Feminist critique has made a significant impact both in terms of informing our theoretical approach to law and politics as social phenomena, and in terms of encouraging the development of increased opportunities and protection for individual women. Despite its successes, however, feminist thought has suffered from internal disagreements and schisms. Whilst united by their commitment to highlight and undermine gender-based discrimination, disparate feminist theorists have disagreed over a range of issues central to that project. In particular, there has been long-standing feminist debate over the utility of legal reform tactics, the patriarchal nature of the State, and the legitimacy of woman-centred methodology and grand-theorising. The ferocity of these debates has intensified in contemporary times with the increasing reception of postmodern and pluralist analyses. Vehemently against the establishment of meta-narratives or essentialist accounts of generic womanhood, the postmodern...
