We are proud to present our new feminist journal, Gender and Justice, which is born out of our individual and combined commitment to feminism as a political project, and as a method of ‘doing’ social research based on the principle – inspired by activist and congressman, John Lewis – of ‘good trouble, necessary trouble’.
With those aims in mind, we want this journal to provide an ethical and rigorous space for the feminist exploration and problematisation of, among others, social, political, economic and legal factors that impact, as well as shape and inform, gendered ways of living and being globally. As Sara Ahmed reminds us: ‘To live a feminist life is to make everything into something that is questionable. The question of how to live a feminist life is alive as a question as well as being a life question.’
Fundamentally, then, it is our ambition that feminist researchers at all stages of their careers turn to us to publish their work, confident in the knowledge that we will treat them and their research with respect and recognise their dignity as members of a broad and inclusive academic community.
We welcome articles from a range of gender and feminist perspectives, recognising the intersectional diversity within the movement. Our purpose is not to develop a unified or prescriptive feminist voice on equality and justice. Indeed, we doubt whether in the contemporary moment such unity is either possible or desirable. Rather, we see respectful and fact-driven disagreement and divergence as grounds for productive engagement and the development of new ways of thinking. Reflecting on this question, Judith Butler notes: “As a democratic enterprise, feminism has had to forfeit the presumption that at base we can all agree about some things or, equivalently, to embrace the notion that each of our most treasured values are under contestation and that they will remain contested zones of politics.”
Gender and Justice has its roots in the collaborative international Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Network (LEX). In ways that echo and support this new journal’s ethos and approach, LEX brings together feminist scholars in the social sciences and humanities in an international community of learning. LEX researchers are interested in advancing critical, as well as trans- and interdisciplinary feminist scholarship relative to discrimination, inequality and injustice from a variety of theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives.
As Co-Editors-in-Chief, we start from the belief that a single disciplinary perspective cannot deliver a comprehensive analysis of – or indeed tackle – complex social issues. Therefore, we will promote feminist research within and across the social sciences, but also that will draw upon the arts and humanities to interrogate power relationships. We will aim to address the sociologist, the human geographer, the political scientist, the psychologist, the economist, the health specialist, the legal scholar, the criminologist and the migration specialist, as well as the feminist, cultural and political theorist. Put simply: we wish to bring those perspectives into conversation with current debates on inequality and injustice from different disciplinary perspectives.
We recognise that gender intersects with other dimensions of identity and cultural and social systems. Therefore, we will promote an intersectional approach that will allow for more nuanced and context-dependent understandings of the relationships between inequality and injustice. Fundamentally, we will be a global feminist journal, showcasing the excellent work that advances these debates from the Global South and the Global North. While recognising that policies, regulations, practices and issues do not transfer easily across borders or jurisdictions, we appreciate that we can all learn from each other through practices of inclusion and cross-fertilisation on a wide range of experiences, approaches and perspectives. In developing Gender and Justice as a global initiative, we have endeavoured to create an Editorial Management Board and Advisory Board that reflects both the diversity of disciplines and a broad geographical spread.
Our editorial policy is to adopt an expansive notion of justice, incorporating understandings and interrogations of social, legal and criminal justice as well as distributive, economic, restorative, climate, procedural and family justice. Again, this reflects our feminist dedication to addressing expansive forms of inequality, injustice and violence that are context-specific, and that impact people’s lives at a variety of times and scales.
Feminist research shows that we do not live in a gender equal world. Reactionary politics and the anti-gender movement leave a zone of silence around the systemic, structural, discursive and material conditions of inequality and injustice that mark people’s lives, particularly those on the margins. At their core, such politics are profoundly expressive of feelings of fear and perceptions of loss of status. Therefore, their desired effect is to sow division among those who oppose them and to invalidate those oppositional discourses through fearmongering around the perception that feminism and social policies such as gender equality mainstreaming have gone too far. While it is beyond question that we have hard work to do – and the current political situation presents myriad challenges to the feminist project – we offer our broad community Gender and Justice as one space and means for radical resistance. As bell hooks notes, ‘[V]isionary feminism offers us hope for the future’. Gender and Justice can be one such visionary space in which we can reclaim our right to hope for a better future that includes a feminist support system for all who want it.
Anna Carline is Professor of Law at the University of Liverpool, UK. Her main areas of expertise are criminal law and criminal justice (in particular violence against women and sexual offences), family law and feminist/gender theory. Dr Carline’s research is socio-legal, comparative and interdisciplinary in nature, examining legal developments by drawing upon a range of social science and legal methodologies and different theoretical approaches.
Sharron A. FitzGerald is an Associate Researcher at Cresppa-GTM, l’Université Paris 8, France and Executive Director of the Law, Gender & Sexuality (LEX) Research Network. Dr FitzGerald’s research interests and expertise lie at the intersection of mobility, gender, sexuality and law.
Lesley McMillan is Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK. Dr McMillan’s research interests surround gender inequality and crime and justice. In particular, she is interested in gendered and sexual violence and the statutory and non-statutory response to it.
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Image credit: Original image courtesy of Holger Moos and modified with his permission.