Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy Symposium

Topic: Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality and Gender

Friday, September 17, 2010

The Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy invites you to attend “Patriarchal Religion, Gender and Sexuality” from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, September 17, in the Worrell Professional Center.

Patriarchal religion has been the chief guarantor of straight male power historically. Fundamentalist religions continue to claim authority over the principal social and legal issues of today.  This symposium explores the ways in which patriarchy continues to exert control over women and sexual minorities through artificial gender and sexuality norms enforced as moral truth.  The symposium will include a critical evaluation of so-called “new natural law” theory, the relationship between patriarchal religious myth and the proliferation of pornography and woman-hating in Western popular culture, the development of gender and sexuality norms and the treatment of non-conformists in the Islamic legal tradition.

Featured Speakers

• David Richards, New York University School of Law
• Nicholas Bamforth, Oxford Law
• Jane Caputi, Florida Atlantic University

This inaugural symposium for the Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy is made possible by the generous donations by Wake Forest Women’s and Gender Studies, the Office of the Provost, The Easley Fund, and the Wake Forest Department of Religion.