Handbook of Feminist Legal Theory

The Handbook of Feminist Legal Theory offers a comprehensive, systematic, and at the same time critically normative introduction to a central, long-marginalized field of legal scholarship. It shows that law is neither neutral nor genderless, but remains deeply embedded in social power relations-and that this is precisely where its emancipatory as well as its repressive potential lies. Starting from epistemological foundations, the work develops feminist perspectives on central categories of legal theory such as subjectivity, equality, rationality, universalism, statehood, and the public sphere. It reconstructs the historical lines of feminist legal criticism, analyzes law as a power structure, and integrates intersectional, postcolonial, and queer-feminist approaches. In doing so, it becomes clear that feminist legal theory cannot be reduced to "women's issues," but rather demands a fundamental reassessment of legal normativity. In a second focus, the handbook consistently applies these theoretical insights to key areas of law-from constitutional and human rights to civil, family, criminal, labor, and social law, as well as questions of legal policy design. Law is not seen as a mere set of rules, but as a contested social space in which gender, power, and justice are constantly being renegotiated. The Handbook of Feminist Legal Theory combines academic precision with social relevance and understands feminist legal theory as an open, self-reflective project-necessary as long as law structures inequality and at the same time carries within itself the possibility of overcoming it. In other words, always. Bremen University Press has published over 5,000 specialist books in various languages since 2005. January 2026