A law unto themselves?

Professor Katherine O'Donovan, faculty of law, Queen Mary & Westfield College, London

"A breakthrough for me came when a group of women established an interdisciplinary course on 'women in society' at Kent in 1975. We were ridiculed and accused of teaching knitting. Yet I learned an enormous amount from the other members of the team in sociology, anthropology, social policy and economics. I read beyond the feminist bestsellers and, in the writings of the women's movement found a self who had been long suppressed.

Much legal writing has now been published on women and gender and (the) silence (that existed previously) has been filled with voices. Then the realisation of a silence was itself a shock. At that time, only writings of a 'black-letter' nature or in the positivistic empirical tradition were regarded as respectable.

A group of Women Law Teachers was formed in the early 1980s to encourage the establishment of feminist courses. But we also enjoyed comparing notes on the homocentricism of legal materials, judges and our colleagues.

My own progress was helped by finding a voice in which to express the anger of women about the law. The apogee of my ambition on arriving in Britain was to reach the level of reader in a university. It never occurred to me that I would be a professor in my 40s."