• New Faces
• This Month’s Issue: Women & the Law
• Women & Politics
• Mentoring Multicultural Women Attorneys
• The New Feminism
• Forthcoming

We are pleased to announce that University of California at Los Angeles Law Professor Christine Littleton has joined our Board of Editorial Consultants, and that Mary-Christine Sungaila, an associate with Horvitz & Levy LLP (California's oldest and largest appellate law firm) is the Contributing Editor for this special "Women & the Law" issue. Both have written and litigated on women's issues, among others, and previously have contributed to Books-on-Law.

From its inception, Books-on-Law has demonstrated a commitment to reviewing books on the ever-expanding subject of women and the law, from women's progress in the profession to the law's treatment of women. This month, Books-on-Law solidifies that commitment with an entire issue devoted to Women & the Law. (A second such issue will be published in March, 2001 in honor of Women's History Month.) I am honored to serve as Contributing Editor for both Women & the Law issues.

The books featured in this month's issue reflect the wide array of publications analyzing the law's treatment of women and, in turn, women's impact on the law. Irene Stewart reviews Representing Women: Sex, Gender and Legislative Behavior in Arizona and California by Beth Reingold. University of Florida law professor Lyrissa Lidsky explores A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man by Caroline Forrell and Donna Matthews. NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund lawyers Julie Goldscheid and Yolanda Wu and conservative critic Carolyn Graglia offer contrasting views of Classrooms and Courtrooms: Facing Sexual Harassment in K-12 Schools by Nan Stein. University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky provides his insights on Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality by Ronald Dworkin, and Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson examines When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line Between Law and Popular Culture by Richard Sherwin, followed by the author's reply. Lynn Hecht Schafran, the Director of NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund's National Judicial Education Project, shares her views on the controversial A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer, and the authors reply. Kristina Zarlengo rounds out the issue with a review of Betty Friedan's memoir Life So Far.

Several new books chronicle women's progress in politics (just in time for the November elections).

In Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate (William Morrow, 2000) (ISBN: 0060197676), the nine women who currently serve in the United States Senate recount their personal and political histories in an effort to encourage more women to seek elective office.  Democrats Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Patty Murray, and Barbara Mikulski join their Republican counterparts Susan Collins, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Olympia Snowe in sharing, for example, the challenges they overcame in balancing work and family and their efforts to bring issues such as child care and domestic violence to the forefront of the legislative agenda. (Note: a review of Nine and Counting will be featured in the March issue of Books-on-Law.)

In a similar vein, veteran Washington political pundits Eleanor Clift and Tom Brazaitis explore why a woman has not yet been elected President, and when she might be, in Madam President: Shattering the Glass Ceiling (Scribner, 2000) (ISBN: 0684856190).  The authors set forth the book's purpose and scope in the introduction: "A woman taking on the same career challenges as men has become commonplace, yet the election of a woman as president still seems remote.  .  .  .  What we set out to do in this book is chart the efforts to get a woman on the ticket.  .  .  .  Our book examines the changing political landscape and the women who will be leaders in the next century: who they are, what drew them to politics, what sacrifices they have had to make, and how politics will be different because of them."

Several of those interviewed touch on the importance of civil rights laws in leveling the political playing field: former labor secretary Lynn Martin, for example, opines that, as a result of Title IX and its requirement that colleges and universities provide equal opportunity for men and women to participate in intercollegiate sports, "girls are now playing competitive sports, and that has had a whole different effect.  .  .  . [They] learn[] to win and lose, to work together as a team." The book also highlights the impact of family demands on women's political advancement; for, as the authors observe, "[c]onflicts between professional and personal responsibilities weigh heavier on women. Building a political career takes time. Many women, at least those who marry and have children, postpone the start of their career and are never able to catch up. It is easier for an American man to fit an all-consuming focus into his life than it is for a woman."

No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith (Rutgers University Press, 2000) (ISBN: 0813527228), part of the Rutgers Series on Women and Politics, explores the life and influences of the first woman to serve in both the House and Senate (and who also entered the Republican Presidential race in 1964).  Author Janaan Sherman, an American history professor at the University of Memphis, bases her biography in part on personal interviews with Senator Smith, and paints a compelling portrait of a woman whose energy and drive resulted in unprecedented political achievement.

Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Words of Wisdom from Multicultural Women Attorneys Who've Been There and Done That (ABA Professional Education, 2000) (ISBN: 1570738157) is a compilation of 84 open letters to the next generation edited by Karen Clanton, the chair of the American Bar Association's Multicultural Women Attorneys Network. The letters offer guidance on subjects ranging from building a practice to balancing career and family; contributors are women attorneys of color from academia and a wide array of practices.  While the letters are intended for a multicultural audience, the advice they offer is valuable for all attorneys.  As one in-house attorney counsels: "Pursue relationships with mentors and be open to finding them in unexpected packages.  Many women of color assume that a mentor has to look like them." Angela Oh (a practicing lawyer who parlayed her leadership of the Korean community following the 1992 Los Angeles riots into an appointment on President Clinton's commission on race and a career of speaking and writing about race relations) highlights the importance of community involvement.  She notes that her "service on various commissions and boards enhanced [her] opportunities to help others and expanded [her] base of knowledge, contacts, and skills."  Northwestern Law Professor Dorothy Roberts advises:  "Have the faith and courage to follow your conscience and your career will be blessed in unexpected ways."  And Temple University law professor Joanne Epps suggests: "Keep tabs on how your inner self is holding up.  Are you happy?  Are you content?  Are you fulfilling your spiritual needs?  Are you giving to your support network as much as you take?  .  .  .  When you look in the mirror, do you like not what you see but who you see?"  Sound advice for any attorney.  The book is available by e-mail at a cost of $20 for ABA members; $24 for nonmembers.  (Be sure to note the Book Product Code:  4520009.)

The reinvigoration of feminism is the focus of the eagerly-anticipated book Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, out this Fall from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (ISBN: 0374526222).  The book is written by two young women with solid feminist activist credentials:  author Jennifer Baumgardner is a former editor at Ms. magazine; co-author Amy Richards is a contributing editor at Ms. and leader of the Third Wave, an activist group for young women.

The book is as much a primer on second-wave feminism (e.g., the work of Friedan, Steinem, and Helen Gurley Brown) as it is a catalogue of the fractured third wave (Riot Grrls, Bust magazine, Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolf) and its "conservative feminist" counterparts (e.g., Katie Roiphe and the Independent Women's Forum).  The authors argue that, with the mainstreaming of "girl power" into popular culture, the "political" component is largely missing from feminist activism today.  But they urge that individual young women are still doing more to improve women's circumstances than the media will acknowledge.  The authors encourage other young women and girls who have benefited from feminism's successes to protect the equality they have, and to work to secure additional rights.  They outline a "Thirteen-Point Agenda" for change (e.g., raise awareness of feminist history, so the movement need not be reinvented from the ground up every 50 years or so).  They also provide pointers on agitating and organizing for change, and include an exhaustive list of organizations to contact (from Voters for Choice to NOW and the Southern Poverty Law Center) to effect that change.  This book is a manifesto for the masses, designed to ignite a new feminist movement.  While the book contains little legal analysis, it serves as a powerful reminder to lawyers and law professors who value gender equality that vigilance is needed.

In December, Books-on-Law features reviews of books relating to Law & Economics and a review essay on free speech. This issue is scheduled to contain the following:

• Sidney W. DeLong, reviewing Eric A. Posner, Law and Social Norms (Harvard University Press, 2000)
• David D. Friedman, reviewing Richard Cooter, The Strategic Constitution (Princeton University Press, 2000)
• Peter Linzer, reviewing Elizabeth Cooke, The Modern Law of Estoppel (Oxford University Press, 2000) and David Ibbetson, A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (Oxford University Press, 2000)
• Marygold S. Meilli, reviewing Margaret F. Brinig, From Contract to Covenant: Beyond the Law and Economics of the Family (Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Lawrence E. Mitchell, reviewing Robin Paul Malloy, Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
• Eric A. Posner, reviewing David D. Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (Princeton University Press, 2000)
• Review Essay:  Ronald Collins, reviewing Terry Eastland, editor, Freedom of Expression in the Supreme Court: The Defining Cases (Rowman & Littlefield / Ethics & Public Policy Center, 2000)

Mary-Christine Sungaila, Contributing Editor, Books-on-Law

© Ronald K.L. Collins and David Skover, 2000.