2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

Historians of gender, of violence, and of the legal system have persuasively argued that women’s legal experiences are complex. Neither comprehensively redemptive nor unquestioningly oppressive, legal structures have responded to women as supposed perpetrators or victims, plaintiffs or defendants, in a multitude of ways. Race, class, sexual behaviors, marital status, local politics, the individuality of judicial figures, as well as historical change over time, have shaped and continue to shape women’s legal experiences. These papers offer snapshots and analyses of different legal contexts in which officials determined law, responded to specific situations of violence (or supposed violence) involving one or more women, and decided upon an action (or lack thereof). Conversely, they simultaneously offer snapshots and analyses of communities, families, and individual efforts to manipulate, survive within, and/or benefit from the legal system—sometimes amidst great sympathy, sometimes amidst great disdain. Ultimately, these papers explore the importance given to different lives in multiple legal contexts, asking questions about trauma, agency, place, policing, and judicial priorities.