New Feminists and Their Vision of Rights and Law
New Feminists and Their Vision of Rights and Law

Summary/Abstract: This paper descvibes the vision of rights and law present in the writings of some key figures of “new feminism”. New feminists are here understood as the writers analyzing the women’s issues and activists promoting female dignity in society, motivated by John Paul II’s teachings on women. The proponents of new feminism, like Janne H. Matlary, Helen Alvare, Mary Ann Glendon, or Mercedes Gutierrez, postulate various practical measures which pertain to the areas of law, political, social, and economic rights. They emphasize the need for public (political, legal, and economic) recognition of significance of the female (and male!) work in the family and at home (e.g. paid home labor included in GDP and contributing to one’s retirement and social security, flexible work hours, long and paid maternity leaves, guaranteed work for mothers, right to the support of the state for parents), the need for guaranteed protection of the most vulnerable members of society (the poor, unemployed, homeless, unborn), legal promotion of self-giving rather than self-seeking, legal stimulation of women’s enlarged participation in politics and international relations, measures to protect and promote communitarian elements of social life, linking politics with ethics, legal measures to promote the father’s responsibility for the family, etc. The article analyzes these proposals in order to understand an interesting social phenomenon which responds to many problems of not only European societies of the 21st century.

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