Boyd to Host Lecture on Masculinities and the Law

The Boyd School of Law is very pleased to announce that it will host a lecture entitled, "What's Masculinity Got to Do with It?: Gender, Pop Culture, and Law," on Monday, January 28, 2013. The lecture will be given by William S. Boyd Professor of Law Ann C. McGinley and Suffolk Professor of Law Frank Rudy Cooper at 4:30 p.m. in Room 102 at Boyd School of Law. The lecture has been approved for one CLE credit.

The lecture will be based on McGinley and Cooper's recently published book, Masculinities and the Law: A Multidimensional Approach. According to masculinities theory, masculinity is not a biological imperative but a social construction. Men engage in a constant struggle with other men to prove their masculinity. Masculinities and the Law develops a multidimensional approach. It sees categories of identity—including various forms of raced-, classed-, and sex-oriented masculinities—as operating simultaneously and creating different effects in different contexts. By applying multidimensional masculinities theory to law, McGinley and Cooper's cutting-edge collection both expands the field of masculinities and develops new thinking about important issues in feminist and critical race theories. Topics covered in the book include how norms of masculinity influence the behavior of policemen, firefighters, and international soldiers on television and in the real world; employment discrimination against masculine cocktail waitresses and all transgendered employees; the legal treatment of fathers in the U.S. and the ways unauthorized migrant fathers use the dangers of border crossing to boost their masculine esteem; how Title IX fails to curtail the masculinity of sport; the racist assumptions behind the prison rape debate; the surprising roots of homophobia in Jamaican dancehall music; and the contradictions of the legal debate over women veiling in Turkey. Ultimately, the book argues that multidimensional masculinities theory can change how law is interpreted and applied.

Professor McGinley has taught at Boyd School of Law since 1999. A cum laude 1982 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Professor McGinley clerked for the Honorable Joseph S. Lord, III of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and practiced commercial, employment, and civil rights law. Professor McGinley is an internationally recognized scholar in the area of employment law, employment discrimination and disability law and a leader in "Multidimensional Masculinities and the Law," an emerging discipline that applies masculinities theory from social sciences to legal interpretation. She has published more than 30 law review articles and numerous book chapters on employment law and anti-discrimination law. Professor McGinley is also co-author of Disability Law: Cases, Materials, Problems, Fifth Edition (LexisNexis) (with Laura Rothstein). In addition, her book in progress, which will be published by New York University Press in 2013, is entitled, Through a Different Lens: Multidimensional Masculinities and Employment Discrimination Law. Professor McGinley has taught at the University of Insubria, Italy, and has presented a lecture on sexual harassment to students enrolled in the master’s degree program in Labor Law at the Universidad de Adolfo Ibanez, Santiago, Chile. She has recently been invited to join the Academic Board of the Master’s in Labor Law program at the University of Adolfo Ibanez.

Professor Cooper is a tenured Professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Duke University Law School, where he served as a staff editor on the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy. Prior to entering law teaching, he served as a federal district court judicial clerk, practiced law, and was a teaching assistant at Harvard University, where he won three teaching awards. At Suffolk, Professor Cooper has taught Constitutional Law; Constitutional Law/Criminal Procedure; Criminal Law; and Race, Gender & Law. A leader in national Law Professor organizations, Professor Cooper has served on the Boards of the Society of American Law Teachers, Latina/o Critical Legal Theory, and the John Mercer Langston Writing Workshop. His scholarly interests lie at the intersection of Criminal Procedure and Critical Race Feminism, especially as applied to policing and men of color.

Additional information regarding registration and CLE credit is available here.