Beverley Baines (Queen’s University – Faculty of Law) has posted But Was She a Feminist Judge? (ONE WOMAN’S DIFFERENCE: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JUSTICE BERTHA WILSON, Kimberley Brooks, ed., UBC Press, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
During her time on the bench, Justice Wilson refused to identify as a feminist. Her silence did not deter feminists from applauding many of her decisions. Nor did it preclude them from critiquing three opinions: Pelech, Morgentaler, and Hess. In this chapter, first I identify the features of feminist legal theory that inform these critiques. Next I explore some of the recent challenges that women’s studies and gender theorists have posed for this theory. I conclude that it makes a significant difference to analyze Justice Wilson’s three contested opinions from the perspective of gender theory.