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EQUAL RIGHTS BETWEEN SEXES
is to change the rules that fundamentally affect social relations by changing
the epistemological and political aspects of the existing legal approach. Criti¬
cal Legal Studies has developed many sub-disciplines, the most radical of which
is the so-called feminist theory of law. The basic idea of the latter is that state
and legal institutions have male-centred power and are biased towards the
male sex."
The most striking examples of this is, on the one hand, the application of
criminal law - this is the area that best illustrates the validity of theoretical
statements and criticisms —, and, on the other hand, the field of labour law.
While discrimination can be observed mainly related to wages and women’s
childbearing in the latter case, criminal law rules and sanctions are discrim¬
inatory in the treatment of violent crimes against women, so that redress
cannot be applied in a fair manner. According to feminist jurists, criminal
justice does not take into account the specificity of women and does not ask
the question of women, meaning that the theorem that “the law is male” can
also primarily be seen through this. In the first version of the next chapter,®
I introduced the potential for decoding gender discrimination in the workplace,
and the obstacles women can face when attempting to advance in the institu¬
tional hierarchy. Below, I will discuss the area of criminal law in more detail,
while I will only tangentially deal with the issue of labour law, mentioning two
legal cases. As I have stated, criminal law situations are often discriminatory
when applied to women, so the phenomenon basically occurs as a human rights
issue, and mentioning it is thus inevitable. The following examples refer mainly
to Hungarian criminal law, but in principle, the “logic” and method inherent
in them can be found in some form in most jurisdictions.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL
There is a gender-specific problem in cases of domestic violence, legitimate
protection, the right to self-determination or violations of the qualification of
certain facts. Namely, discrimination is due to the fact that legislation and/or
the application thereof is still based on traditional thinking structures (patri¬
archy theory), traditional relationships that have long become obsolete, and
may even violate fundamental rights. The most poignant example would be
the mandatory “evaluation” of victim proneness. This is a requirement that
54 Mádi, S.: Egy amerikai radikális feminista gondolatai a nemek közötti egyenlőtlenségről —
Catharine A. MacKinnon: A feminizmus változásai. Előadások életről és jogról, Debreceni Jogi
Műhely, Vol. X, No. 2, 2013, 98-103.
55 Takacs, I.: Women at the top leadership positions. Obstacles, possibilities and the chimera of
segregation, IJPINT, 2018, 5(1), 74-84.
+ 31°