Foreward Symposium: Theory and Praxis in Reducing Women's Poverty

Abstract

This piece provides an overview of the symposium papers and the premise for the topic. In recognition of this problem and the complexity of issues that contribute to the gender and race of poverty and the urgent need for innovative solutions to ending poverty among women, the American Association of Law Schools Sections on Clinical Education and Poverty Law sponsored a joint session at the 2012 Annual Meeting: "Theory and Praxis in Reducing Women's Poverty." During that session, presenters and participants assessed the barriers poverty creates for poor women and their families, proposed explanations for women's poverty and explored remedies to help ameliorate, or at least mediate, women's low socioeconomic status. The session served as a foundation for further thoughtful and penetrating discourse on the intersection of poverty and gender, as well as the role of lawyers and law schools in developing insights and methods regarding law reform and advocacy for impoverished communities. Women, and the families and communities to which they are connected, interact with legal systems on a daily basis, often to their own detriment. As this symposium demonstrates, women's poverty intersects with multiple diverse areas of law, including employment, immigration, criminal, government benefits, family, education, and judicial systems. The focus on reducing women's poverty allows for a dissection and examination of these systems and the conditions that perpetuate the low socioeconomic status of women, particularly minority women.This symposium confronts the role of the family, the community, and the nation from domestic and international perspectives.

Keywords: women, poverty