Rosemary Hunter is a Professor of Law at the University of Kent, Canterbury, the Academic Editor of Feminist Legal Studies, and Chair of the RCSL Working Group on Gender and Law.

The concept of equality has been a key animating principle of modern feminism, and has been highly productive for feminist legal thought and feminist politics concerning law. Today however, given the failure to achieve material and psychic equality for women, feminists have come to challenge the usefulness of equality as a concept, a particular definition, or a basis for strategising. The papers in this collection reflect these concerns, primarily in the context of English-speaking, common law cultures. Collectively, the papers analyse a range of equality projects across a number of areas of public and private law, considering both competing conceptions of equality and alternatives to it. In taking stock across a century and a half and around the globe, the book illustrates the range of ways in which equality projects in law have been challenged by, and remain a challenge for, feminism.

Introduction: Feminism and Equality
Rosemary Hunter
Part I Equality Projects in Law Reform
1. The Married Women's Property Acts: Equality Was Not the Issue
Rosemary Auchmuty
2. The Demise of the Provocation Defence and the Failure of Equality Concepts
Heather Douglas
3. Is Equality Enough? Fathers' Rights and Women's Rights Advocacy
Susan B Boyd
4. Alternatives to Equality
Rosemary Hunter
Part II Constitutional Equality Projects
5. Equality Rights: What's Wrong?
Reg Graycar and Jenny Morgan
6. Haunting (In)equalities
Karin Van Marle
Part III Personal Equality Projects in the Legal Profession
7. Gender Equality and Legal Professionalism: Challenges for the First Women Lawyers
Mary Jane Mossman
8. That Obscure Object of Desire: Sex Equality and the Legal Profession
Hilary Sommerlad