.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, prior to becoming an American Supreme Court judge, co-founded the Women’s Rights Project, which played a pivotal role in advancing women’s legal rights. She also argued six landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s and won five of them. One of them, Reed v. Reed was fundamental because it established that any laws discriminating against women on the basis of sex are unconstitutional, which empowered the challenging of all sexist legislation in America (Alexander, 2020).
There is no shortage of women who have successfully advocated for legislative changes that challenge and protect us from patriarchy. But it is a perennial activity that requires constant vigilance because every time we think we have something sorted, the patriarchy pulls a fast one.
Legislative reform is rarely achieved by individuals so it’s good to join cooperative movements. Anything we can do helps. The following is a list of organizations that we could get involved with:
UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. They have a number of global campaigns with satellite activities around the world .https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved.
Equality Now is an international organization that uses legal advocacy to promote the rights of women and girls by influencing legislation and holding governments accountable for abuses. You can get involved here: https://equalitynow.org/get-involved/
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of attorneys and advocates working to ensure reproductive rights are protected in law. This is fundamental for us because our oppression is always tied to our reproductive capability. Wherever we lose control of our bodies, we lose control of our lives. https://reproductiverights.org/get-involved/
In Canada, the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) advocates for women’s equality rights through legal education, research, and law reform. Over the years, NAWL has played a significant role in advancing women’s rights in Canada, including the inclusion of equality provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You can connect with them here: https://nawl.ca/support-us/#volunteer
The Chanterelle Alliance for Feminist Law Reform connects feminist organizations across Canada to coordinate efforts in advancing a feminist law reform agenda. The alliance focuses on intersectional feminist principles and aims to eliminate gender-based violence and improve access to justice for women. They are super active. This is a good one to support because I am betting that their funding will dry up after the next federal election. Here is where you sign up: https://chanterellealliance.ca/#form
Alexander, K. L. (2020). Ruth Bader Ginsburg. National Women’s History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruth-bader-ginsburg
Business Standard. (2024, August 21). Taliban’s anti-begging laws: Afghan women detail rape, torture in prison. https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/taliban-s-anti-begging-laws-afghan-women-detail-rape-torture-in-prison-124112900671_1.html
Kekatos, M., & Kindelan, K. (2024, November 6). A state-by-state breakdown of where abortion stands after ballot initiatives pass. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/state-state-breakdown-abortion-stands-after-ballot-initiatives/story?id=115730446
UN Women. (2024, August 21). UN Women deeply concerned by new Afghanistan morality law. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/statement/2024/08/un-women-deeply-concerned-by-new-afghanistan-morality-law
Unlearning Patriarchy 