Guest Blogger: Ruthann Robson

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Ruthann Robson (left) as today's guest blogger.
Ruthann is Professor of Law and University Distinguished Professor at CUNY School of Law (home institution of IntLawGrrl Rebecca Bratspies, and former home of guest/alumna Penelope Andrews). Ruthann's teaching and scholarship examine constitutional law, family law, feminist legal theory, and sexuality and the law, often with reference to the class dimensions of these issues.
As detailed at her webpage, Ruthann is the author of many works developing a lesbian legal theory, including books like Sappho Goes to Law School (1998) and Lesbian (Out)Law: Survival Under the Rule of Law (1992), works of fiction like a/k/a (1997), and articles. Among her recent essays is “A Couple of Questions Concerning Class Mobility” (2009). Ruthann also is an editor of Constitutional Law Prof Blog, which today joins the "connections" blogroll in IntLawGrrls' righthand column.
In her guest post below, Ruthann presents her new article on class issues relating to domestic service by considering both a recent account of servants in the early 20th century English household of writer Virginia Woolf (as reviewed here) and two early 21st century judicial accounts of domestic service in the United States.

Heartfelt welcome!

A Servant of One's Own

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for this opportunity to guest-post on my article recently published in the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law, and Justice.)

My essay, "A Servant of One's Own: The Continuing Class Struggle in Feminist Legal Theories and Practices", starts by taking a look at a wonderful book that I read when it was first published in England. It is Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury (2007) by Newcastle University Professor of Modern English Literature and Culture Alison Light. I’d recommend the book even if you think Virginia Woolf is overrated or overexposed.

In many ways, Woolf is just a prism refracting working class life and relations amongst the classes in Victorian Great Britain. Alison Light does a pretty good job of not letting Virginia Woolf (and her husband Leonard) become the book’s moral and empathetic focus. The lives of the domestic servants maintain center stage. (credit for photo at left of Sophie Farrell, who cooked for Woolf) Additionally, domestic service is considered in broader social and political frameworks. My essay provides some of the legal background and developments, especially as women struggled for the vote -- and some women obtained it. But not all women, for the original voting qualifications operated to exclude domestic servants.

The essay then considers two recent legal developments.

The first is Long Island Care at Home v. Coke (2007), in which a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court upheld a regulation that exempted certain employees in "domestic service" from minimum and overtime wage laws even if they were hired by a company rather than a household. The essay considers the oral argument and the opinion, both of which make Evelyn Coke (below right), the servant, as invisible and nameless as the ideal servants in the Victorian era. (photo credit)

The second legal development is the trial and proceedings in U.S. v. Sabhnani, 566 F.Supp.2d 139 (E.D.N.Y. Jul 19, 2008), in which the United States prosecuted and a jury convicted a woman and a man for "forced labor" and "document servitude" of two women from Indonesia. This case received a great deal of press with much vilification of the convicted woman, Varsha Sabhnani, who was dubbed “Cruella.”

In comparing the situations of Virginia Woolf and her servants, Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. and its servants, and Varsha Sabhnani and her servants, I found many odd similarities. Issues of migration, immigration, race and ethnicity complicated all the relationships. As for gender, I think it can be very easy to see “class” issues when we think of master/servant, and less simple when there is a woman – perhaps even a feminist woman – in charge. I argue that any relationship categorized as "servant" and "master," even when the "master" is a "mistress," and even when the master/servant dichotomy is viewed as a relatively equal contractual relationship rather than one based on status, is deeply problematical. I also think that feminists need to be much more attentive to class, even when it is messy.

