Feminist Jurisprudence: Grounding the Theories

This essay originates from my participation in a workshop of the same title at the 20th National Conference on Women and the Law, held in Oakland, California in the Spring of 1989. The workshop focused on the following two questions: (1) to what extent is feminist theoretical scholarship in the field of law actually grounded in the experience of women (i.e., based on feminist method); and (2) to the extent that the theory is grounded in women's experience, does it reflect the diversity of women's experience? Because I had recently been struggling with both of these issues, I readily accepted the invitation to participate. At the time, I hoped that my preparation for the workshop would help clarify my own thinking about the connections between feminist method and theory. My particular concern was that feminist legal theorists often ignore, or at best marginalize, lesbian experience. I call this the problem of the invisible lesbian. It is a problem that has serious consequences for the building of feminist legal theory. What makes any theory particularly feminist is that it is derived from female experience, from a point of view contrary to the dominant male perception of reality. If feminist legal theory is derived from a feminist method uninformed by critical lesbian experience, the theory will be incomplete. Lesbian experience is essential to the formation of feminist