Deconstructing jurisprudence: An experiential feminist critique

Feminist legal scholars continue to raise questions concerning the nature of jurisprudence in its treatment of women. Central to this debate are issues of knowledge, truth, and power founded on the patriarchal code of justice. This article argues that the essentialism of the masculine system alone is entirely inadequate in speaking for the voice of women and/or for the feminine in consciousness. By disrupting Freudian and Lacanian constructions of female sexuality through a psycho-linguistic analysis, these insights are then applied to the works of both Carol Gilligan and Catharine MacKinnon. In doing so, it is discovered that an uncultivated feminine discourse is grounded in experience, gatherings, consciousness-raising, and interpersonal truth. Constituting an unadulterated code of feminine justice requires a return to imaginative discourse; a process whereby metaphors, symbols, and myths for and about women are re-constituted and freed from misogynous language and culture.