Privatization, Law, and the Challenge to Feminism

MaDonna R. Maidment is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology at Carleton University.

Drawing on empirical and theoretical insights from political economy,
welfare state literature, and legal theory, this collection (which began
as a collaborative project at the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies
at Osgoode Hall Law School) is a compelling and revealing examination of
the effects of privatization trends in Canada on the lives of women. The
eight original case studies “examine the complex role of law in
privatization projects across policy areas ranging from fiscal and labor
policy through family, welfare and immigration law to laws designed to
regulate the provision of health services and new reproductive
technologies and to prohibit child prostitution.”

The book is divided into three sections. In Part 1, which focuses on
the market, Lisa Phillipps examines the role of income-tax laws in
promoting and enforcing the privatization of social reproduction. Judy
Fudge looks at the federal public sector, tracing the transformations in
the legal regulation of women’s employment with the federal public
service from 1908 to 2001. Mary Condon analyzes the privatization of
retirement income and its implications for women’s future earnings.

Issues of social reproduction are examined in Part 2. Brenda Cossman
considers the discourses through which the privatization of social
reproduction is being pursued and highlights the contradictions between
neoliberal and neoconservative family visions. Audrey Macklin examines
the extent to which the population is reproduced through immigration
policies. Part 3 considers the enduring problems of social health and
order. Here, Joan Gilmour discusses privatization issues in Canadian
health. Roxanne Mykitiuk explores how macro-changes in global production
are driving changes in Canadian reproductive and genetic health policy.
Dianne Martin looks at child prostitution and shows that privatization
does not mean less state regulation, but rather a shift in the
modalities of state regulation.

The work concludes by “identifying the challenges privatization poses
to feminism, evaluating the role of law in achieving sustentative
equality for women, and assessing the limitations of an equality
analysis for evaluating the implications of law and public policy.”
This book should be of interest not only to those in the legal
profession but to a much wider audience of academics, policymakers, and
general readers who want to know more about Canadian privatization
trends and the distinctively gendered impact of this shift in state
form.