Feminist Frontlines : Campus Sexual Violence, Conflict Resolution, and Restorative Justice

Feminist Frontlines traces the evolution of the "sex wars," a series of feminist intellectual entanglements about the relationship between law, gender, and equality, from the late 1970s to early 1990s, in contemporary debates about campus sexual violence policy in Canada and the United States – what critics have called the "return of the sex wars" or "new sex wars" at colleges and universities. Legal expert Daniel Del Gobbo employs a combination of legal doctrinal analysis, intellectual history, comparative analysis, and feminist and queer legal theory, while using the restorative justice process conducted at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Dentistry in 2014–15 as a central case study. The book focuses on the role of consensual dispute resolution (mediation and restorative justice) in addressing sexual harm. Del Gobbo argues that the polarization of the "return of the sex wars" has prevented some feminist lawmakers and policymakers from engaging with progressive, anticarceral, and complainant-centred policy models, including consensual dispute resolution, which challenge the primacy of formal courts and tribunals. Ultimately, Feminist Frontlines argues that it should be possible for feminist lawmakers and policymakers to come together by instituting the "plural process" model of campus sexual violence reform. The plural process model recognizes that both formal and consensual options, properly administered by feminist experts, can promote gender equality on campus, and this book seeks to bring about that change.