: 
Constitutions and the Treatment of Gender
To explain how constitutions shape and are shaped by women's lives, we
will examine constitutional cases pertaining to women in twelve countries.
Analyzing jurisprudence about reproductive, sexual, familial, socio-economic,
and democratic rights, we will focus constructively on women's claims to
equality, asking who makes these claims, what constitutional rights inform
them, how they have evolved, what arguments work in defending them, and
how they relate to other national issues. We will try to identify similarities
and differences in outcomes and in reasoning and ponder the impact on them
of different variables including whether the countries have a written or
unwritten constitution, subscribe to civil or common law, are a federal
or unitary state, limit constitutional adjudication to the public rather
than also including the private domain, accord international norms binding
force, or rely on a specialized or general court to adjudicate constitutional
matters.