Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Common Abbreviations
- Introduction
- CHAPTER 1 FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL TAX THEORY
- CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION
- CHAPTER 3 THE GOALS OF TAX POLICY
- Racial Equality in the Twenty-First Century: What's Tax Policy Got to Do with It?
- Discursive Deficits: A Feminist Perspective on the Power of Technical Knowledge in Fiscal Law and Policy
- The Hidden Costs of the Progressivity Debate
- Tax Equity
- Tax Policy and Feminism: Competing Goals and Institutional Choices
- CHAPTER 4 CRITICAL TAX THEORY MEETS PRACTICE
- CHAPTER 5 RACE AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 6 GENDER AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 7 SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 8 THE FAMILY AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 9 CLASS AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 10 DISABILITY AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 11 GLOBAL CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION
- CHAPTER 12 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CRITICAL TAX THEORY
- Index
Tax Policy and Feminism: Competing Goals and Institutional Choices
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- List of Common Abbreviations
- Introduction
- CHAPTER 1 FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL TAX THEORY
- CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION
- CHAPTER 3 THE GOALS OF TAX POLICY
- Racial Equality in the Twenty-First Century: What's Tax Policy Got to Do with It?
- Discursive Deficits: A Feminist Perspective on the Power of Technical Knowledge in Fiscal Law and Policy
- The Hidden Costs of the Progressivity Debate
- Tax Equity
- Tax Policy and Feminism: Competing Goals and Institutional Choices
- CHAPTER 4 CRITICAL TAX THEORY MEETS PRACTICE
- CHAPTER 5 RACE AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 6 GENDER AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 7 SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 8 THE FAMILY AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 9 CLASS AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 10 DISABILITY AND TAXATION
- CHAPTER 11 GLOBAL CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TAXATION
- CHAPTER 12 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CRITICAL TAX THEORY
- Index
Summary
Despite the dramatic increase in women's labor market participation in recent decades, women continue to perform a disproportionate share of “family labor,” or the unpaid work of caring for children and other family members. Feminists have long been concerned that the gendered division of family labor reduces women's wages, contributes to the high and disproportionate rate of poverty among single mothers, limits married women's autonomy within the marital household, and circumscribes women's life choices and social and economic power.
Although many feminists agree that legal reform should address the economic and social consequences of the gendered division of family labor, they differ significantly in their objectives and policy prescriptions. Feminists may seek to increase women's autonomy, economic well-being, power, or happiness. Feminist policy prescriptions also differ, although they tend to pursue one of three main goals. Some feminists advocate equal treatment, or the application of the same legal rules to men and women, in order to eliminate legal biases that discourage women's market work and reinforce traditional gender roles. Others favor policies that would not only eliminate legal biases but affirmatively encourage women's market work in order to change gender roles and enhance women's economic self-sufficiency. A third group argues that instead of trying to change women's behavior, public policy should provide additional income transfers and other assistance to caregivers in order to directly improve their economic security and social status.
This article argues that tax policy can make an important contribution to a feminist legal agenda, but that some prior scholarship has overlooked the normative and institutional complexity of translating feminist goals into concrete policy prescriptions.
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- Information
- Critical Tax TheoryAn Introduction, pp. 65 - 72Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009