Constitutional Law: Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Distinction.

Abstract

Most of the work that I have published that deals with the topic of this symposium ("Private Power and the Constitution") raises questions about the "private" part of the title.t"Private" is not a natural attribute nor descriptive in a factual sense, but rather is a political and contestable designation.zThus, for me, the topic suggests such questions as, "What does the person who wields power gain by successfully characterizing his power as 'private'?"and "What role does our written Constitution play in that advantage?"One of the main things a power-holder gains from successfully characterizing his power as "private" is a degree of legitimacy and immunity from attack.Thus, it is predictable that people will try to characterize their use of power as "private" and to characterize power deployed against them as "not private" -that is, as public, Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles.Except for notes 2, 4, 14 and 15, the footnotes were added by Christina Bull, UCLA Class of 1994, to this talk I presented to the AALS meeting in January, 1993.