Room 350, Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics (133 S. 36th Street)
Food provided / Free and open to the public

Talia Shalev (CUNY Graduate Center)
"Imagining Equality without Protection in the Era of the ERA"

Dylan Yaeger (Fordham Law School)
"The Difference Dilemma in Masculinity Studies: The Creation of Gender Categories in Antidiscrimination Law"

TALIA SHALEV  brings together Constitutional and poetic visions of equality in order to explore how the meaning of equality was negotiated during the 1970s, a decade marked by shifting discourse around equal rights. Shalev compares the text of the equal protection clause to that of the 1972 ERA, finding that each invites different metaphors through which to understand the relationship between equality and law, emphasizing protection and sanctuary, respectively. As a means of exploring the implications of these metaphors, she looks to poems by June Jordan and Adrienne Rich, two writers who were deeply engaged in the social movements of their time.

DYLAN YAEGER argues that antidiscrimination law, more than any other area of law, is explicitly defining the parameters of masculinity. He looks at three areas of anti-discrimination law—pregnancy, “lack of interest”, and gender stereotyping cases—to illustrate how this occurs. He argues that looking at these areas of antidiscrimination law through a masculinity studies lens reveals things about them that have been largely under scrutinized. Yaeger shows how the courts, when addressing questions of sex equality and antidiscrimination, are actively engaged not only in addressing issues of sexual equality, but of policing and actually creating masculinity.