ARTICLE ANNOUNCEMENT: Legal Reasoning and Stereotypes in the Case Law from a Comparative Family Law Perspective

By elena Faletti
The aim of this paper is the analysis of gender stereotypes in comparative family law, focusing on English and Italian case law, especially to the traditional gender roles: male-female, husband-wife, father-mother. Indeed, analyzing the grounds of the judgments in an area with a strong influence of political, philosophical, religious and social issues as family law, we find that stereotypes, especially gender stereotypes, could hide themselves behind apparently neutral concepts. But what is a “stereotype”? Especially a “gender stereotype”? It concerns the sex of a person, especially his or her failure to conform with socially accepted sexual behaviour about what “real” men or women do or don't do.

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