Feminist Legal History and Legal Pedagogy

Abstract

Women are mere trace elements in the traditional law school curriculum. They exist only on the margins of the canonical cases. Built on masculine norms, traditional modes of legal pedagogy involve appellate cases that overwhelmingly involve men as judges and advocates. The resulting silence signals that women are not makers of law—especially constitutional law. Teaching students critical modes of analysis like feminist legal theory and critical race feminism matters. But unmoored from feminist legal history, such critical theory is incomplete and far less persuasive. This Essay focuses on feminist legal history as foundational if students are to understand the implications of feminist legal theory. It offers several examples to illustrate how centering women and correcting their erasure from our constitutional memory is essential to educating future judges and advocates.

Keywords: critical theory, feminist critical theory, nineteenth amendment, suffragist, fourteenth amendment, fifteenth amendment, gender equality,