4 - Transformative Gender Constitutionalism

Summary

Chapter 4 describes how women, under participatory constitutionalism, are succeeding in broadening the constitutional agenda in the current century in ways that foreground the inequalities rooted in the “private sphere,” thus calling for a new form of gender transformative constitutionalism. In particular, new constitutional agendas are flourishing around the world, covering topics such as intimate partner violence and violence against women; the fuller recognition of women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy; constitutionally grounded assistance to motherhood and reproduction; and the importance of a care-centered understanding of fatherhood challenging hegemonic masculinities, removing the remaining sex-based, care-related differentiations, and challenging of gender-neutral legal norms that shape interpersonal relations and implicit gender role assumptions.