Summary

Feminist lawyers have long been engaged in critiquing the gendered nature of South African law. This project has increased in importance and scope as a result of the centrality of gender equality, as a value and a substantive right, in the South African Constitution. Gender, law and justice provides both theoretical and practical tools to enable academic and practising lawyers to apply concepts of gender equality to the law. It introduces readers to basic feminist concepts and arguments, and to a wealth of local, comparative and international material on gender and the law. It also illustrates how the law may be shaped to transform the social, cultural and economic conditions of women's lives in South Africa, at the same time as it acknowledges the limits of legal strategies for change.