Gender,Culture and the Law: Approaches to ‘Honour Crimes’ in the UK

This article examines the debate on whether to analyse ‘honour crimes’ as gender-based violence, or as cultural tradition, and the effects of either stance on protection from and prevention of these crimes. In particular, the article argues that the categorisation of honour-related violence as primarily cultural ignores its position within the wider spectrum of gender violence, and may result in a number of unfortunate side-effects, including lesser protection of the rights of women within minority communities, and the stigmatisation of those communities. At the same time it is problematic to completely dismiss any cultural aspects of violence against women, and a nuanced approach is required which carefully balances the benefits and detriments of taking cultural factors into account. The article examines the issues within the context of the legal response to cases involving honour-related violence, arguing that although the judiciary has in a number of cases inclined towards viewing ‘honour’ as primarily cultural rather than patriarchal, in some cases they have begun to take a more gender-based or ‘mature multiculturalism’ approach.

Norway as an Example in the UK Women’s Suffrage Campaign

This article analyses the character and meanings of references to Norwegian experiences in the UK women’s suffrage campaign. It argues that the references to Norway served two main purposes. Firstly, they served as evidence of all the good things that would happen as a result of women gaining the vote, such as wage equality and social reform. Secondly, they played a significant part in establishing a counter-narrative to the anti-suffragist warnings of all the terrible things that would follow women’s suffrage. The study also discusses the limitations of political exchange and shows how different political contexts came into play in the debates on the validity of the Norwegian example.     

Legal Form and Temporal Rationalities in UK Work–Life Balance Law

Abstract

This article attempts to crack open the temporal assumptions in the goal of ‘balancing’ work and family, as it is mobilised in UK law. Within studies of gender and labour, ‘balance’, as a concept and a politico-legal objective, is worthy of much more scholarly attention than it has received to date. In the UK context, balance is understood as a means of achieving equilibrium, both at the level of the labour market and within the context of unpaid care. Specifically, mobilising the short horizon of a ‘reckonable present’, balance creates a paradigm or topos through which dilemmas of value and care can be played out and resolved. The specific qualities of the UK's right to request flexible work, for its part, indicate that law's temporal qualities can have specific regulatory functions, shifting scale and reframing responsibilities. By looking closely at legal technicalities, we can discern much about the conceptual logic that affects many of us through influential regulatory strategies. The political imperative of analysing work–life balance might, in this way, require us to return not only to time, but also, strangely, to legal form.