Cornell Law Review

This year, the Cornell Law Review will host, When Does The Bell Toll For Women’s Equality?,  an online symposium that examines the political, economic, social, and legal status of women. The symposium makes interventions along the lines of sex, race, and class to understand the persistence of women’s inequality and invisibility at a critical juncture in American history marked by both the 150^th and 100^th year anniversaries of the 15^th and 19^th Amendments, respectively, as well as troubling contemporary times demarcated by the COVID-19 pandemic, political turmoil, and racial unrest.  As the authors show, the pandemic exacerbates underlying systemic patterns of discrimination against women.

The Cornell Law Review cultivates this special symposium at a critical juncture in American history and as such, brings to light the various ways in which women consistently labor and serve at the forefronts of society, constituting the foundation of essential workers, performing critical services from child to medical care.  Yet, even during pandemic, women, especially women of color, suffer persistent economic constraints; health and death disparities; obstruction of rights; and the troubling perceptions of fungibility and expendability.  The symposium takes up these compelling issues and more to elevate the discourse about the role of women and pathways toward a more just society.