Another Old Feminism icon jumps the shark*

As one with a penchant for wearing my Ms.-issued T-shirt, "Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman," I was thrilled back in the summer of 1984 at the prospect of casting 1 of my 1st-ever top-of-the-national-ticket votes for Geraldine A. Ferraro (left). Ferraro had just defeated an African-American candidate, former Congresswoman and presidential candidate Shirley A. Chisholm, by a delegate vote of 3,920 to 3, to seize the Democratic vice presidential nomination.
Was unsettled soon after that convention by stories questioning my candidate. Was discomfited later in the season, as I watched what, I was forced to admit, did not seem to me anywhere near the stellar performance I'd expected in Ferraro's debate with her GOP opponent, incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush. Neither matter was enough to change my vote, though.
The chance to put A Woman in the White House trumped any and all doubts in my mind.
Other voters disagreed, however, and in 1984 Republicans trounced Ferraro and her presidential slatemate, Walter Mondale, by a popular vote margin of 58.8% to 40.6%, an electoral vote margin of 525 to 13, and an abysmal states-won margin of 49 to 1.
The experience taught me caution in choosing candidates.
I have voted, of course, for many women since, for in these interim decades there have been many, many women on the ballot. But I have never voted for The Woman when convinced that her opponent was the better choice. In general, I have been pleased with the women who've led where I lived -- U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to name 2. But by no means have all women leaders pleased me. Still, as this post indicates, I've carried a soft spot for Ferraro all these years, notwithstanding that her candidacy resulted in 4 more years of Reagan-Bush, followed by 4 of Bush-Quayle -- a stretch that helped pave the way for 7-years-and-counting of Bush-Cheney.
No soft spot any more.
IntLawGrrl Johanna E. Bond wrote a while back of her disappointment in Ms. founder Gloria Steinem. Now Ferraro's joined Steinem as an icon of Old Feminism who seems bent on permanently staining her own image in the eyes of New Feminists.
No stomach for repeating what Ferraro's said these last several days; click to read her initial words, and her subsequent defense of herself.
Suffice it to say that a "feminism" that defends women against all, and above all, a "feminism" that reduces everything to a phenomenon to be explained by assigned identities, that ignores intersections among sex and class and race and ethnicity and other attributes, a "feminism" that divides when it ought to unite, deserves no embrace.
Words of division merit only 1 response: denunciation and rejection, now and always.

* "jump the shark" is among my favorite phrases; definition here.

Money, class & the all-volunteer U.S. military

At the recent AALS meeting in New York, an extended set of panels about gender and class included a session on "national security."
I joined several other speakers (including Diane Amann, who spoke about new interpretations of gender in international law scholarship and the need for feminist voices in that arena) in addressing the differential impact of national security law and policy across the socioeconomic spectrum.
My topic was the U.S. military, and my argument was that we have long overlooked the class dimensions of the all-volunteer force that has been in place since the end of the Vietnam War. While the popular rhetoric of military recruiting emphasizes patriotism and self-sacrifice as the primary motivations for enlistment, the reality is that money puts "boots on the ground." Financial incentives are the key tool of the volunteer army; consider RAND personnel expert Bernard Rostker's latest monograph on the topic, which clearly states that increased pay and benefits are the answer to recruiting shortfalls.
And shortfalls will continue, despite the Department of Defense's sophisticated marketing, so long as the personnel needs of ongoing conflicts create such tremendous demand for more troops. The army alone needs 13,000 new enlistees each month to meet its current recruiting goals, a tough number to reach even with "quick-ship" bonuses of $20,000 per soldier. The DoD should be especially concerned about the enlistment rates of African Americans, which have dropped faster than any other demographic group: In 2001, African Americans were 23% of active duty army recruits; in 2007, they were but 15%.

Go On! "Gender & Class: Collective Voices"

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia of interest) The upcoming annual meeting in New York of the Association of American Law Schools will kick off this year with a January 3, 2008, program that promises to be of particular interest to many readers. Entitled "Gender and Class: Voices from the Collective," it's an all-day exploration of issues like incorporation of class issues into discussions on gender-based inequality; intersections vel non of class subordination with those of race, gender, and sexual orientation; and thoughts about theorizing inequality. Speakers include 3 IntLawGrrls: Hari M. Osofsky's part of the panel on "Globalization," Elizabeth Hillman and yours truly, the panel on "National Security." Other topics include "Children," "Work and Care," "Work and Institutions," "Criminalization," "The State," and "Family." Details here; hope to see you there.