Women and the Epistemology of Corporations Law

Abstract

In order to effect changes to law school culture, it is critical that the central epistemological assumptions of legal education be challenged. Gender analysis is valuable for corporations lawyers because it provides a way to challenge the epistemology which is fundamental to corporate law scholarship. This article proposes to locate the participation of women in corporations law. In doing so, it suggests that the “knowledge” of corporations law which is taught in Australian law schools masks the experiences of women in this area. When one begins to explore the issue of gender and corporations law, one’s immediate impression is that women are invisible. The protagonists in both corporate activity and corporations law always seem to be men. Corporations law is based upon a philosophy of liberal autonomy which has as its basic premise the self-interested male. The law has sought to preserve the liberal philosophy in this area and has regulated behaviour only when individual self-interest has caused certain kinds of quantifiable harms. Implicit and explicit in the law of corporations are such values as competition, hierarchy aggression and strict classification of roles.

Adding mediation to India's corporate resolution process

“…106 While discussing the epistemology of corporate law, Peta Spender wrote that corporate law is based on the premise of the self-interested male, characterized by values such as 'competition, hierarchy, aggression and strict classification of roles'. 107 The ethics of care was also used to redefine the stakeholder theory in corporate law by highlighting the importance of a network of relationships forged among stakeholders. 108 This view embraced the feminist care conception of viewing the self, that is the corporation, in relation with stakeholders, which gives meaning to the corporation.…”