Feminist Lunch Series: "Approaching Lesbian Legal History" by Karen Pearlston (UNB Law)

Karen Pearlston (UNB Law) will speak about "Approaching Lesbian Legal History" on Wednesday, February 24 at 12:00 PM via Teams as part of the Winter 2021 Feminist Lunch Series in the Faculty of Arts at UNB. In her talk, she will explain the distinctions between the criminal treatment of sex between men and the regulation of lesbianism in and through family law and then raise sociolegal and historiographic questions about lesbianism, law, and legal history.

Karen Pearlston has taught at UNB Law since 2002. She has published articles that interrogate the history of coverture (the rule that denied a legal personality to married women) and on the history of family law. In that vein, she has published “Avoiding the Vulva: Judicial Interpretations of Lesbian Sex Under the Divorce Act, 1968,” (2017) 32 Canadian Journal of Law & Society 37-53, and “’Something More’: The State’s Place in the Bedrooms of Lesbian Nation,” in No Place for the State: The Origins and Legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill, eds. Sethna &Dummitt (UBC Press, 2020). Karen was an organizer of the conference and campaign Anti-69: Against the Mythologies of the 1969 Criminal Law Reform and is active with Reproductive Justice NB.

To attend on Feb. 24th, click on the following link (http://tinyurl.com/45zs5b4j) or email dgrant@unb.ca. 

The virtual Feminist Lunch Series series will continue on March 17 with a talk by Angela Tozer, from UNB History. The last talk of the series will take place on March 31. All are invited!

The Feminist Lunch Series is organized by the UNB Gender & Women’s Studies Program, the UNB/STU University Women’s Centre and the Office of the UNB Dean of Arts. Special thanks to Daniel Grant for technical help. For more information on the series, contact Sophie Lavoie (lavoie@unb.ca).