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8 Feminist L. Stud. 1 (2000)

handle is hein.journals/femlst8 and id is 1 raw text is: HAZEL BIGGS and ROBIN MACKENZIE GENDERED READINGS OF OBLIGATIONS: SOCIAL LORE OR STRICT LEGAL FORMS? This Special Issue aims to expand current understandings of obligations in law by exploring the contested conceptual boundaries drawn by the law in its dealings with commercial and intimate relations. Many scholars have recently engaged in a spirited debate on the nature of the law of obligations, including such eminent commentators as Peter Birks, Andrew Burroughs and Francis Rose. However, the focus of their inquiry has commonly been the boundary disputes between the law of torts, contract and resti- tution where the law of obligations is concerned. The aims of this invited collection differ. The law of obligations includes elements from commercial and family law as well as finding its focus in the classic sites of contract and tort law. Within each of these subject areas, the concept of obligations in relation to gender offers an opportunity to expose possibilities which are not imme- diately self evident. For many of us, obligations are experienced not only through strict legal forms but also, indeed often primarily, via informal social relations as mediated by gender. 'From the perspective of women, the cornerstone contract doctrine of consent often seems contrived. The homemaker, the PTA mom, the rising executive's wife, the errand runner, the 'assistant', the secretary, and the teacher, even the female lawyer, doctor and accountant, know that obli- gations arise as mysteriously and frequently as dust. Obligations float in through the central air ducts, the loud speaker, the light fixtures. To speak of consent, of carefully negotiated words on paper, of clearly defined and presented duties is to speak of a world made and inhabited by men.'l 'Obligations' must thus be construed as widely as possible in order to ensure that the concept's ramifications may be fully appreciated. The history of the so-called law of obligations in English private law as incorporating contract law, torts law and restitution dates from the campaign of restitution lawyers, which succeeded in the early 1990s, for their subject to be accorded adequate recognition. This collection does not 1 Tidwell and Linzer (1991) 806, cited by Wightman at p. 104, this issue. rl Feminist Legal Studies 8: 1-4, 2000. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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