... jurisprudence? Equal rights or neo-paternalism1? Feminist activism has also had a major impact on many areas of the law, including rape, self-defence, domestic violence, and such new legal categories as sexual harassment. However, the ideology of legal feminism today goes far beyond the original and widely supported goal of equal treatment for both sexes. The new agenda is to redistribute power from the "dominant class" (men) to the "subordinate class" (women), and such key concepts of Western jurisprudence as judicial neutrality and individual rights are declared2. Courts should resist efforts to limit individual rights just to protect women as a class, and reaffirm the fundamental principle in harmony with the classical liberal origins of the movement for women's rights: equality before the law regardless of gender. Carol Smart3 expresses the idea that "feminist socio-legal theory faces another difficulty in as much as the tension that has always existed around the ...

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