Library of Essays on Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law – serie

Sexual rules and regulations are among society’s oldest yet it is only in recent decades that this once-stigmatized field has become the focus of scholarly attention. This volume, which includes some of the most thought-provoking and hard-to-find essays in the field, covers a diverse range of topics from sexual orientation and gender identity to intersexuality and commercial sex, and from HIV/AIDS and trafficking to polygamy. Through historical, political and critical-theoretical lenses, and through a global focus, the selections ask how we conceptualize the groups and acts subjected to sexual regulation and how regulations in the field implicate and produce understandings of sexuality and identity. By placing this variety of works together, Sexuality and Equality Law invites fresh insights into commonalities and synergies across regulatory arenas that are often isolated from one another. The volume’s introduction situates all of these works in the broader field and offers readers an extensive bibliography.

The essays selected for this volume address topics at the intersection of religion and equality law, including discrimination against religion, discrimination by religious actors and discrimination in favor of religious groups and traditions. The introduction provides a conceptual guide to these types of inequality - which are often misunderstood or conflated - and it offers an analysis of different species of discrimination within each broad category. Each section of the volume contains both theoretical essays, which set out frameworks for thinking about the relevant type of inequality, and essays that examine real-world disputes. For example, the articles address the conflicts over headscarf laws in France and Turkey, the place of so-called traditional religions in Africa, the display of Roman Catholic crucifixes in Italian classrooms, and the ability of American religious organizations to be free of employment laws in their treatment of clergy. This volume brings together classic articles which are otherwise difficult to access, enables students to study key articles side-by-side, and provides instructors with a valuable teaching resource.

The essays in this volume illuminate a central paradox in the post-colonial West: race remains a potent index of social, economic and political inequality even while racial discrimination has become unlawful, even anathema. The standard account of this paradox is that racial discrimination and inequality are unfortunate vestiges of the past, which an enlightened legal system is now engaged in extirpating. These essays reveal a different story: equality law preserves racial inequality even while denouncing it. The authors show how in country after country, legal rules define racism so narrowly and make racial discrimination so difficult to prove that inequality persists despite its symbolic extinction. This ground-breaking volume of English-language essays, aimed at academics and researchers, shows how critical race theory, an analytic approach developed in the United States, can shed light on the workings of race in political-legal systems as diverse as South Africa, New Zealand, France and Latin and South America.

This volume brings together classic articles which explore the increasingly crucial and relatively recent concept of age discrimination. Issues relating to an ageing workforce are now widespread as many employees are either working longer in order to compensate for depleted pensions; or, in countries where there are labor shortages among younger workers, employers are trying to induce older workers to remain in the workforce. The essays in this volume explore the evolution of legislation against age discrimination as well as the legal structures relating to age discrimination in the US (where legislation is more advanced), the European Union, Canada and Australia.

This volume draws on several decades of advocacy for law reform to advance gender equality. The essays illustrate the evolution of dominant theoretical approaches and trace their application to core issues, such as the meaning of gender, family formation and roles, equality in the workplace, reproductive rights and violence. The selections are international in their range and include recent works that summarize foundational discussions as well as less well-known articles and essays which capture defining issues with enduring resonance. Taken together, these articles form the basis for discussions of recurring themes such as: how best to define and account for biological, social or cultural differences based on gender; how the law can recognize historic and ongoing gender subordination while supporting individuals’ autonomy and agency; and the nature and role of women’s sexuality. They exemplify the ongoing dialectic between well-intentioned reform and unintended consequences that characterizes ongoing efforts to advance equality based on gender.