Fatherhood and Theory

'Innocence Interrupted: Reconstructing Fatherhood in the Shadow of Child Molestation Law' (USC Legal Studies Research Papers Series No. 12-5) by Camille Rich comments that -

This Article explains why child molestation law should be regarded as parenting law, as child molestation statutes formally categorized as criminal statutes increasingly are being used to regulate parents’ behavior as they engage in mundane childcare practices traditionally deemed the domain of civil law regulation. The article further shows how these child molestation statutes end up being interpreted and enforced in ways that reinstantiate traditional gender norms. This Article charts the problem by showing how the inquiry authorized by today’s broad, far reaching child molestation statutes invites and even requires judges, juries other legal decision-makers to rely on gendered notions of cultural “common sense” to resolve child molestation cases involving fathers providing seemingly mundane intimate care. The Article explains why child molestation statutes are interpreted in the intimate care cases in ways that enforce gendered parenting norms, showing that legal decision-makers turn to these stereotypes because the concepts of sexual injury at the heart of child molestation law are radically undertheorized. The Article considers the role feminist legal theory has played in this undertheorization problem, addresses the stumbling blocks to future feminist theorizing on this issue, and examines the material consequences of the current undertheorized concepts of sexual injury for the practice and experience of fatherhood.