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Description of  Regulating Women: Policymaking and Practice in the UK

1783481854 epub A number of womens issues serve to create novel policy problems that require creative, and sometimes unique, regulatory and legal responses. This book embarks upon a comparative case study approach to explore UK policymaking in the areas of abortion, rape, prostitution and pornography in turn. Each chapter engages a different institutional perspective to explore the influence of a range of bodies such as the legal system, medical profession, civil society, police force and mass media. The analysis reveals a common thread that runs throughout decision-making in these areas a constant balancing act between regulation that purports to protect women, and regulation that supposedly reflects female liberation, with a continual dance between the labels of criminal and victim being performed by policy actors. Largely reflective of a dogmatic approach to the status of women, it is argued that different institutions retain strongholds over policymaking in these domains, prohibiting a joined-up approach. This has served to perpetuate harmful and negative stereotyping of womens issues and create countless conundrums when the activities of women fall into more than one policy category. Read more