Law, Rights, and Gender: Where Do We Stand?

In recent decades, the gender analysis of law has gained visibility and importance internationally and in the European area. It has, however, partly distanced itself from the original feminist approach. The emergence of a gendered perspective on law is therefore criticized as much by those who would deny its prominence as by those who fear that it distorts the original feminist claims. Contemporary feminism is a plural movement that presents different approaches as much to the concept of gender as to the relationship between gender, law, rights, and jurisdictional claiming strategies. The essay aims to examine these different approaches in the light of the history of feminist analyses of law, questioning the need to accommodate the critiques of some currents of feminism, without, however, renouncing the language of rights. This is understood as an indispensable tool that nevertheless cannot be considered a panacea and must be enlivened by practices of activism.