ABSTRACT
Of the most criticised figures within feminist legal jurisprudence is English law’s ubiquitous ‘Reasonable Person’. He is a prominent, though ‘classless’ individual, impressively conversant with many disciplines of law; a chameleonic character whose age, gender, physical ability, skill, religion, ethnicity and foresight will surely vary when called upon to do so; he is the true mark of prudence, taking risks only when the burden of their avoidance is too great; he is utterly ‘free from both over-apprehension and from over-confidence’ (Glasgow Corporation v Muir [1943] AC 448, 457); and as Sir Alan Herbert once comically commented of this most remarkable person, he is ‘an everpresent help in time of trouble, and his apparitions mark the road to equity and right’ (1936: 2). However, despite his perfect virtue, the reasonable person is quite ordinary indeed, and is to be found sitting on the Clapham Omnibus, the Bondi Tram, the London Underground, or in the evening pushing a lawn mower in his shirtsleeves. Nor is he free of all shortcomings, but since these are few and far between he continues to occupy his quite privileged place in English law as ‘an ideal, a standard, the embodiment of all those qualities which we demand of the good citizen’ (Herbert, 1936: 2). So who or what, is this ‘reasonable person’?
