Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-12662-6 — Feminist Judgments Edited by Kathryn M. Stanchi , Linda L. Berger , Bridget J. Crawford Excerpt More Information www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press 3  1 Introduction to the U.S. feminist judgments project Kathryn M. Stanchi, Linda L. Berger, and Bridget J. Crawford How would U.S. Supreme Court opinions change if the justices used feminist methods and perspectives when deciding cases? That is the central question that we sought to answer by bringing together a group of scholars and lawyers to carry out this project. To answer it, they would use feminist theories to rewrite the most signiicant gender justice cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court from the passage of the inal Civil Rights Amendment in 1870 to the summer of 2015. As an initial matter, we provided no guidance to our contributors on what we meant by “feminism.” We wanted our authors to be free to bring their own vision of feminism to the project. Yet it would be disingenuous to suggest that we ourselves do not have a particular perspective on what “feminism,” “femin- ist reasoning,” or “feminist methods” are. Indeed, without such a perspective, we would not have undertaken the project. We recognize “feminism” as a movement and perspective historically grounded in politics, and one that motivates social, legal, and other battles for women’s equality. We also understand it as a movement and mode of inquiry that has grown to endorse justice for all people, particularly those historically oppressed or marginalized by or through law. 1 We believe that “feminism” is not the province of women only, and we acknowledge and celebrate the multiple, luid identities contained in the category “woman.” 2 Within this broad view, we acknowledge that feminists can disagree (and still be feminist) and that there are no unitary feminist methods or reasoning processes. So when we refer to feminist methods or feminist reasoning processes, we mean 1 So-called “third-wave” feminists particularly see feminism as a broader social justice issue. See, e.g., Bridget J. Crawford, Toward a Third-Wave Feminist Legal Theory: Young Women, Pornography and the Praxis of Pleasure, 14 Mich. J. Gender & L. 99, 102 (2007); Kristen Kalsem and Verna L. Williams, Social Justice Feminism, 18 UCLA Women’s L.J. 131, 169–72 (2010). 2 See Katharine T. Bartlett, Feminist Legal Methods, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 829, 830 (1990).