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Assess the value and importance of feminism to legal education in this country In this essay, I will assess both the value and importance of feminism to legal education in this country. In order for me to reach my conclusion, I will need to look at both sides of the argument and determine which is stronger. In order to argue both sides and support both my argument and the counter-argument, I will intend to use my own opinions and research, but I will also use and analyse the importance of different statistics and the opinions of other people. As the question specifies legal education in this country in particular, I will ensure that the statistics, research and, opinions I use will only be of those associated with the UK. Feminism was first established in the late 19th century and early 20th century in order to fight against the typical gender stereotypes. It is ‘the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities’. 1 Feminism includes people seeking to achieve equality for women in different areas such as education, society, professional opportunities, employment and politically. Over the years, women have campaigned for the right to vote, equal educational and employment opportunities, equal rights within marriage and equal political rights. The importance of feminism to legal education has been questioned for many years as previously legal education was a maledominated area as women were not entitled to educational rights. However, due to the feminist movement in the UK, there have been significant developments in both the UK's society and law. It has resulted in a change in attitudes towards the role of women, meaning that women nowadays are not expected to stay and home and look after the children, like they were previously, but instead are able to have a legal education which then allows them to hold high positions in the legal profession. Therefore, this shows feminism to be highly valuable and important to legal education in the UK, as it has completely reformed attitudes and allowed women to have the right to legal education. Feminism is an important concept which is very important 1 https://www.empowerwomen.org/en/community/discussions/2016/11/the-importance-offeminism-for-men-and-women (accessed on 12//4/19)

when it comes to legal education in this country. Over the years there have been many feminists which have criticised the existing law. This criticism has led to feminists campaigning forcefully for gender neutrality. Since the beginning of the feminist movement, there have been some significant improvements to legal education such as women now being able to receive legal education and also them being able to hold high positions in the legal profession. This is all due to women activists fighting hard for many years in order for women to be able to enjoy the same rights as men. According to Lady Justice Heather Hallett, who is the Queens's Bench division's first female vice-president and is also the chair of the Judges' Council diversity committee, ‘the law sector has changed considerably for the better for women'.2 This shows that feminism has reformed the previous stereotypical views of what a woman's role was in society, as a result, feminism has been of a big value to legal education in this country as due to women now being able to receive a high standard legal education, it has meant they are also able to achieve and work at high positions in the legal profession. Lady Justice Heather Hallet is an example of how feminism is of great importance as she is the fifth woman to become an English judge in the Court of Appeal, 3 she was called to the Bar in 1972 and in 1989 became a QC.4 This improvement in the law sector for women can be shown in a report conducted in 2018 by the Law Society which showed that 68.8% of University students accepted onto LAW LLB courses in England and Wales were women, whilst only 31.2% were male.5 Furthermore, in terms of qualified solicitors, in 2017 61.6% were female and only 38.4% were male.6 This shows that feminism is of great importance to legal education as it has made it significantly more gender-neutral, meaning that more women now practice law at University or other institutions, and then go on to qualify as practicing solicitors. This is a significant transformation from the 19th century as at the beginning of the movement women did not have the right to an education, let alone a right to 2 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/jul/12/meet-the-women-fighting-gender-bias-in-law (accessed on 2/4/19) 3https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/2bmN89nQmxGPXYBBGKXVLKY/the-rt-honlady-justice-hallett (accessed on 26/3/19) 4 Gavin Drewry, The Court of Appeal, (Bloomsbury Publishing 2007) Page 121 5 https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/law-careers/becoming-a-solicitor/entry-trends/ (accessed on 30/3/19) 6 (N5) ibid

legal education in particular. Overall, feminism is of great importance and value to legal education, as feminists have campaigned and achieved the rights for women to be able to have a legal education and hold positions in the legal profession. An example of this is Lady Justice Heather Hallet who is one of many women who are now in higher positions in the legal sector than men. Whereas before the feminism movement was introduced women did not have the rights to any education and were deemed to spend their lives as a housewife and being in charge of rearing children.

Furthermore, feminism has been of great value to what I have studied so far during my first year of a law degree. It can first be seen by studying various set modules which have included women taking cases to court, which have then resulted in significant changes being made to the law, and new precedents being set. Secondly, it is also very clearly seen when the interpretations and points of view of women are represented in the texts and articles that I use in order to further my understanding of the law. Whereas, before feminism, it would have been primarily the views of men that were used for legal teaching, as women's opinions were not valued or listened to, as they were seen as inferior and of little intellectual importance. Another example of why feminism is important to what I have studied so far is when female students speak with the same ease and confidence as men and what they say is valued as highly as what male students have said. For example, in my seminars, the opinions of both the male and females in the seminar group are equally listened to and taken on board in order to hold discussions and debates on the chosen topic. This shows that the views of women having a legal education and the importance and value of their opinion have changed massively over the years, as prior to the feminist movement, women's opinions were disregarded by society, as they did not have the same rights as men and were most definitely the inferior gender. In recent years feminist legal scholars in the United Kingdom have aimed to rewrite particular court judgments from a more feminist point of view. 7 This was carried out by a UK feminist group called Feminist Judgments Project which used the feminist judgment concept and applied this to a variety of different case judgments 7 Margaret Davies, Feminism and the idea of law, (2011) Page 1

