NEGATIVE - CRITIQUE - FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF PRIVACY 136

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LIBERALISM HAS CREATED A GENDERED CONSTRUCTION OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

Louise Marie Roth, "The Right to Privacy Is Political: Power, the Boundary Between Public and Private, and Sexual Harassment," Law and Social Inquiry, Winter, 1999, 24 Law & Soc. Inquiry 45 , EE2001-JGM, P.45-6

Liberalism, the theoretical foundation of the Anglo-American legal system, distinguishes public and private spheres of influence ideologically  [*46]  and organizationally. This distinction is exemplified by the separation of church and state, of government and civil society, and of work and home. It is embedded in law, in the legal precedents that guarantee a right of privacy. The distinction between public and private spheres developed from a laissez-faire economic principle admonishing the government not to intrude in business, to a differentiation of components of social action and individual lives into those that deserved immunity from scrutiny by the state (private) versus those that were proper realms for regulation (public). This led to the cultural and legal definition of commercial and political activities as public, and family and sexuality as quintessentially private arenas (Griswold v. Connecticut 1965, Loving v. Virginia 1967, Eisenstadt v. Baird 1972, Roe v. Wade 1973). Gendered meanings emerged, whereby women's domain has traditionally been the private, and men's the public.