Katharine T. Bartlett

Joint Custody, Feminism and the Dependency Dilemma

Dependency is a dilemma for women. Womens dependency, which arises largely from their status as caregivers, can be both a strength and a source of vulnerability and exploitation. The dependent relationships which women form are often coercive and degrading, but at the same time they may satisfy the needs of women for affirmation and influence. Efforts to overcome the oppressive aspects of dependency, while successful in some respects and for some women, may exacerbate the problem in other ways. The issue of joint custody illustrates the contradictory nature of womens dependency. Joint custody has the potential both to help women develop more independence and to aggravate the problematic aspects of dependency in womens lives. Although joint custody was expected to help women, it has had mixed effects, benefiting some women, hurting others, and for still others, helping and hurting at the same time. This Article examines joint custody as an example of the complicated nature of womens dependency. In Section I, we set the movement toward joint custody in the context of the egalitarian goals of womens rights groups in the 1970s. We then describe the emergence of the feminist critique of this movement in the 1980s.

Feminist Legal Scholarship: A History through the Lens of the California Law Review

This Essay describes the evolution of feminist legal scholarship, using six articles published by the California Law Review as exemplars. This short history provides a window on the most important contributions of feminist scholarship to understandings about gender and law. It explores alternative formulations of equality, and the competing assumptions, ideals, and implications of these formulations. It describes frameworks of thought intended to compensate for the limitations of equality doctrine, including critical legal feminism, different voice theory, and nonsubordination theory, and the relationships between these frameworks. Finally, it identifies feminist legal scholarship that has crossed the disciplinary boundaries of law. Among its conclusions, the Essay points out that as feminist scholarship has become more mainstream, its assumptions and methods are less distinct. It observes that even as feminist legal scholarship has generated important, insightful critiques of equality doctrine, it remains committed to the concept of equality, as continually revised and refined. The Essay also highlights the importance of feminist activism and practice in sharpening and refining feminist legal scholarship.

The Role of Cost in Educational Decisionmaking for the Handicapped Child

Copyright ? 1985 by Law and Contemporary Problems * Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Duke University. I am indebted to Chris Schroeder and Judith Wegner for their insights during numerous conversations I had with them while I was writing this article, and to Richard Boulden, Matt Lavine, and Howard Vingan for their research assistance. 1. Hicks, Should Every Bus Kneel? in DISABLED PEOPLE AS SECOND CLASS CITIZENS 13-14 (1982) (quoting Must Every Bus Kneel to the Disabled?, N.Y. Times, Nov. 18, 1979, at 18E). 2. See Oversight of P.L. 94-142 The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Part 1: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the Committee on Education and Labor House of Representatives, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 82 (1979) (statement of Walter Tice, American Federation of Teachers); J. KAKALIK, W. FURRY, M. THOMAS & M. CARNEY, THE COST OF SPECIAL EDUCATION 5 (1981) [hereinafter cited as KAKALIK] (

Pregnancy and the Constitution: The Uniqueness Trap

3577 average cost per student for handicapped child in 1977-78;

Feminist Legal Methods

4898 average cost in the following 3-year period). Residential placements, not included in the Kakalik study, are even more expensive. See Stark, Tragic Choices in Special Education: The Effect of Scarce Resources on the Implementation of Pub. L. No. 94-142, 14 CONN. L. REV. 477, 491, 493 (1982). A residential placement may cost well over

Re-Thinking Parenthood as an Exclusive Status: The Need for Legal Alternatives When the Premise of the Nuclear Family Has Failed

50,000 per year. See Clevenger v. Oak Ridge School Dist., 744 F.2d 514, 517 (6th Cir. 1984) (ordering residential placement costing

Making Good on Good Intentions: The Critical Role of Motivation in Reducing Implicit Workplace Discrimination

88,000 per year); Stanger v. Ambach, 501 F. Supp. 1237, 1241-42 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (discussing residential placement that would cost at least

Only Girls Wear Barrettes: Dress and Appearance Standards, Community Norms, and Workplace Equality

52,410 for the 1980-81 school year). 3. KAKALIK, supra note 2, at 339, 343. (This study noted that, depending on the type of handicap and educational placement (excluding residential placements), the cost of educating a handicapped child is between .49 (full-time work placement for learning disabled students) and 6.78 (regular class plus part-time special teacher) times the cost of educating a nonhandicapped child. See also M. MOORE, L. WALKER, & R. HOLLAND, FINETUNING SPECIAL EDUCATION FINANCE 50-51 (1982) [hereinafter cited as MOORE, WALKER & HOLLAND] (depending upon the type of handicap and method of computation, the cost of special education ranges from 1.37 to 5.86 times the cost of a regular education); Marriner, The Cost of Educating Handicapped Pupils in New York City, 3 J. EDUC. FIN. 82, 86-88 (1977) (average cost of special education was

Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary

5897 per student, compared to

Improving the Law Relating to Postdivorce Arrangements for Children

2294 per student for a regular education; average per student cost of special education ranged from