such as criminal, family, public law, medical, etc. Their aim was to ‘seek to challenge the ongoing exclusion of women from legal subjectivity, whether as the authors of legal decisions and doctrine or as the subjects upon whose knowledge, experience, activities and concerns law is founded'. 8 This shows that feminism is very important to legal education in this country as it has resulted in women activists campaigning for a reform of legal education which has made it more accessible to those women who wish to pursue a legal career. Also, it has meant that due to groups such as the Feminist Judgments Project the law is able to be more accessible and applicable to women. During my first year of studying law, I have learned how certain cases and important events have changed the law and set a new precedent. In my opinion, across all my modules I have noticed that feminism is more prominent in criminal law in terms of women bringing cases to court which have meant that precedents have been changed on certain areas of law. For example, the law of sexual assault in criminal law has been reformed in recent years as the law on rape previously allowed a victim's sexual history with individuals other than the defendant to be considered in court during prosecution. 9 This issue was reformed by section 41 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, 10 which stated ‘if at trial a person is charged with a sexual offence, then, except with the leave of the court by or on behalf of an accused at the trial, about any sexual behaviour of the complainant’.11 This demonstrates that feminism is highly valued in legal education as women called on these legislative reforms on the law of rape and sexual assault, therefore without feminism, these reforms would not have taken place and the law would have remained the same with it being harder for the courts to make convictions or rape or assault. Overall, feminism is very important to legal education as it has resulted in reforms to legislation that was outdated and mainly male orientated such as the law on rape which found very few defendants guilty. It has also meant that women's opinions are now just as valued as men in legal resources such as textbooks, case law, etc, and also that female students 8 Rosemary Hunter, Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley, Feminist Judgments: From theory to practice (Bloomsbury publishing, 2010) Page 5 9 http://againstrape.net/category/resource (accessed on 12/4/19) 10 The Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 11 (N9) Ibid s 41(1)

have more standing when it comes to giving speeches or voicing their opinions. In terms of my personal legal education, I have found that being able to learn about cases and the changes in the law which were as a result of women is extremely useful and shows that feminism has had a great impact on legal education in this country. This is because it now means law students are now able to read the opinions and views of both men and women, in order to gain a broader understanding of the law and how opinions can differ.

On the other hand, feminism does not hold great importance to legal education as there is little feminism in legal education. This is because the law is seen as a very superior profession, but women due to gender inequality women are not seen as superior, and therefore there is a very low number of women in superior positions of leadership. Despite the feminist movement women still are not fully seen as equal to men due to views remaining the same even though laws such as women having the right to vote, the right to education and employment opportunities the same as men, have been introduced. According to the Guardian, although 61% of law graduates in the UK are women, it was recorded in 2017 that women make up only 21% of private practice partners.12 Furthermore, in the same article by the Guardian it was recorded that over the whole of Europe, England and Wales have the lowest number of female judges in proportion to male judges. 13 It was found that the main obstacle which prevented women progressing at a faster rate on the career ladder then men were mainly due to minimal opportunities for women to be able to have a flexible work pattern, which for example would be required when women have children. This shows that feminism is of very small and insignificant importance to legal education in this country as although feminism has allowed women to be able to receive a legal education in the first place, it has had little significance when it comes to women entering the legal profession, as these results show. This is because employees are more likely to employ men to take on higher positions in the legal profession than women, as women usually at some point in their careers 12 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/jul/12/meet-the-women-fighting-gender-bias-in-law (accessed on 22/3/19) 13 (N11) Ibid (accessed on 22/3/19)

