Feminized Justice: The Toronto Women's Court, 1913-34

By Amanda Glasbeek

Book Overview

In 1913, Toronto launched an experiment in feminist ideals: a woman's police court. The court offered a separate venue to hear cases that involved women and became a forum where criminalized women and feminists met and struggled with the meaning of justice. The court was run by and for women, but was it a great achievement? Amanda Glasbeek's multifaceted portrait of the cases, defendants, and officials that graced its halls reveals a fundamental contradiction at the experiment's core: the Toronto Women's Police Court was both a site for feminist adaptations of justice and a court empowered to punish women. Reconstructed from case files and newspaper accounts, this engrossing portrait of the trials and tribulations that accompanied an early experiment in feminized justice sheds new light on maternal feminist politics, women and crime, and the role of resistance, agency, and experience in the criminal justice system.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0774817127
• ISBN13: 9780774817127
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.