ABSTRACT
Feminist legal theory draws from the experiences of women and from critical perspectives developed within other disciplines to offer powerful analyses of the relationship between law and gender and new understandings of the limits of, and opportunities for, legal reform. As an institution, law has both helped to implement and constrained feminist agendas. The law's guarantee of equality enabled feminists to articulate differences in the law's treatment of men and women and provided a structure through which feminists could pursue legal change. Christine Littleton in "Reconstructing Sexual Equality" emphasizes not only those disadvantages faced by women as a result of their unique biological characteristics but also those resulting from women's social traits and characteristics. Some feminist attacks on the subject have helped to crystallize a debate within feminism over whether allegedly female attributes and values are essential, inherent characteristics, or whether they are primarily the result of processes of social construction.
