Copyright (c) 2008 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker Recent documents in Katharine K. Baker en-us Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:50:01 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/23 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/23 Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:22:56 PDT This article examines the problems with a social norm that assumes women should shoulder a disproportionate amount of unpaid family work. It evaluates the most recent empirical data which suggests that women continue to do substantially more unpaid work than men, and men continue to do substantially more paid work than women. It then briefly reviews two standard explanations for where this gendered division of work may come from, biological inclination and/or systems of male dominance. It suggests that neither of these traditional explanations have given adequate consideration to the normative question begged by the extant division of labor. Is there something wrong with the fact that women seem to choose to do more unpaid work than men do? This article answers that question both for women who forego paid work entirely and for (the much larger class of) women who combine paid and unpaid work but still perform the lion's share of their household's home work. The article suggests that the problem with the unpaid work norm is not so much that women do not get paid for as much of their work as men do, because many women do end up getting paid - by their husbands - for the work they do in the home. Instead, the problem with the unpaid work norm is the messages that it sends with regard to the need for and ability to combine paid and unpaid work. The analysis presented suggests that women opting out of paid work entirely is problematic because it puts insufficient pressure on the workplace to afford flexibility for the many workers who need it. More important, the article suggests that the extant division of unpaid labor, even in households in which both spouses perform paid work, is putting many of the equality gains that women have made in jeopardy. If so many women continue to subordinate their own paid work so that their spouses do not have to, the workplace is likely to take notice and start assuming precisely that. Employers may well start resisting equality legislation that prevents firms from making accurate predications about women's likelihood of working less hard (at paid work) than do men. Katharine K. Baker http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/21 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/21 Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:19:25 PDT This piece explores the relationship between legal and biological parenthood. It examines how neither history, nor evolutionary biology nor moral philosophy dictate a legal regime in which parenthood must be based on biological connection, but that attraction to a biological (or "bionormative") regime remains strong. In explaining why, it suggests that much of what attracts people to bionormativity is not biology itself, but the way in which a biological regime constructs parenthood as a private, exclusive and binary enterprise. It is these ancillary qualities of bionormativity that people may care the most about. Today, a variety of forces put pressure on these ancillary qualities of bionormativity. The extent of child poverty, the rejection of (even the appearance of) monogamy and the use of donated gametes all, in different ways, bring into question the extent to which we may want parenthood to stay private, exclusive, binary and biological. The analysis presented here suggests that what is most destabilizing to a bionormative regime is not direct manipulation of biological material, but the fluid living patterns of contemporary adults. Because contemporary adult relationships are less likely to be permanently binary and exclusive, so is parenthood. When parenthood becomes less binary and exclusive, it becomes less private and less biological as well. The analysis presented also reveals that a construction of parenthood that is more public, more inclusive, less binary and less biological is a construction of hierarchical parenthood, or a parental regime in which some parents have substantially more parental rights and responsibilities than others. Recognizing degrees of parenthood may be an inevitable byproduct of a system that rejects bionormativity. Katharine K. Baker http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/20 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/20 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:20:20 PST This analysis of the American Law Institute's Principles of Family Law, Chapter 3, examines how the Principles perceive the origins and extent of parental obligation. What is that makes someone financially responsible for a child? Perhaps surprisingly, the Drafters of this key chapter of the Principles spend remarkably little time analyzing that question. Instead, to determine who has parental obligation, the Principles rely on extant legal paternity and parenthood doctrine that is itself completely muddled. To determine the extent of parental obligation, the Principles employ a binary biological ideal of parenthood that fails to reflect reality for close to half of the children in this country. What is most striking about this traditional approach to parental obligation is how much it contrasts with the Principles' approach to parental rights in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 does a great deal of ambitious work laying out a new framework for who should enjoy parental rights and why. In doing so, it greatly expands the pool of people who may be entitled to parental rights and it makes clear that more than two people can be parents to one child. Chapter 3 does almost nothing to expand the pool of people who may be responsible for a child and it specifically discourages the notion that more than two people can parent one child. Thus, it is clear that adults may enjoy parental rights without shouldering any parental responsibility. Regardless of what one thinks of the wisdom of either chapter 2 or 3, their contrasting treatment of parental rights and obligation demands further analysis. Katharine K. Baker Domestic Relations http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/19 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/19 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:13:14 PST Katharine K. Baker Women http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/18 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/18 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:12:01 PST Katharine K. Baker Environmental Law http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/17 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/17 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:10:38 PST Katharine K. Baker Women http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/16 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/16 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:09:14 PST Katharine K. Baker Women http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/15 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/15 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:07:22 PST Katharine K. Baker Women http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/14 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/14 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:05:51 PST Katharine K. Baker Women http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/13 http://works.bepress.com/katharine_baker/13 Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:50:25 PST Katharine K. Baker Women