would require time off for maternity leave. Another reason, for why feminism is not of great value to legal education in this country is because for the legal profession the gender pay gap is 30%, compared to only a 19% UK-wide average. This shows that the legal profession has an extremely high gender pay gap compared to over professions which are more equally paid. In terms of feminism, it means that it has little value to legal education as although feminism has been extremely important in achieving equal legal educational rights for women in this country, when female graduates then progress into the legal profession they are being paid significantly less than men in the same job which shows that feminism has had little impact on reforming the gender pay gap in the legal profession. Overall, although the statistics for female students being accepted onto LLB courses in the UK are higher than the number of male students, when it comes to female graduates advancing into the legal profession it seems that the higher-level legal occupations are not reachable for women. As a result, feminism has had little importance to legal education in this country due to the fact that even though they achieved their campaign for women to be able to have the right to an education, meaning women in the UK are now able to receive the same quality of legal education as men. On the other side of things feminism has had little importance when female students graduate from university and advance into the legal profession, as they are only able to get jobs which are much lower on the career ladder then men and they are being paid much less for the same job title. Feminism is of little importance and value to legal education in this country as stereotypical views on the role of women from the beginning of the feminist movement still remain in the present day. Even though today in this country there are more girls than ever receiving the same quality of education as men, women and young girls still face a great deal of criticism and gender inequality. In this country in 1888, Eliza Orme was the first woman to graduate from University College London with a qualifying law degree. 14 However, in 1879 she became an apprentice in the chambers of a barrister in the hope that she would then be able to become a conveyancer under the bar, but due 14 Fiona, Cownie, Stakeholders in the Law School (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010) page 41

to stereotypical views of the role of women and gender inequality being particularly strong at this time the position remained closed to her as it was only open to men. Even though this was over 100 years ago this still occurs as Dr Charlotte Proudman an award-winning human rights barrister says ‘those at the top are white upper-class men, the law is male, the law was written by men, most judges are men, and when it comes to contrasting the law around women's bodies-about rape and domestic violence for example – women are invisible, this is not democracy, this is an old boys club'. 15 This shows that even a female award-winning barrister, who is highly respected and successful in the legal profession takes the view that everything about the law is male-dominated and even laws that concern mainly women there are still only men in charge of these laws. Due to this, it is unlikely that any forceful feminist movement or campaign would lead to any reform soon as men will make legislation upon what they believe to be important and correct for society. As a result, law reforms on issues such as rape, sexual assault and rights for women are unlikely to change or change in the way that women in the present-day hope for as they are being dealt with my male MP's who can be extremely sexist to women and still hold very stereotypical views on the role of women. The idea that feminism is of little importance to legal education in this country is further endorsed by Felicity Gerry QC, who is a legal media barrister. She says ‘women have a huge contribution to make in relation to the development of the law…. in the past, women were considered property'.16 This shows that major reforms on the view of the role of women are needed in order for them to be able to freely contribute to the development and the changes in the law the same way that men do. However, without the past stereotypical views of women being seen as property and not having the same rights as men feminism can be off little importance and value to legal education in the country. This is because it would be extremely hard for women to change a person's views as they would be forcing these people to go against their own values and what they have been taught and have viewed their whole lives. For this reason, feminism would have little importance to legal education in this country because if 15 https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/women-at-the-bar (accessed on 1/4/19) 16 (N14) ibid (accessed 14/4/19)

someone strongly believes that women should not be entitled to education, and they hold a great deal of power and influence within the Government then it would be hard for women to gain their rights as laws would be made which prevented them from gaining rights to a legal education. Although there have been significant milestones achieved by the feminist movement such as women now being able to have an education and then go onto employment, sexism within education still remains. For example, over three-quarters of females that are in a mixed gender secondary school within the UK claim that at some point in school they have received sexist comments from other pupils.17 This shows that feminism is off little importance to legal education in this country as feminists are able to change the law, but as clearly shown it is unable to change the views and perceptions of people in society. Overall, taking into account both sides of the argument for whether feminism is of value and importance to legal education in this country, I take the side which says that feminism is of importance due to the fact that since the start of the feminist movement there has been major reform and changes to the role and rights of women in society, and this has been solely down to the actions and aims of the feminist movement. Therefore, without the feminist movement campaigning for women to have equal rights as men and for society to be gender neutral, no major reforms would have been made and the attitudes and laws would have remained the same, especially in legal education, as this previously was an extremely male-dominated profession and even to this day stills seems to be. Before the feminist movement, the majority of women were not entitled to education or employment opportunities and did not even have the right to vote in general and local elections. However, due to the feminist movement’s campaign for women rights, women in this country are now able to receive a high standard legal education and then are able to go on to hold high positions in the legal profession. As a result, this has eradicated gender inequality and meant that women are now able to benefit from the same rights as men. Even though feminism has been unable to change old and outdated views that many people still hold, and in 17 http://www.gendertrust.org.uk/gender-inequality-in-the-british-education-system/ (accessed on 20/4/19)

some situations, feminism is unable to prevent a gender pay gap in the legal profession or women not being able to advance up the career ladder as quickly as men are able to. It still has had significant importance in being able to change the law and the majority of people views, as without feminism women would not be able to have the rights to legal education and would certainly not be able to be successful in their careers in the legal profession as potentially solicitors or barristers. Even though the feminist movement was most significant and successful in terms of reform during the 19 th and 20th centuries. The idea and concept of feminism still remains and is extremely important to legal education in this country as gender inequality i...