- Margaret Thornton, ‘Affirmative Action, Merit and the Liberal State’ (1985) 2(2) Australian Journal of Law 6 Society 28.
- Eg, Margaret Thornton, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity and the Academy’ (1989) 17 International Journal of the Sociology of Law 115; Margaret Thornton, ‘Discord in the Legal Academy: The Case of the Feminist Scholar’ (1994) 3 Australian Feminist Law Journal 53.
- 'I have addressed this issue in Margaret Thornton, ‘The Development of Feminist Jurisprudence’ (1998) 9(2) Legal Education Review 171.
- Margaret Thornton, (1986) 3 Australian Journal of Law & Society.
- Today, I would prefer to say ‘masculinist’ as it is less essentialising, but the difference is probably of little consequence in practice.
- It is worth reminding readers of Wollstonecraft's reassuring words:
- Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in, and to throw off, by the force of their own minds, the prejudices which the maturing reason of the world will in time disavow, must learn to brave censure. We ought not to be too anxious respecting the opinion of others.
- Mary Wollstonecraft, ‘Letter to a Friend’ in Janet Todd (ed.), A Wollstonecraft Anthology, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989, 266.
- The publication of the Australian Feminist Law Journal is a notable example.
- Nietzsche articulates the germ of this idea in relation to liberal institutions, which appears to have been picked up and developed by both Zizek and Baudrillard. See Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (trans R J Hollingdale), Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1968, p 92; Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London: Verso, 1989, 170; Jean Baudrillard, The Illusion of the End (trans Chris Turner), Cambridge: Polity, 1994, 104.
- Evidence for this thesis in relation to the legal profession as a whole is contained in my book, Margaret Thornton, Dissonance and Distrust: Women in the Legal Profession, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1996.
- The language of government documents is exemplary. See, for example. Department of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Learning for Life: Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy (West Committee Report), Canberra: AGPS, 1998. See also Simon Marginson, Markets in Education, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997.
- Melbourne University offers a two-year law degree for $72,000. The benchmarking of newer law schools with older schools, such as Melbourne, is likely to result in a move to the lowest common denominator. Quaere: What is the minimum number of subjects that could be offered for what would still pass as a law degree? Would it require any more than the eleven areas of knowledge specified in the Uniform Admission Rules and taught at the most minimal, technocratic level? As the UAR after all does not preclude combining two or more areas of knowledge in the one subject, what about eight subjects in a one-year law degree?
- I have elaborated on this concern in Margaret Thornton, ‘Technocentrism in the Law School: Why the Gender and Colour of Law Remain the Same’ (1998) 36(2) Osgoode Hall Law Journal 369.
- Bill Readings, The University in Ruins, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1996. See also Tony Coady (ed), Why Universities Matter, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000; Paul James (ed), Burning Down the House: The Bonfire of the Universities, North Carlton: Association for the Public University with Arena Publications, 2000.
- The idea of the multifaceted nature of discourse theory is borrowed from Foucault, although he was not talking about feminism. See Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans A M Sheridan Smith, London: Tavistock, 1972, 31 et passim.
Australian Feminist Law Journal
Volume 14, 2000 - Issue 1