Essentialism or Pluralism: The Future of Legal Feminism.

In this article, I argue that legal feminists must focus on the "purpose" for engaging in feminist jurisprudence. As feminists, our main goal must be to transform society and achieve social justice for all women. However, legal feminism is predominantly concerned with the issues that are relevant to the lives of western, white, middle-class women. This article relies on the current debate on race and essentialism and argues that it is incumbent upon legal feminists to reconceptualize gender to acknowledge the plurality of the experiences of women, including women of the third world. However, even if legal feminism could accommodate all the demands of pluralism, it still lacks a theory of social transformation. Instead of endlessly debating whether they are essentialists or not, legal feminists must articulate how these visions can be translated into institutional commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]