Privatization has caused a large reconfiguration of the relations between the state, the market, and the family in the late twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries, all of which has had a profound effect on the lives of women. This collection of essays address this timely issue by examining eight case studies on the role of law in various arenas such as fiscal and labour market policy, family and immigration law, and laws designed to regulate health services and to prohibit child prostitution.

Starting from the shared assumption that privatization signals a transition from welfare state to neo-liberal state, the authors illustrate the role of law in this process, and its impact on women and on the gender order. In doing so, the contributors lay bare the complex interplay between a globalized political economy, social reproduction and legal regulation, providing an important contribution to feminist political theory and legal theory. Of great relevance to political science and law practitioners scholars and students – especially those interested in the areas of public policy and the state - these essays contribute strongly to debates about gender and will attract a wide feminist audience.

Brenda Cossman is Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, and taught at the Osgoode Hall Law School from 1988 to 1999.

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Judy Fudge is the Lansdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria. She has been widely published in law, history, and industrial relations journals, and she has co-authored and co-edited several books, including Labour Before the Law: The Legal Regulation of Workers’ Collective Action (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001, with Eric Tucker), Privatization, Law and the Challenge to Feminism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, with Brenda Cossman), Precarious Work, Women and the New Economy: The Challenge to Legal Norms (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006, with Rosemary Owens). She is a member of the Inter-University Research Centre on Globalization and Work, and in 2009 she received the Bora Laskin National Fellowship in Human Rights for her research project “Labour Rights as Human Rights: Unions, Women, and Migrants.”

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