The Common Law Inside the Female Body

Anita Bernstein is Anita and Stuart Subotnick Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and a nationally recognized authority on tort law and feminist jurisprudence. Her awards include the first Fulbright scholarship in European Union affairs given to a law professor. She is a graduate of Queens College, whose political science department named her its Distinguished Alumna in 2014, and Yale Law School.

• Introduction: what is the common law inside the female body?; Part I. Condoned Self-Regard in the Common Law: 1. Saying no to what we don't want; 2. Exceptions to condoned self-regard: prior voluntary conduct; 3. Woman too my say no to what they don't want; Part II. What Follows: 4. Unwanted penetration; 5. Unwanted pregnancy; 6. Challenges, prospects, gored oxen.

'This amazingly comprehensive study of the core ideas and principles underlying the common law leads to some surprising and provocative conclusions. Bernstein makes a compelling argument that, read correctly, the common law clearly provides women the right to say 'no' to unwanted sex and unwanted pregnancy. Erudite and fascinating, steeped in legal history and philosophy and peppered with interesting statistics about injury, social practices, and everything else under the sun, Bernstein's work breathes new life into old legal doctrines with imagination, wit and a love of the law.' Martha Chamallas, Robert J. Lynn Chair in Law, Ohio State University