CLP - The ‘Inconspicuous Impact’ of Feminist Pressure Through Law

For almost 200 years, UCL Laws has been one of the leading centres of legal education in the world. Recognised as offering an outstanding educational experience to our students, we combine a strong theoretical foundation in the law with practical teaching from world-leading academics and practitioners.Ranked first in the UK for its research environment, the UCL Laws community of intellectually dynamic scholars responds to today’s global challenges. Through our research, we help to shape government policy, national and international law and its practice.As part of Legal London, we attract the leading figures in the field to contribute to our vibrant programme of events, informing public debate around social, legal, environmental and economic issues.

UCL Laws Events

This lecture will be delivered by Professor Sharon Thompson, as part of the Current Legal Problems Lecture Series 2024-25

UCL Faculty of Laws

Speaker: <a href="https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/thompsons20" title="https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/thompsons20" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Prof Sharon Thompson </a>(Cardiff University)Chair: Prof Rosemary Auchmuty <h3>About the lecture</h3>Law reformers tend to be remembered as those responsible for transforming the law; but for their involvement, the law may not have changed as it has. As academic lawyers, we are trained to look for evidence of direct links between conduct and effect. But when this evidence is not apparent, we might discard as remote campaigns which were in fact very important. These campaigns may have been neither immediately nor directly successful, but had, what I have termed, ‘inconspicuous impact’.Inconspicuous impact is an effect upon the law that did ultimately lead to change, but not in a linear or short-term fashion. The effect is inconspicuous because it relates to efforts to change the law that are not typically viewed or credited as having contributed to reform, perhaps because those efforts were initially or ostensibly unsuccessful. The inconspicuousness of impact is especially characteristic of feminist efforts to reform the law through legal channels since historically, feminists have struggled to gain a sympathetic ear among members of the executive or judiciary. This has often left feminist pressure groups outside of formal law-making processes, but they have nevertheless been lawmakers in an indirect sense.This lecture is about why, and how, we should pay attention to the more subtle ways in which feminists have contributed to law’s development. Using examples from the attempts of one feminist pressure group to use law as a tool for change – the Married Women’s Association – I identify reasons why impact can be inconspicuous and why this should lead to revisionist accounts of legal change. Where the norm is for women’s impact upon law to be washed from gender neutral law reports, statutes and government reports, this over time builds into a cumulative tide, whereby feminist contributions are written out of legal history and replaced by dominant, androcentric narratives. Understanding and elevating the enduring importance of such contributions means ensuring that inconspicuous impact counts in our assessment of how law came to be as we know it. As this lecture will explore, this compels us to look in different places, to widen our intellectual bandwidth, and to rethink what constitutes law reform, and impact on law reform. <h3>About the speaker</h3>Professor Sharon Thompson is Professor in Law at Cardiff University. Her research specialises in adult relationships, with particular focus on power, inequality and the gender of money. She has published widely on family law and feminist legal history, including two monographs: Prenuptial Agreements and the Presumption of Free Choice (Bloomsbury 2015) and Quiet Revolutionaries (Bloomsbury 2022). Sharon is recipient of the SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Book Prize, the SLS Peter Birks Second Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, the Learned Society of Wales’s Dillwyn Medal for Humanities and the Creative Arts, and the Philip Leverhulme Prize. <h3>About Current Legal Problems</h3>The Current Legal Problems (CLP) lecture series and annual volume was established over fifty five years ago at the Faculty of Laws, University College London and is recognised as a major reference point for legal scholarship. <a href="https://us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=839d488984ee13a3589cdf811&id=2147f46be0" title="https://us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=839d488984ee13a3589cdf811&id=2147f46be0" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Sign up for the mailing list to receive emails about Current Legal Problems lectures</a>Image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@jentheodore" title="https://unsplash.com/@jentheodore" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Jen Theodore</a> from <a href="https://unsplash.com/" title="https://unsplash.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Unsplash</a>fessor

Our {communityGuidelinesLink} describe the sort of content we prohibit on Eventbrite. If you suspect an event may be in violation, you can report it to us so we can investigate.

To report other categories of prohibited or illegal content, submit {link}

CLP - The ‘Inconspicuous Impact’ of Feminist Pressure Through Law

More events from UCL Laws Events

Follow organisers to get events picked for you

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in London and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.

CLP - The ‘Inconspicuous Impact’ of Feminist Pressure Through Law

More events from UCL Laws Events

Follow organisers to get events picked for you

You might also like...

Sign in for personalised recommendations

Still looking for the right event?

Explore all events in London and filter by date, category, and more to find the perfect fit.